breast ironing (warning:graphic material)

[Soft*Silver]

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5upAAPk_3I"]YouTube- Breast Ironing of Young Girls in Cameroon !!![/nomedia]

I dont even remember what I was looking for when I ran across this video on this practice of breast ironing in Cameroom. I had never heard of it. It is now common for girls under the age of 9 to have their breasts ironed flat with very hot flat rocks, to prevent them from being sexually appealing. One in 4 girls have their breasts ironed. And, sadly, this is an outcome of girls having better diets/nutrition. They are developing younger. And, as bad if not worse, it is also said to happen because girls are now getting educated. Mothers want their girls to get educated but teen pregnancy runs rampant. To prevent them from getting pregnant, they deform their daughter's breasts permanently, to make them less appealing.

I have never heard of this! I remember how I felt when I learned about infibulations and clitoredectomies. I knew that these practices were slowly being extinquished, though not yet extinct, by health organizations educating people about the health risks. (It was told to me that the infibulations and clitordectomies were one major reason why HIV was spread so rampant in heterosexual populations in Africa.) I felt like the world was changing, albeit, slowly, but eventually the disfiguring and torturous female rituals would end.

and then I see this video.

nine years old. Nine years old they are held down and their breasts are burned and flattened so they can have an education and not be appealing to men who can get them pregnant...

god I am not going to sleep well tonight...