Meet The Ethiopian Women Who Beg To Be Whipped… To Show Their LOVE

A tribal ceremony during which young women are whipped in order to show the sacrifices they make for men is revealed in a series of photographs.

Members of the Hamar tribe in Ethiopia believe the elaborate scars demonstrate a woman’s capacity for love, and if they fall on hard times later in life it allows them to call on those who whipped them for help.

Meet The Ethopian Women Who Beg To Be Whipped… To Show Their LOVE

Women are whipped as part of a Rite of Passage ceremony for boys, when female family members declare their love for the young man at the heart of the celebration.

After the ceremony the boy becomes a man, and is allowed to marry.

The brutal tradition is known as Ukuli Bula, and was captured by photographer Jeremy Hunter. Instead of fleeing, women beg men to whip them again during the ceremony, held in the Omo River Valley.