If there is anywhere on earth that would most closely resemble Hell, it would be Africa. In Africa, women especially are treated so horribly it sickens my stomach. From female genital mutilation, to rape of children to ward off AIDS, African beliefs are hopelessly backwards, dangerous and wrong. It may be scores of years before there can be any hope of dispelling these stupid beliefs.
I just found out about another atrocious stupid African belief that is designed to injure women. Breast ironing.
This disgusting practice is discussed in this story here from Reuters.
Millions of Cameroon girls suffer “breast ironing”
YAOUNDE, Cameroon (Reuters) - Worried that her daughters’ budding breasts would expose them to the risk of sexual harassment and even rape, their mother Philomene Moungang started ‘ironing’ the girls’ bosoms with a heated stone.
“I did it to my two girls when they were eight years old. I would take the grinding stone, heat it in the fire and press it hard on the breasts,” Moungang said.
“They cried and said it was painful. But I explained that it was for their own good.”
One in four teen-agers are subjected to the traumatic process by relatives, often hoping to lessen their sexual attractiveness.
However, the practice has many side effects, including severe pain and abscesses, infections, breast cancer, and even the complete disappearance of one or both breasts.
The survey of more than 5,000 girls and women aged between 10 and 82 from throughout Cameroon, published last month, estimated that 4 million women in the central African country have suffered the process.
“You ask me why I did it?” said Moungang. “When I was growing up as a little girl my mother did it to me just as all other women in the village did it to their girl children. So I thought it was just good for me to do to my own children.”
These are disgusting practices by a culture that preys on its own. Half a million people in Cameroon live with HIV/AIDS, and ten percent of those people die each year. Life expectancy in Cameroon? Just 51 years.

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3 people responded in this post
[...] More proof that the continent of Africa is a hellish landscape can be found in the article below. People have to put up with rampant AIDS, interloping United Nations workers pusing crappy laptops, female genital mutilation and breast ironing, and now a new spice to sour an African’s day- Flooding and rampaging man-eating crocodiles. [...]
[...] AIDS, interloping United Nations workers pusing crappy laptops, female genital mutilation and breast ironing, and now a new spice to sour an African’s day- Flooding and rampaging man-eating [...]
[...] The Gambia is 95% Muslim. African Muslims have already rejected international aid in the form of polio vaccines because they fear that it is a plot from the west to make them sterile. Are they rejecting AIDS/HIV too for religious reasons? These people are barbaric in their backwards beliefs. This is about as funny as breast ironing. [...]
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