For centuries, women’s bodies have been controlled, harmed, and even destroyed in the name of tradition, beauty, honor, and culture. Harmful practices that once seemed acceptable have left generations of women crippled, scarred, or silenced.

While some have ended in recent decades, many violent traditions against women continue today. This article sheds light on these practices and their lasting impact over the centuries.

Foot Binding in China

Girls had their feet deliberately broken and tightly bound until they were permanently deformed, all in the name of beauty and status. The practice wasn’t fully eradicated until the 1950s, and women lived their entire lives crippled by something society once called “elegant.”

Corsets in Europe and America

Corsets crushed women’s ribs and displaced their organs well into the early 1900s. Women could barely breathe, fainting became normalized, and damage to the spine and lungs often lasted a lifetime. Yet, fashion demanded this suffering.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Still ongoing today, FGM has affected more than 200 million women worldwide according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Women were told it would make them “pure,” but instead it caused lifelong pain, infections, complications in childbirth, and loss of bodily autonomy.

Neck Elongation in Kayan Communities

In parts of Myanmar and Thailand, girls begin wearing brass coils around their necks to “elongate” them. In reality, their collarbones and rib cages are pushed downward, leaving their neck muscles so weak that they cannot live without the coils.

Breast Ironing in Cameroon

As an act of supposed “protection” from men, mothers press hot stones or spatulas onto their daughters’ developing chests to delay puberty. This gender-based violence causes burned skin, destroyed tissue, and lasting trauma.

Chhaupadi in Nepal

Despite being banned in 2005 and criminalized in 2017, women and girls in Nepal are still forced into isolation huts during menstruation as if they are impure. Many have frozen to death, suffocated from poor ventilation, or been attacked by animals due to this harmful practice.

Sati in India

Although outlawed in 1829, the burning of widows on funeral pyres persisted for generations. As recently as 1987,  Roop Kanwar, just 18 years old, was forced onto her husband’s pyre and burned alive in Rajasthan. This cruel custom declared a woman’s worth ended with her husband’s life.

Scarification in Africa and Oceania

Framed as beauty or belonging, scarification involved cutting and burning a girl’s skin without pain relief. It left permanent scars, infections, and lifelong trauma.

Trokosi System in West Africa

Though banned in Ghana in 1998, the trokosi system continued into the 2000s. Girls were given to shrines as “wives of the gods” to atone for family sins. In truth, it was sexual slavery and stolen childhoods.

Child Marriage

Perhaps the most glaring example: child marriage. According to UNICEF, 12 million girls are married before 18 every year, some as young as 12 forced into pregnancies their bodies can’t handle. These girls are denied education, forced into early pregnancies, and stripped of their futures.

Dowry Violence

In countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, women are still beaten, burned, or even killed if their dowries are deemed “insufficient.” Many suffer horrific acid attacks, leaving them disfigured for life.

Honor Killings

In parts of South Asia, the Middle East, and even diaspora communities, women continue to be murdered by fathers, brothers, or husbands for “shaming” their families. Reasons range from refusing marriage to seeking divorce or simply being seen with a man.

What society once called ritual or custom is now recognised as part of the global epidemic of gender-based violence.

The article emphasises an urgent truth: until harmful practices are eliminated and women’s safety is prioritised, safety, equality and peace  remains out of reach.

Asake Agoro writes from

New York,

United States of America