http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/07/27/cameroon.breast.ironing/
This article outlines one drastic way mothers are attacking the threat of teenage pregnancy: "ironing" their daughters' breasts in order to make them less desirable to males. A report in Cameroon reported that one four girls suffer from this tragic abuse. Girls often suffer from physical pain, burns, and deformities, but they are also often traumatized.
Mothers certainly need to do all in their power to keep their daughters in school and to prevent them from becoming pregnant at a young age, but abuse is certainly not the answer. Sex education is the answer, for both mothers and daughters. Mothers need to be educated on the safety and health concerns of breast ironing, and daughters must be exposed to information to prevent teenage pregnancy.
This issue recently came out into the public eye when a German NGO brought it out into the light in 2006. However, this is the first time I had ever heard or read about this atrocity. The article focuses on educating women and girls about sex; however the males in the community need to be educated as well. Educating women is empowering and well-intentioned, but without educating the males, only partial headway can be made. The more men learn about safe sex practices, the less stigmatized the use of condoms and other birth control will become, and perhaps then the rate of teenage pregnancy would go down, and girls would not have to endure the hot searing pain of a rod flattening their breasts.
This relates a lot to the genital mutilation we read about in "Half the Sky." Women are abused because of something that is supposed to be beautiful; sex! Like you have mentioned, its education for both men and women that needs to be done. The people that are taking part in these acts need to understand that mental and physical damage it does to these girls. Also, the risks for the future and for infections right after the act.
ReplyDeleteWOW. I cannot believe that this happens. The fact that a mom would do that to her own daughter sickens me. I think more laws need to be made to stop things like this from happening. If stuff like this doesn't stop now it will only get worse. There are other ways to deal with teenage pregnancy.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard about this before. This is pretty crazy! Like you said education is the best things against teenage pregnancy's. Along with proper education, I teenagers need a good role model to follow. With a good role model and education, teenager pregnancies can easily go down.
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