'Labelling Children With Tribal Marks Without Consent Evil' – Toke Makinwa

Media personality, Toke Makinwa has strongly condemned the age-old custom of using tribal marks for identification, labelling it as a form of cruelty towards children without their consent.

Makinwa made this known in a series of posts via her X account recently. 

The media personality recalled her recent meeting with an influencer who had tribal marks, sparking her reflections on the long-standing tradition.

She wrote, “Today I saw a beautiful influencer with tribal marks and it made me think about the cruelty that culture brought upon us. Marking a child without his/her consent as a means of identification is Evil, I know our parents didn’t know any better but damnnnn!!!!”

In her subsequent posts, she highlighted that even though she admires the beauty of people with tribal marks, her concern centres around the absence of consent when marking children for identification.

“Thank God it’s abolished now. My grandma had tribal marks too.

"Some on her face and her arms, I wonder what life was like when she was younger walking around with it, though I’m sure a lot of people around her had the same but thank God it’s cancelled now,” she continued.

Following heavy backlash from some X users, Makinwa explained in another post, that her disapproval was due to the lack of consent involved and not the beauty of the marks.

“It’s not the beauty or lack of but the lack of consent. But yeah, I’ve seen a couple of beautiful people with tribal marks,” she explained.