One Acceptable Newborn Torture Practice In My Home Country.
It involves hot water.
You might as well know it now, I am Nigerian. I am also a mother. What I am about to tell you is going to have you screaming all through today.
When I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, as is with the custom in well meaning African communities- everyone gives you their opinion. Don’t bother asking or not asking, you will hear it. When your child is a girl, my oh my, you will realize that even before your daughter can smile, she already is married off. I mean it because all the ‘well meaning’ advices for baby girls are in line with preparation for being a good girl so she will have suitors and be married off as soon as possible.
It was still shocking when I was told:
Use hot water- very hot water, every morning, to press continually, the vagina of my days old daughter until her vagina is ‘straightened’ out.
So I asked the very helpful aunty who called me to tell me to start this on the second day of my daughter’s arrival to earth, “what does this straightened vagina do?”
Answer: “It makes her vagina beautiful. See, she will be crying but harden your mind. Do it beginning tomorrow morning during her bath”
You say what now?
First, it was news to me that there was apparently another area some other girls could possibly be beating me in- a VAGINA of all parts!
There were beautiful vaginas and ugly vaginas.
How does one make this comparison? Against who and who and who are we having this contest?
READ: I Normalized These 4 Abusive Behaviours.
To be sure I was not losing my mind, I spoke with my doctor about this. Apparently, it is a “common practice”. Some regions in my country, use very hot water pressed upon their newborn daughter’s vagina- to widen their vagina. My region used very hot water to straighten the vagina.
This would not be funny even if it was an outdated practice. To know that right now, are newborn baby girls in my country tortured every morning with hot water by their own mothers, is abhorrent.
I asked my mother if she did this, she said no. She was told to but she had the good sense not to. Yah, mom!
I mean, how does a mother spread open the delicate body of her daughter and daily torture her with hot water despite her quiet painful tears? How in the world is this happening? We all know the answer- marriage. Where the sex isn’t even worth it.
Thank you for reading.
My name is Adaobi Okwy. Please turn on Email Notification for my next post. Also, Buy me coffee?
