The Fathers of the Rite

The Dimi ceremony of the Dassanech in Ethiopia is a ritual built around female genital mutilation (infibulation), a practice still widespread in parts of Africa and rooted in the Omo Valley. While governments and NGOs fight to eradicate it, in remote communities the ritual continues, often carried out inside huts with rudimentary tools, causing infections, long-term health issues, and, too often, the death of young girls.

Paradoxically, the girls themselves remain hidden throughout the celebration, confined inside huts and invisible to the community. The public stage belongs to the parents. For mothers, it is the fulfillment of duty; for fathers, it is the most important moment of life: the passage into the status of elder, bringing power, authority, and social prestige.

The ritual begins with the fathers dressing in symbolic attire: leopard skins, cowhides, body paint, and elaborate hairstyles. Outside each hut, a tall decorated pole signals that a girl is inside undergoing Dimi. Families and celebrants move from house to house, dancing and chanting, while women join in with songs and rhythmic movements. The air is filled with energy, yet at its heart lies a silence: the absence of the girls, the hidden suffering that sustains the public joy.

This project does not seek to condemn or to justify. Rather, it invites reflection. How do we, as outsiders, approach practices so foreign to our world? Can we strip away our Western frameworks and see “objectively”? Or is objectivity itself an illusion, always shaped by culture, history, and values? Should some practices be considered universally wrong — or is morality itself relative?

Through these images I aim not to offer answers but to create questions. Dimi is not only about the Dassanech: it is about the way we look at the world, and about the fragile line between objectivity and subjectivity in our perception of other realities.