In honor of International Womens’ Day, I’m posting a portrait that I took last year of a tribal woman from Myanmar with a facial tattoo.

During feudal times in the Chin State of Myanmar, the women were given facial tattoos as protection from conquering entities. The tattoos - which vary in design from tribe to tribe - were intended to make the women less physically attractive to their conquerors. This tradition, outlawed in the 1960s in an effort to make the country appear more modern, persists in remote areas and the tattoos are now considered a symbol of beauty and status.