….Now, this is really ODD!

Imagine having your breasts pounded with a hot grinding stone for hours on end everyday, for a month or two, until they flatten out and stop growing?

A Cameroonian family displays the tools used during breast ironing. The practice, many believe, makes girls less sexually attractive, hence reducing promiscuity.

That’s a real possibility if you are a 12-year-old girl beginning to sprout breasts in Douala, Cameroon. It’s estimated that close to 50 per cent of women and girls around this region have had their breasts ironed to make them disappear. The practice is said to exist in all the ten provinces of Cameroon.

Statistics show that 26 per cent of Cameroonian girls undergo this practice at puberty to stop sexual advances.

Cameroon women and girls are struggling to fight this cultural practice that is equally devastating and traumatising. The very term ‘breast ironing’ conjures up imaginations and feelings that are not only horrendous but border on the bizarre.

Breast ironing is a form of body modification where mothers, aunts or older cousins flatten pubescent girl’s breasts to make them less sexually attractive to men.

… article continued here [Read More]

References:

– Breast ironing in Cameroon: breaking the silence.: An article from: Reproductive Health Matters

Popularity: 7% [?]

Other Posts

• June 4, 2008 -- Barack Obama Runs A Positive Campaign And Wins (0)
• January 22, 2008 -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Last Speech (0)
• September 12, 2008 -- Congo-Zaire For Obama — Featuring Koffi Olomide (0)
• May 21, 2007 -- The new ‘Stealth Racism’ in America - in small town Jena, Louisiana (2)
• June 6, 2007 -- Fear Mongering Republicans Hold CNN Debate (0)
• September 10, 2007 -- A Standard Below (0)
• May 30, 2007 -- Tony Perkins — Takes Lou Dobbs To School on ‘Separation of Church and State’ (0)
• May 1, 2008 -- Wright Isn’t That Wrong, But He Has the Right (0)
• October 20, 2007 -- Bring Our Troops Home From Iraq AND Afghanistan (1)
• November 3, 2007 -- Sen. John McCain Touts His Military Experience (1)
• April 27, 2008 -- Pennsylvania - The Aftermath of God, Guns and Hillary Clinton (3)
• September 9, 2007 -- Campaign For Reparations - Can Africa Make Claims To The West? (5)
• April 21, 2008 -- Where Petro-dollars meet weapons of mass destruction (0)
• August 27, 2008 -- Joe Biden - Obama’s Attack Dog! (0)
• November 6, 2007 -- Diaspora Africans need decolonisation of mind (0)
• June 21, 2008 -- McCain: ‘I Didn’t Love America Until Held Prisoner’ (0)
• September 15, 2007 -- Translate Bush (0)
• May 1, 2008 -- Hillary ‘Hillrod’ Clinton vs. The Coffee/Cappuccino Machine (0)
• May 31, 2008 -- US policy on Cuba is childish and counterproductive (0)
• May 26, 2008 -- ‘Sniper Fire’ General a.k.a Hillary Clinton Now Blames Obama Over RFK Flap (0)
• September 23, 2008 -- The Wrecking Crew — The Naked Cynicism of Conservatism in America (0)
• April 6, 2007 -- How the Right Uses People of Color to Foster Racism (3)
• August 15, 2008 -- Barack Obama Shouldn’t Accept Colin Powell’s Endorsement (0)
• March 27, 2008 -- Pest Control - This Really Cracked Me Up! (0)
• October 12, 2007 -- Al Gore wins Nobel Prize. Bush set to share ‘Criminal’ Award with Osama and Hitler (Posthumously) (1)
• May 25, 2007 -- Congress Capitulates: Passes A Deadline-Free War Funding Bill (0)
• May 30, 2008 -- Father Michael Pfleger Mocks Hillary Clinton’s ‘Fake’ Tears (1)
• May 16, 2008 -- ‘Republican’ Hate Crimes - An Anthology (0)
• June 3, 2008 -- AP: Obama clinches Democratic nomination (0)
• May 30, 2008 -- Delusional ‘Napoleon’ Clinton still insists: ‘I’m more electable’ (0)