After suffering from innumerable
tortures and inhumane behavior, widows of Vrindavan, India played Holi after
breaking a 400-year-old tradition that kept them away from celebrating
festivals. Chinese women no longer have to follow the horrible foot-binding
tradition. But still some cruel traditions are still going on in the world, and
surprisingly in the most educated nations and nothing has been done yet to stop
them.
One such heartbreaking case is of
BREAST IRONING going on in the UK, a
tradition of beating young girls’ breasts with the hot iron and stones every
day for months, just to avoid the male attention and premarital pregnancy. This
is being done to 10-year-old girls and the British government is yet to take a
strong action against it.
More than 1000 British girls
are being harmed.
And most of them are just 10-year-olds!
Just to
make the girl appear less desirable…
Hot objects (generally stones or iron spatulas) are warmed on hot coal and then
the girls’ breasts are beaten with that.
It all began in Cameroon…
Where one in four girls is made to go through female circumcision. The belief
is to make them appear less desirable and thus to avoid premarital pregnancy.
The worst part…
In most cases, the mothers themselves beat their girls for breast ironing. In
some cases, the breast tissues are damaged permanently and the breast growth is
stopped forever.
Jake Berry, the Conservative MP
for Rossendale & Darwen came forward to make people aware of this.
He worriedly said, “There is a dangerous lack of knowledge out there. The government
should act and issue guidance to all local authorities and other public sector
bodies about the warning signs that could uncover this practice.”
It has spread to West African
communities in Birmingham and London as well.
This inhumane sick tradition may lead to potential health problems including
cancer, infection and cysts in the victims.
Health professionals must be
trained to detect signs of Breast Ironing.
The Tory MP has requested the government to recognize breast ironing as female
genital mutilation (FGM).
But religious beliefs and
culture always come in the path of the government.
Jake Berry expressed his worry on the child abuse occurring in the UK, “But just
as in the case of FGM these words are a thinly veiled excuse for a ritualized
form of child abuse.”
