In Ecuador, animal tattoos take on dangerous gang stigma

A man shows the tattoos on his back at a tattoo studio in Guayaquil, Guayas Province, Ecuador, on September 30, 2023.

Images of these animals are graffitied on prisons and neighborhoods where the gangs dominate, and inked onto the bodies of their members. “It seems absurd to me because they pigeonhole you, they stigmatize you” as being in a gang, he added.The phenomenon has also set tattoo artists on edge who fear getting caught up in gang rivalries.

Colonel Roberto Santamaria, the police chief in Nueva Prosperina, the most violent area in Guayaquil, said the tattoos were a matter of gang identity and loyalty.

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