Mursi girl, Ethiopia - March 23, 2012

[UNVERIFIED CONTENT] Ethiopia - March 23, 2012. Land grabs in Lower Omo Valley are displacing tribes and preventing them from cultivating their land, leaving thousands of people hungry. Tribes such as the Suri and Mursi are being evicted from their villages: Government pursues its lucrative plantations project in the Valley, depriving tribes of their land. Security forces are being used, often by violent means, to make way for cotton, rice and sugar cane fields. The Tribes were ordered to move into designated resettlement areas. Government has not consulted any indigenous communities about its aggressive plantation plans in the Valley which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. In Ethiopia, the private ownership of land is in fact still prohibited. The inhabitants of areas subject to land-grabbing are therefore completely devoid of rights, even before the titles of ownership of the fields from which they are expelled. For this reason, receiving only promises: water, schools and medical care. The Mursi women are famous for wearing plates in their lower lips. These lip discs are made of clay. Girls are pierced at the age of 15 or 16. Following an incision in the tissue of the lip, are inserted plates of dimensiori more gradually. These lip-plates are only worn to serve food to one's husband and increasingly they are worn to attract tourists.