10 Times Hair Got People In Trouble With The Law
I always knew that hair is an important issue but I never guessed it could be this serious; even to the extent of getting a person in trouble with the law. So, for information’s (and amusement’s) sake, here’s 10 times that hair got people directly or indirectly in trouble with the law. Oh! And don’t quote me in a court of law 😉
- Hair theft.
This is literally the act of stealing human hair from a person’s head to help meet demand for human hair; usually Caucasian-like hair: straight and silky. The hair thieves, who are sometimes in a gang, will shave the victim, flee with the hair in possession and sell it. This has been reported numerously in South and North America, Europe, Australia and South East Asia. Get this: In 18th Century England, the demand was said to be so high that children weren’t let out alone for fear they would be targeted 😯
The most recent noteworthy wave was the Piranha gang in Maracaibo, Venezuela that targeted young women in public areas. It got so bad that the then president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, stepped in to call for justice saying “We will capture these people, we will legislate to ban this crime. What sort of aggression is this? Our girls are sacred and we will apply the law with great force.”
- Random ‘trimming’ of the Dreadlock
Just when we thought us African ladies were safe… we were proven wrong.
3 years back, a lady in Nairobi had her locks snipped while seated in a matatu. She noticed that 2 men had been trailing her for a while and when she got off the matatu (which the same two guys boarded and sat behind her) she said that she felt as if her locks were lighter in weight and when she reached back to feel her dreads, lo and behold…
A salon in Westlands was also raided by thugs around the same time and they shaved off and stole all the client’s dreadlocks.
- Smuggling hair across India, Malaysia and Myanmar.
A South African national, Igwe Basil (👀), walked into a Sanjaynagar police station in India, to report 40 Kgs of human hair having been stolen from his house. It is from this complaint that the police apparently later discovered that there was a hair smuggling rink in India. Igwe’s driver had stolen the hair from his house and sold it to a man who would later come under close scrutiny for being linked to hair smuggling operations in the country. It doesn’t stop there because the All India Human Hair Exporters Association moved to report smuggling across the border of its neighbour country, Myanmar, and are seeking for formal regulations to streamline and monitor the smuggling.
- Shampoo gave me a stroke.
Probably my favourite one. 48-year-old Elizabeth Smith, sued her hair dresser claiming that her stylist had caused her to have a stroke in what has now come to be known as Beauty Parlour Stroke Syndrome.
I kid you not! This syndrome that has now also come to be known as salon sink syndrome is even identified by a surgeon from the well-known medical site MayoClinic. In the suit, she says that the position of her head in the wash basin caused her to have a stroke a while later.
My only wonder is how is this explicitly the hairdresser’s fault? I’m pretty sure she didn’t know this was a condition either.
- Paraphilia
Paraphilias are sexual interests in objects, situations or individuals that are atypical. In this case, we are talking about hair paraphilia also known as trichophilia or hair fetishism (yes, this is a thing!).
An Australian government official found himself in hot soup when it was alleged that he had a paraphilic attachment to women’s hair after he almost got physically beaten and was ‘publicly shamed’ for it.
A waitress at a restaurant, that he and his wife ate out at one day, complained that at several different points of her serving them he had tugged at the ends of her hair even though she’d told him to stop doing so. He did stop when she threatened to trichophilia again when he played (and not necessarily suggestively so) with the hair of some young girls at a school he visited, later on. Obviously, at this point some internet warriors were calling for him to step down, the waitress to sue him and well…. for blood to pour.
- Bashing hair… specifically Trump’s hair.
A media house in the USA found its rear end in the fire after a reporter from their media house published a multi-thousand-word investigative piece into Trump’s hair and the ‘shadowy’ circumstances around it’s upkeep including details on how it might cost $60,000 to get the hairdo minus the actual maintenance fees.
Ivari International, who did the procedure on Trump’s hair, came out guns blazing:
– calling the story false and defamatory,
-claiming it inflicted emotional distress and committed tortious interference,
-asking for the articles sources to be revealed and for the post to be pulled down.
- A cut too fast
Michelle Kalinkana, 23, sued renowned professional stylist Martino Cartier (yes, like the Diamond rings ❤️) because he left her with a scar on her neck from cutting her hair too fast during a public haircutting demonstration last year.
In the lawsuit, she claims to have suffered ‘pain, shock and mental anguish’ after he failed to show due proper care when performing the demonstration which could put her modelling career at risk. She was therefore seeking damages to the tune of $5 million (KES 500 million).
(**thinks to self**: Clearly, I might be in the wrong job.😅)
- School girls’ protest almost lands them in jail.
Last year, social media was awash with photos and videos of young South African school girls protesting against what they said was unfair and discriminative hair policies against students of African descent.
The police issued an arrest threat during the protest to which the girls answered, “Take us all!”
Photos of Zulaikha Patel, one of the key faces of the protests | Source
- Dear Black woman, don’t leave your house without your hair covered.
The headdress/tignon law was passed in 1786 under the administration of Governor Esteban Rodriguez Miró. Governor Miró decreed that women of African descent, slave or free, should cover their hair and heads with a knotted headdress and refrain from “excessive attention to dress” to maintain class distinctions.
One of their most outstanding physical attributes that separated them from white females was their hair.
So why all this pressure, you ask? Because of men.
See, women of African descent would often adorn their hair with colorful jewelry, beads and other accents which attracted the attention of white men. Many had become the girlfriends & mistresses of white, French, and Spanish Creole men. This perceived threat to white women’s relationships with French and Spanish Creole men incurred the jealousy and anger of their wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and fiancées who tried to ‘crush the competition’.
Clearly, they didn’t know African women can be flamboyant with absolutely ANYTHING because the women now tied their tignons so well that they drew even more attention from white men.
- Illegal Haircut
This is a funny one because although I couldn’t find a court case off of it, this is an actual law. In Michigan, a lady is not allowed to get a haircut without her husband’s permission. So, if you’re marrying a man in Michigan you might want to keep this in mind before you become Kenyan tabloids poster girl for making law suit history.
I wonder, if this means he also has to also consult me before he grows a pot belly?🤔
Hope you enjoyed it and at very least, that this was a fun way to pass some time! 😃
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