Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Ironing your adolescent daughter's breasts . . .; to make her less attractive?
Topic Started: Jul 7 2006, 12:32 PM (327 Views)
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
:hair: Amazing. :hair:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/07/07...reut/index.html

'Breast ironing' to stunt girls' growth widespread
1 in 4 girls in Cameroon suffer this abuse to protect against rape

YAOUNDE, Cameroon (Reuters) -- Worried that her daughters' budding breasts would expose them to the risk of sexual harassment and even rape, their mother Philomene Moungang started 'ironing' the girls' bosoms with a heated stone.

"I did it to my two girls when they were eight years old. I would take the grinding stone, heat it in the fire and press it hard on the breasts," Moungang said.

"They cried and said it was painful. But I explained that it was for their own good."

"Breast ironing" -- the use of hard or heated objects or other substances to try to stunt breast growth in girls -- is a traditional practice in West Africa, experts say.

A new survey has revealed it is shockingly widespread in Cameroon, where one in four teenagers are subjected to the traumatic process by relatives, often hoping to lessen their sexual attractiveness.

"Breast ironing is an age-old practice in Cameroon, as well as in many other countries in West and Central Africa, including Chad, Togo, Benin, Guinea-Conakry, just to name a few," said Flavien Ndonko, an anthropologist and local representative of German development agency GTZ, which sponsored the survey.

"If society has been silent about it up to now it is because, like other harmful practices done to women such as female genital mutilation, it was thought to be good for the girl," said Ndonko.

"Even the victims themselves thought it was good for them."

However, the practice has many side-effects, including severe pain and abscesses, infections, breast cancer, and even the complete disappearance of one or both breasts.

The survey of more than 5,000 girls and women aged between 10 and 82 from throughout Cameroon, published last month, estimated that 4 million women in the central African country have suffered the process.

"You ask me why I did it?" said Moungang. "When I was growing up as a little girl my mother did it to me just as all other women in the village did it to their girl children. So I thought it was just good for me to do to my own children."

Common in town
The practice is now more common in urban areas than in villages, because mothers fear their children could be more exposed to sexual abuse in towns and try to suppress outward signs of sexuality, the survey said.

Its findings have prompted a nationwide campaign to educate mothers about its dangers and to try to eradicate it. A similar campaign some years ago helped drastically to reduce rates of female genital mutilation in Cameroon.

"A girl...has to be proud of her breasts because it is natural. It is a gift from God. Allow the breasts to grow naturally. Do not force them to disappear or appear," said a leaflet from the campaign.

Moungang said she stopped ironing her daughters' breasts after one girl developed blisters and abscesses.

"I took her to the hospital and the doctor scolded me and advised never to do it again because it could ruin my daughter," she said.

"When Mariane married and delivered her first baby, it took a long time -- about a month -- for her breasts to start producing milk and the child almost died. I was told it was because I had ironed her breasts. I was frightened."

The younger a girl develops, the more likely she is to have her bosom ironed -- 38 percent of girls developing breasts under the age of 11 had undergone the procedure.

The practice is most common in the Christian and animist South of the country, rather than in the Muslim North and Far North provinces, where only 10 percent of women are affected.

The survey found that in 58 percent of cases breast ironing was carried out by mothers worried that the onset of puberty could provoke sexual harassment, inhibit their daughters' studies or even stunt their growth.

Many mothers were alarmed because an improvement in nutrition and living conditions had caused young girls' breasts to develop earlier than ever.

Destroying breasts
"Massaging the breasts with hot objects is painful, very painful, and can completely destroy the breasts," said Bessem Ebanga, executive secretary of women's rights group RENATA, herself a former victim.

"Some girls could be traumatized throughout their lives and their sexual behavior could be disturbed forever."

Thirteen-year-old Geraldine Mbafor could not hold back her tears as she narrated her ordeal.

"I had just finished doing my homework when my mother summoned me to the kitchen. She boiled water and in the water she put a grinding stone. She then removed the stone holding it with a thick cloth to protect her hands, and placed it my breasts and started ironing them," she stated.

"I felt so much pains that I started crying. After that she bandaged my breasts with a band called breast-band ... She did this to me for two and a half months."

According to 14-year-old Amelia, who would not give her family name, her breasts started developing when she was 9. Her elder sister decided to massage them every evening with a towel soaked in hot water.

"This was very painful, and every evening before I slept, she would put a big elastic belt well fastened round my chest to flatten my breasts."

"Six months later the flesh that held my breasts was already weak. At 10, I already had fallen breasts and each time I undress I'm ashamed and it is a big complex."

Nevertheless, support for and opposition to the tradition remains evenly balanced. According to the survey, 39 percent of women opposed it, while 41 percent expressed support and 26 percent were indifferent.

For Ndonko, the campaign is a battle to respect the physical integrity of young girls -- with broader implications for human rights.

"If nothing was done today, tomorrow the very parents may even resolve to slice off the nose, the mouth or any other part of the girl which they think is making her attractive to men."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Christopher T
Member Avatar
Junior Carp
Besides being too lazy to iron my clothes, so nevermind my "daughter's breasts", this is SICK!!!!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
If this extreme measure is to prevent woman from being attractive to men it must mean that women over there have little power to say, "No."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Christopher T
Member Avatar
Junior Carp
I think in many cases women shouldn't travel alone. If they travel in pairs or groups, they are not likely to get raped.

Though before long, there will be groups of women attacking men who travel alone and raping them!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JBryan
Member Avatar
I am the grey one
I can't wait.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The 89th Key
Member Avatar

They can afford irons but not water? :rimshot: :leaving:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
kenny
HOLY CARP!!!
The 89th Key
Jul 7 2006, 01:19 PM
They can afford irons but not water? :rimshot: :leaving:

Huh?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mikhailoh
Member Avatar
If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
This was very useful. I was just IMing my daughter upsatirs about dinner and I squelched pizza. She was complaining and this really put it into perspective.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
OperaTenor
Member Avatar
Pisa-Carp
Isn't this the same society that brought us female circumcision?

:blech;



Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
LWpianistin
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
kenny
Jul 7 2006, 04:37 PM
If this extreme measure is to prevent woman from being attractive to men it must mean that women over there have little power to say, "No."

Like women ANYWHERE can say "no" to a rapist.

"Excuse me, sir. Not today. Now move along."

Yeah...not exactly....
And how are you today?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
***musical princess***
Member Avatar
HOLY CARP!!!
Jeez.... that must hurt so much!! :wacko: :(

x
x Caroline x
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Free Forums. Reliable service with over 8 years of experience.
« Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply