Just like farmers fatten cows before selling them, families in the West African nation of Mauritania fatten young girls before marrying them. In a tradition known as Leblouh, families send girls, some as young as five, to special farms to groom them for potential suitors.
Here, older women, known as gaveuses, force-feed the girls a daily diet of pounded millet mixed with butter and camel’s milk. Daily consumption amounts to some 16,000 calories. The feeding occurs during school holidays or in the rainy season when milk is plentiful, according to children’s rights lawyer, Fatimata M’baye.
According to M’baye, matrons use sticks to roll on the thighs of girls to break down tissue and hasten the process of fattening and attaining female roundness and corpulence. The notion is to marry the girls off as young as possible. “The family sends the girl away from home without her understanding why. She suffers but is told that being fat will bring her happiness. Women’s rights campaigner Mint Ely says families force young girls to consume enormous amounts of food, against their will.
They even force the girls to eat their own vomit if the food does not stay down. According to Ely, in Mauritania society, a woman’s size denotes how much space she occupies in her husband’s heart. So, the larger a woman’s size, the lesser chance another woman has to claim space in her husband’s heart.
Some assert that the practice of Leblouh is on the decline. Health and development consultant Mounina Mint Abdellah, 51, said last year, her mother’s family force-fed her as a child. “Things have changed tremendously. Fattening just seems out of date to a large part of Mauritanian society.”
However, campaigners insist that the cruel practice of force-feeding young girls for marriage has not really gone away, especially in rural areas. “I have never managed to bring a case in defense of a force-fed child,” M’baye said. “The politicians fear questioning their own traditions. Families usually arrange rural marriages under customary law or oversee them with a marabou (a Muslim preacher). No state official gets involved, so no arbiter checks on the age of the bride.”
Yet, she said, Mauritania signed both international and African treaties protecting the rights of the child. But Ely and M’baye insist the fat “ideal” remains present. Ely cites the life-threatening weight-gain practices of some grown women. “To remain fat as adults, they take animal hormones or buy prescription drugs with appetite-enhancing side effects. A woman died in hospital in Nouakchott last week. I’m afraid this problem still affects us.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that over the next decade, Africa will experience the biggest increase in deaths worldwide from chronic diseases. Major ailments include heart disease and diabetes, both linked to nutrition. According to historians, families have practiced Leblouh since pre-colonial times.
Obesity in a woman has historically represented wealth and prestige. The richer a man, the fewer chores he requires his wife to do. Families practice the fattening of girls and women beyond Mauritania, in northern Mali, rural Niger, and some parts of Nigeria and Cameroon.
Content contributed by Perviz Walji, reported from Mauritania, West Africa, sourced by UNHCR, AlJazeera, The observer, odditycentral.com
