Brutality in Cameroon: The Barbaric Practice of Breast Ironing

Originally published on July 29, 2010 at David Horowitz’s NewsReal
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breast-ironing

Little girls in Cameroon are being betrayed by their own mothers. Using piping hot stones, women “iron” their pubescent daughters’ breasts to destroy any visible sign of budding womanhood. Some of the victims of this torture are as young as nine.

The scars are horrific.

Women say it is love that drives them to brutalize their daughters this way, that they just want to protect young girls from being raped or becoming pregnant at an early age. Instead, they end up with daughters who are both mutilated and pregnant. Not only are the girls disfigured, but many suffer infection, pain, psychological distress, and damage to the breast tissue that can cause lactation difficulties and perhaps even breast cancer.

As with female genital mutilation, girls are having their bodies violated in unthinkable ways in order to control their sexuality. Why bother to address a high teen pregnancy rate with education about sex and birth control when you can scald away the flesh from your daughter’s chest? And of course, it’s easier to blame little girls for being too enticing than it is to repair a culture in which rape and assault are prevalent.

Please watch the documentary embedded below for more on this cruelty. (Note: The video contains some nudity.)

Via The Frisky.

The next time you hear a so-called feminist demanding the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act or exploding with outrage at the inhumanity of being forced to pay for abortion, remind her that the systematic abuse of women and girls is real. She’s just never experienced it.

Published by Jenn Q. Public on August 27, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Filed Under Feminism, Misogyny, Women

Comments

3 Responses to “Brutality in Cameroon: The Barbaric Practice of Breast Ironing”

  1. DodiaFae on September 2nd, 2010 9:05 am

    I’m speechless… I had no idea that this was going on anywhere in the world.

  2. theblackcommenter on September 4th, 2010 9:52 am

    Well this certainly puts concerns about “$0.77 on the $1.00” into perspective. It is especially poignant that the women doing it are doing so out of concern that their daughters will be assaulted or otherwise taken advantage of.

  3. Mampukah on August 4th, 2015 3:38 am

    Common now Lily. At the time we were in the University of Buea, we were told that one in ten students have the HIV virus. Putting that into cotxnet, you went to an all girls secondary school. Statistics aside, did you come across any girl that had gone through BREAST IRONING?When statistics are used, it should not be so alarming. Saying that Cameroonians are corrupt, is something even we Cameroonians can believe for we witness it in our every day society. Say that one in four girls go through breast ironing is just plain hyperbole.By the way, 100% Jeune may have stated the statistics, probably making use of the same erroneous skill of reporting Nkepile is using in her report for CNN.

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