Victims of domestic violence often receive scars from their abusers. It is a permanent and haunting reminder from a traumatic experience that can prevent someone from truly moving on.
These kinds of scars are also marks that are inflicted upon a victim without their consent. A tattoo, on the other hand, is something you choose to have on your body.
Flavia Carvalho, who runs a studio in Curitiba, Brazil, is helping women take back the power their abusers robbed them of by giving them free tattoos that cover up bullet, knife, and other physical scars that remind them of a life they'd like to leave behind.
Her project “A Pele da Flor” (The Skin of the Flower) allows women to stand up to their abusers — much like blogger Emma Murphy did when she exposed an unsettling black eye to her Facebook followers — and get their lives back on track.
“I started the project quite recently, and I had no idea it would receive this much media attention,” Flavia told The Huffington Post. “It began very spontaneously. As I said, my services are a hundred percent voluntary, and the only cost women need to invest in is to choose a design for their tattoos!”
She is transforming ugliness into a symbol of pure beauty and the results are amazing…
“It all started about two years ago, when I worked with a client who wanted to cover a large scar on her abdomen," she told The Huffington Post.
“She told me that she was at a nightclub, and when she turned down a man who approached her, he stabbed her with an switchblade.”
“When she saw the finished tattoo, she was extremely moved, and that deeply touched me.”
“The one that shocked me the most was the story of a 17 year-old girl who dated an older man and, for months, suffered from the physically abusive relationship.”
“When he wanted to break up with her, he scheduled a meeting, and after they began to fight, he stabbed her several times in her abdomen, and violently raped her.”
“This scar was caused by a bullet fired by ex-boyfriend,” Flavia wrote on her Facebook page. “The cherry blossom is a symbol of femininity, and the beauty of life itself.”
She also covers mastectomy scars, like she did for this 55-year-old cancer survivor. “Some women who have mastectomies, get big scars and lose their nipples, greatly impacting their relationship with their own body,” she wrote on Facebook. “In this partic
Though these women have undergone severe trauma and unspeakable acts of violence, we felt compelled to share their story. These tattoos are a symbol of hope and new beginnings for many of these women.
Please SHARE if you find their new tattoos beautiful.
