A brutal ritual called "ironing the breast" is performed on girls in Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa, and as members of the people who still "nurture" this tradition say, they do it to protect their girls from rape and sexual abuse.
According to the United Nations, this act affected 3.8 million women worldwide. In the process, large stones, a hammer or a spatula are used, which are heated and then pressed to the chest. Through this process, members of the people claim, adolescent girls look less feminine.
How does it work?
It often starts when the girl is about eight or nine years old. Their family will wrap tight elastic bandages around their chest. They tighten them at night, sometimes during the day, too.
Another technique is massaging the breasts with hot instruments. The assumption is that heating these tools and pressing them on the girls will melt the fat, which is completely insane. They use a wide variety of things in this process: pestles, wooden sticks, spatulas, spoons, and rocks. Most of the objects tend to belong to either their mothers or grandmothers.
Object you sow in previous pictures are used to stop breasts to grow, girls are massaged with hot stones or wooden spatulas in order to delay their first sexual experience.
WHY???
The theory is that if your breasts don’t grow, you won’t attract men. Mothers do this in the hope that it will help their daughters to continue their education. If they are not attractive to anyone, they will not marry too soon. From the age of 8 or 9, they start tying their breasts with bandages, which they wear all day, even at school. If the bandage does not work enough, switch to other tools such as a pestle, stick, spatula, spoon, stone, which are used hot.
Who does that to girls?
This unusual ritual is performed only by other women, either at home or under the supervision of a vidar.
In 58 percent of cases, the perpetrators are mothers, which makes them primary abusers. In this way, they believe, they also prevent premature pregnancy. Mothers often allow this ritual to remove the signs of puberty so that their daughters can continue their education, rather than consider them ready for marriage. However, this is considered covert abuse. Breast ironing is often a well-kept secret between mother and daughter. Fathers are often unaware of it. Girls believe that their mothers do it for their own good and keep quiet. Therefore, there are no consequences.
-SAVE THE GIRLS ! SAVE THE GIRLS!-
A quarter of the girls in Cameroon experienced this physical and mental aggression. Thanks to numerous associations, this number is declining. This results in breasts that are of different sizes, mutilated and girls who have suffered great mental pain and not understanding traditions that have not brought them anything good.
Fight against this kind of girls abuse need to be cooperated with police, social services, doctors and schools to raise awareness of "breast ironing". Because of this act, girls have a large number of health problems, and they can also get cancer. They are often left completely without breasts.
The consequences are often catastrophic for health: cysts, breast cancer, problems with breastfeeding, but also on the psyche.
Have you heard of this cruel custom and violence against girls?
Is this happening in your country?
How do we fight this?
The basic human rights of girls and women have been violated, this is physical and mental torture. Human Rights Community:
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I have heard everything about their customs, and the more I know, the less I want to visit those destinations, if it can be called that at all, thank you very much, I stick to the European continent.