How many UK girls have been subjected to 'breast ironing'?

An African practice of “ironing” a girl’s chest with a hot stone to delay breast formation is spreading in the UK, with anecdotal evidence of dozens of recent cases, a Guardian investigation has established.

Community workers in London, Yorkshire, Essex and the West Midlands have told the Guardian of cases in which pre-teen girls from the diaspora of several African countries are subjected to the painful, abusive and ultimately futile practice.

Margaret Nyuydzewira, head of the diaspora group the Came Women and Girls Development Organisation (Cawogido), estimated that at least 1,000 women and girls in the UK had been subjected to the intervention. There has been no systematic study or formal data collection exercise.

Original Quill wrote:I wonder how it works.  Does the heat destroy sub-dermis tissue?  Does it leave lesions?  Curious.

Vintage wrote:How much more are girls to be subjected to, forced marriage, saw a programme last night, FGM,  beatings to show support for the men in your family so that they will be obliged to care for you if widowed, married to your rapist, stoned, hung or burned because your family or husband think you may have looked at another man, or there's not enough dowry. What a world we live in.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Original Quill wrote:I wonder how it works.  Does the heat destroy sub-dermis tissue?  Does it leave lesions?  Curious.

It probably doesn't work.

she said, describing a practice whereby mothers, aunties or grandmothers use a hot stone to massage across the breast repeatedly in order to “break the tissue” and slow its growth.

The child developed bruising