Sad story:Woman reveals how her mother ironed her breasts at age 13

Sad story:Woman reveals how her mother ironed her breasts at age 13

The practice of breast ironing involves a girl’s chest being pressed down with a hot stone to delay breast formation. A girl who suffered the procedure is pictured in Cameroon in May 2007

A woman has revealed how her mother ironed her breasts to suppress the growth at a tender age of 13.

The victim, named only as ‘Simone’, is among up to 1,000 women and girls in Britain feared to have undergone the painful and dangerous procedure.

The practice of breast ironing involves a girl’s chest being pressed down with a hot stone to delay breast formation.

Breast ironing, also known as breast flattening, is the pounding and massaging of a pubescent girl’s breasts, using hard or heated objects, to try to make them stop developing or disappear.

Hot stone is normally used to iron

The perpetrators consider it a traditional practice that protects girls from unwanted male attention, sexual harassment and rape.

But experts regard it as a form of abuse that could lead to psychological damage as well as physical injuries including infections, the inability to breastfeed, deformities and even breast cancer.

Simone told C programme that her mother hoped a flat chest would make her daughter ‘ugly and no one will admire her.

Conservative MP Nicky Morgan (pictured on March 13) has backed proposals for breast ironing awareness to be included in the compulsory school curriculum to protect girls from abuse

She said: ‘It’s really an abuse. It dehumanizes you – you are not a human being. They hold your hands and then they press on your breast. It really hurts”

She adds,’Imagine a hot object on your bare body and when you’re going out you have this stripe that they can tie on your breast. At times you find difficulty in breathing.’

She further adds,”‘You’re not even allowed to cry out. If you do, you (are said to) have brought shame to your family, you are not a ‘strong girl’.’

The National Education Union is now urging that breast ironing awareness is included in the compulsory school curriculum to protect girls from abuse.

Conservative MP Nicky Morgan has backed the proposals, saying teachers must be able to advise any girls affected on what action they need to take.

Community workers in London, Yorkshire, Essex and the Midlands previously said that pre-teen girls from the migrant communities of several African countries had undergone breast ironing.