Posted on 07/06/2006 12:06:59 PM PDT by wagglebee
WORRIED that her daughters' budding breasts would expose them to the risk of sexual harassment and even rape, 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," the mother 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 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 for GTZ, a German development agency 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," Dr Ndonko said. "Even the victims themselves thought it was good for them."
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 5000 girls and women aged between 10 and 82 from Cameroon, published last month, estimated that 4 million women had suffered the process.
"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," Mrs Moungang said. "So I thought it was just good for me to do to my own children."
The practice was less common in rural areas because mothers feared their children could be more exposed to sex abuse in towns and tried to suppress signs of sexuality, the survey said.
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 per cent of women are affected.
In 58 per cent of cases breast ironing was carried out by mothers, the survey found.
Many mothers were alarmed because improvements in nutrition and living conditions had caused young girls' breasts to develop earlier than ever.
The survey prompted a campaign to educate mothers about the practice's dangers. A similar campaign helped to reduce rates of female genital mutilation in Cameroon.
"A girl … must be proud of her breasts because they are natural," said a campaign leaflet. "They are a gift from God. Allow the breasts to grow naturally. Do not force them to disappear or appear."
DISCUSSION ABOUT:
Breast ironing: grim secret of Africa's women
This is barbaric.
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I hear the solution is to give all the women abortions on demand.
Oh, and free condoms for the men.
(No, there's no logic in the liberal solution.)
"And yet we are supposed to accept that their culture is just "different" from ours but still acceptable."
That's right. Here, we put little girls into halter tops as soon as their breasts begin to show. That's much more sensible, I think. /sarc
How awful! How do they ever feed their babies?
I feel really bad for the young girls caught up in these backward, ignorant, barbaric cultures. But the answer isn't to "tolerate" and "respect" the cultures as just one of the many "diverse" ways that human beings live. The answer is to eradicate the cultural practices, like the British clamped down on suttee in India.
Ah jeez! And I get all bent out of shape at the thought of a mammogram.
Wow. I'm so thankful I don't live there (and that's not meant to be funny). How terrible.
Why not just bind 'em down with duct tape? Oh, there's no NAPA Stores over there? Never mind...
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 per cent of women are affected.
Note the subtle statmemnts. Happens in Christian and animist part but not in the muslim part. Anyone have thoughts.................
not to mention that the process doesn't do a thing to dissuade "leg men" ...
There appears to be little or no concern that this is being done by the moms out of concern because of the lusty vermin men who have the notion that any girl/woman they choose is theirs to be had at any point in time...
"Actually we have a mentality here that men cannot just take what they want. Women here are treated as human beings.The ones that don't face pounishment.The same might work there if they ever bother to hold men accountable for their behavior.
"
Did you not see the /sarc after my statement? I don't disagree with you. Young girls should never have to fear being raped or molested. Sadly, they do in some places...even in the United States, I fear.
Still, I believe that our habit of flaunting our collective daughters' sexual characteristics at a young age is a bad thing. Surely you've seen the pre-teens in little halter tops? That's just the opposite of what's going on over there in Africa, you see. That's why I said it, and that's why I added the /sarc.
Before you can 'hold men accountable for their behavior', you have to hold their 'government' accountable for it's behavior.
Once they do that, the holding 'men' accountable will follow.
the = then
I like big butts & I cannot lie.
BREAK OUT THE HOT BUM STONES!!!
OMG.
Getting raped is barbaric too.
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