Mutilating Young Girls For Custom

A recent Current TV report claims that the cruel practice of breast ironing is on the increase in Cameroon, an African country. This involves one out of every four girls, which is approximately 4 million in total. It is thought that 50% of girls are involved in this practice in the southeastern region. However, about only 10% of girls are involved in the Muslim north.

The procedure involves the pounding, flattening and massaging of a young girl's growing breasts with coconut shells, hot stones and other objects.

The aim of the Cameroonian mothers is to delay their daughter's development so men will not be attracted by their breasts. The mothers believe the procedure will safe-guard their girls from rape, sexual harassment and early pregnancy, all of which will blemish the family name. In Cameroonian society a girl can be wed the moment her breasts appear, as her breasts tell men she is able to have sex.

As the dietary practices in the nation have improved over the past 50 years, girls are commencing to reach puberty as young as 9 years old. Half of all Cameroonian girls who developed below the age of nine, have ironed their breasts.

It is said that breast ironing can create numerous physical issues, such as burns and deformations, besides the risk of breast cancer and psychological problems. It is not only excruciatingly painful it causes tissue damage, which can produce difficulties with breastfeeding.

If a medical doctor can prove that the girl's breasts have been damaged, provided the matter is reported within a few months, the perpetrator can face up to three years imprisonment. The mothers however claim the process is born out of love and concern for their daughters.

Breast ironing also takes place in West and Central Africa, Guinea-Bissau, including Togo, Chad, Benin and Guinea-Conakry.

A non-governmental movement opposed to breast ironing has begun. However, traditional belly ironing, or postpartum massaging, is also extensively practiced.

In belly ironing, a traditional broom steeped in boiling water is utilized to whip the belly of a woman who has just given birth. Then a towel is soaked in boiling water to massage the different parts of the body and in some regions, the woman is asked to sit over a bucket of hot water so the vapor enters her vagina and uterus. Yet this can produce scars, burns, cervix damage or vaginal infections.

Cameroonian women find the practice acceptable because tradition says that it is very important to empty out the remaining blood after giving birth.

Other traditional harmful practices of women across the centuries consist of such tortures as rib-breaking corsets, Chinese foot binding, the chastity belt and female genital circumcision.