Breast ironing in Cameroon
Monday, July 26th, 2010
You’ve heard about female circumcision, but what about breast ironing? I hadn’t, until stumbling across a video about it on my number one trusted news source: perezhilton.com. On a website normally dedicated to the lives and loves of the rich and famous, Perez fills us in on a horrific practice taking place in Cameroon.
Breast ironing is a practice in which hot stones are pressed onto the breasts of girls in order to disfigure them. Surprisingly, the mothers that do this to their daughters have good (but extremely misguided) intentions. The idea is to make their daughters unattractive to men so they don’t get pregnant before they finish school. This practice is painful and leaves lifelong physical and emotional scars.
Here’s the video (warning: there are some disturbing images).
