BREAST IRONING, ALSO KNOWN AS BREAST FLATTERING, IS THE POUNDING AND MASSAGING OF A PUBESCENT GIRLS BREAST


Breast ironing, also known as breast flattening, is the pounding and massaging of a pubescent girl’s breasts, 



using hard or heated objects to stop or slow the development of breasts in young girls, supposedly to “protect them from sexual harassment, rape, and early pregnancy”.


Breast ironing is common in West and Central Africa, including Guinea-Bissau, Chad, Togo, Benin, Guinea-Conakry, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Zimbabwe.


It’s particularly prevalent in Cameroon: there, the number of girls who have been subjected to breast ironing is estimated to be as high as one in three (around 1.3 million).


Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) stands as one of the most horrific forms of injustice done to young girls on the continent. 


Its effects and consequences are well known and activists are hopeful that the world will see the end of the practice within a generation. 


But there are other harmful forms of mutilation that African girls face under the guise of protection and the preservation of virtue. 


Unlike the highly publicized FGM, which claims to ensure cleanliness and better marriage prospects, prevent promiscuity and preserve virginity, breast ironing is a silent practice done to combat the scourge of gender-based violence. 


However, like FGM, breast-ironing has been identified by the UN as one of five under-reported crimes relating to gender-based violence.


According to Wikipedia, breast ironing is typically carried out by the girl’s mother to ‘protect’ the girl from sexual harassment and rape, prevent early pregnancy that would tarnish the family name, and allow the girl to pursue education rather than be forced into early marriage.


Breast ironing is mostly practiced in parts of Cameroon, where the perception by boys and men is that if a girl’s breasts have begun to grow’, she is ready for sex. 


The most widely used implement for breast ironing is a wooden pestle normally used for pounding tubers.


 This is followed by leaves, bananas, coconut shells, grinding stones, ladles, spatulas, and hammers heated over coals.


The practice has also been reported across West and Central Africa, in Benin, Chad, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Kenya, Togo and lower down in Zimbabwe.


Thanks for reading leave your thoughts in the comments section below 

Read more on our Rare History month 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim, 48, was stoned to death by militants from the Hizb Al-Islam group i

Image
  Stoning is a form of execution by torture where the individual who throws the deadly stone cannot be identified. In some countries, those sentenced to stoning, or “lapidation” as it is also called, are buried in a hole and covered with soil (men up to their waists; women to a line above their breasts), according to Article 102 of the Islamic Penal Code. A selected group then executes the alleged adulterers using rocks and sticks.    Those able to escape the hole during stoning can be freed, according to Islamic law, a feat that is much more difficult for women than for men because so much more of their body is covered during lapidation. Stoning is considered a form of community justice and has its fair share of critics both among human rights groups and Islamic clerics. In Somalia, a 48-year old man was buried up to his waist and stoned to death by 50 men in a stadium with 1000 spectators. After his death it was revealed he saw a girl that has been raped by three men an...
Read more

The Worst And Brutal Story of the Bisbee Massacre Which Took Place on Main Street At The Castaneda And Goldwater Mercantile

Image
  The Bisbee Massacre:  Part Three The event forever known as the Bisbee Massacre took place on Main Street at the Castaneda and Goldwater Mercantile Emporium on December 8, 1883. What started as a robbery to grab the monthly payroll of the Copper Queen Mine escalated to murder leaving five people dead including Annie Roberts’s unborn child.  The bandits escaped and in an extraordinary and effective effort by County Sheriff Jerome Ward and his deputies all were captured and jailed in Tombstone in just 45 days. The five gang members who committed the robbery and murders—Red Sample, Tex Howard, Mick Kelly, Big Dan Dowd and Billy Delaney—went to trial on February 9.  Judge David H. Pinney presided.  The evidence against the defendants was strong and the prosecutor’s case well-prepared.  All five were found guilt on February 11 and sentenced to die on the gallows.   Their ringleader, Bisbee dance hall owner John Heith, was tried separately but concurr...
Read more

Mexican Chainsaw Beheading

Image
Mexican Chainsaw Beheading Article in 'Murder' published by D.O.A., Aug 3, 2013. One of the men is identified as Felix Gamez Garcia, who admits to trafficking drugs to the United States and the other man is identified as Barnabas Gamez Castro, who is the uncle of the first man. One of the men is identified as Felix Gamez Garcia, who admits to trafficking drugs to the United States and the other man is identified as Barnabas Gamez Castro, who is the uncle of the first man.  Despite their bad decision to become halcones and collaborate with one of the most powerful drug cartel in Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel or CDS, they are foremost human beings and no human being deserves to die in this manner. Both men are sitting against an adobe wall, they have no shirt on, and seem renounced to their fate.  They answer the questions posed to them by sicarios dressed in military uniforms, and they talk, but deep inside, they must know that no matter what they say, they will not make it out al...
Read more

I HAVE NEVER READ ANYTHING MORE HORRIFIC THAN THIS

Image
    I have never read anything more horrific than this. 😭 The photo below  shows Italian General Alexandro Luzano standing above a slaughtered Serbian child in front of a school in Prebilovci. The letter he sent to Mussolini after this crime has been preserved in the military archives: "Dear Duce, WATCH:  MAKE MONEY FROM CRYPTO 2024 My boundless devotion to you, I hope, entitles me to deviate in some way from strict military protocol. That is why I hasten to describe to you an event that I personally attended three weeks ago. While visiting the districts of Stolac, Capljina and Ljubinje (between 60 and 130 km north of Dubrovnik) - I learned from our intelligence officers that Pavelic's Ustashas had committed a crime in a village (Prebilovci) the day before, and that when it became known , the surrounding Serbs to be upset again. I miss the words to describe what I found there. In the big school classroom, I found a slaughtered teacher and 120 of her students! No chi...
Read more

A TERRIBLE HISTORY OF HOW A GORILLA R*P£S TWO G*Y GENTLEMEN PHIL AND PAUL IN THE ZOO,

Image
They came across the gorillas and after a while they noticed that the huge male gorilla had a massive erection.  Gorilla rapes man Two gay gentlemen Phil and Paul were walking through a zoo.  They came across the gorillas and after a while they noticed that the huge male gorilla had a massive erection.  This fascinated the gay men so much they couldn't take their eyes off of it. Paul just couldn't bear it any longer and he reached into the cage to touch it.  The gorilla grabbed him, dragged him into the cage and screwed him for six hours non-stop. When he was done, the gorilla threw Paul back out of the cage. An ambulance was called and the man was taken away to the hospital.  The next day Phil visits him in the hospital and asked, "Are you hurt?" "AM I HURT?" Paul shouted, "Wouldn't you be? That big ape hasn't called, he hasn't written, "  thanks for reading. Read more on our  Rare History Channel 
Read more

THE HORRIBLE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE NAZIS IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Image
 The HORRIFIC entertainment of the Nazis in the concentration camps Perhaps the most disconcerting kind of performing arts to emerge from Nazi concentration camps was the concept of ‘human vivisection,’  or the exhibition of prisoners as mere spectacles of entertainment for SS guards and men. Prisoners could be compelled to entertain in absurd and highly obscene spectacles, often exhibiting their near-starving bodies.  It is often asked why Jews did not make greater attempts at resistance. Principally, they had no access to arms and were surrounded by native anti-Semitic populations who might collaborate with the Nazis or,  even if they were opposed to German occupation, may have been willing to condone the elimination of the Jews and were reticent to put their own lives as risk.  In essence, the Jews stood alone against a German war machine zealously determined to carry out the “final solution.” Moreover, the Nazis went to great lengths to disguise their ultima...
Read more

MAN K!DN*P G!RL R*P£ HER UNT!L PR!V*TE P*RT. D£STR0Y£D

Image
  Donald Smith k!dnapped, r*ped, and mvrdered 8-year-old Cherish Perrywinkle. He lvred the girl’s family to Walmart and then left with just her. The medical examiner’s report was so graphic that it’s hard to read, let alone hear, and it’s clear this man is absolutely disgusting. But, if you can believe it, it gets worse, leaving one simple question: Does Donald Smith deserve the death penalty for raping and murdering Cherish? Cherish Perrywinkle of Jacksonville, Florida, went missing from a local Walmart in June 2013, and her case quickly made national headlines. According to Rayne Perrywinkle, the child’s mother, she and her three daughters, including 8-year-old Cherish, were shopping when a stranger changed their lives forever. Struggling financially, the mother said she thought that Donald Smith, then 56, was the blessing she needed when he approached her and offered to help her out. Little did she know, his “kind” gesture was all a front to get what he really wanted, and it wou...
Read more

The Story Of The Judas Cradle, Perhaps The Most Agonizing Torture Device In History

Image
   While it may not look like much, the Judas cradle is believed to have spelled a sickening end for the heretics who ended up on the wrong side of its razor-sharp tip during the Spanish Inquisition. If there’s one thing that we can expect from the Spanish Inquisition, it’s unique and brutal methods of torture. In fact, some of history’s most infamous torture methods were implemented by the inquisitors to punish those believed to have sinned, including the rack, the wheel, and water torture. One lesser known torture method favored by the Spanish, though, was the Judas Cradle — and oddly, they considered it to be one of the most humane. There’s not much to the device itself. It’s a carved wooden pyramid at the top of three wooden legs, sort of like a stool though admittedly not one you’d want to sit on. It was placed in the corner of a torture chamber, and above it a person would be suspended, nude, with their hands and feet bound by ropes attached to gears. They would then be ...
Read more

1944: THE WOLA MASSACRE BEGIN'S DURING THW WARSAW UPRISING

Image
  Posted on 5 August, 2017 by Headsman On this date in 1944, a weeklong German slaughter of Polish civilians and resistance fighters began in the Wola district of the capital city Warsaw. The Wola Massacre marked the start of the Reich’s counterattack against the Warsaw Uprising, the heroic and suicidal rising mounted by the Polish Home Army as the Red Army’s summer offensive brought it to the banks of the Vistula. Aiming to claim some foothold upon which to influence events in the soon-to-be Soviet-occupied Poland, the Home Army enjoyed initial success in the first days of August. But German reserves from the Replacement Army — the vehicle by which the Valkyrie plotters had attempted their coup against Hitler just days before, and now as a consequence answering directly to Heinrich Himmler — were quick to the scene and would turn back the rising in weeks of bloody urban warfare. Himmler’s authority in crushing the Warsaw Uprising would also allow him to give rein to his SS for a c...
Read more

THE TERRIBLE EXECUTION OF ELIZABETH BECKER "SHE A NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP GUARD

Image
 Elisabeth Becker Elisabeth Becker (20 July 1923 – 4 July 1946) was a Nazi concentration camp overseer in World War II. She was convicted at the Stutthof trials of crimes against humanity and executed. Elisabeth Becker Biskupia Górka, Gdańsk, Republic of Poland Cause of deathExecution by hangingOccupationGuard of the Stutthof concentration campOrganizationSS-Gefolge (Women's SS Division)Political partyNazi PartyMotiveNazismConviction(s)Crimes against humanityTrialStutthof trialsCriminal penaltyDeathDetailsVictims30+ Span of crimes 5 September 1944 – 15 January 1945CountryPolandLocation(s)Stutthof concentration camp Life Becker was born in Neuteich, Danzig (today Nowy Staw, Poland) to a German family. In 1936, aged 13, she joined the League of German Girls. In 1938, she became a tramway conductor in Danzig. In 1940, she began working for the Dokendorf firm in Neuteich, where she was employed until 1941, when she became an agriculture assistant in Danzig. Camp In 1944, the SS needed ...
Read more