Source+10

[|Breast Ironing]


 * 1) Terisia Techu would undergo breast ironing every morning before school.
 * 2) she was nine when it started
 * 3) burning hot pestle straight out of a fire and use it to press her breasts.
 * 4) goal was to make her less desirable to boys -- and stave off pregnancy.
 * 5) A study found that one in four girls in Cameroon have been affected by the practice.
 * 6) There are more than 200 ethnic groups in Cameroon with different norms and customs. Breast ironing is practiced by all of them.
 * 7) Some mothers use hot stones or coconut shells to flatten their daughters' breasts.
 * 8) Doctors believe improved diets have resulted in young Cameroonian girls going through puberty early. Many of them are also becoming pregnant early.
 * 9) Terisia became pregnant at 15. Her child died at birth.
 * 10) Grace Techu argues that if it weren't for the breast ironing, Terisia would have become pregnant at an even younger age.
 * 11) Grace Techu has four daughters, and she used the procedure on the first two. The third avoided it because her breasts are growing at an acceptable rate, Techu says, and the fourth girl is still too young.
 * 12) Mothers who want their children to finish school before becoming parents have resorted to this drastic measure, and many see nothing wrong with it.
 * 13) it was exposed in 2006 by a German nongovernmental organization
 * 14) "One mother came with secondary burns because the stone she was using to do this breast ironing burned her," Tchana says.
 * 15) One of Tchana's patients is a 23-year-old whose scars are still painful 14 years after her breasts were ironed.