fat shaming

Forcefeeding in Mauritania


(Zeinebou Mint Mohamed, 26, shows off her stretch marks, a major turn-on for Mauritanian men)

It sounded like summer camp. "You're going on vacation to the desert to meet other girls and eat sweet food," Tijanniya Mint Tijani's mother told her. Tijanniya was excited. "She said that by the time I returned home, I'd be a beautiful woman."

Ten days later, Tijanniya, 14, a sporty student from the town of Atar in the West African country of Mauritania, is eating breakfast with five other girls, ages 7 to 12, in a cramped sandstone hut deep in the Sahara Desert. Her stomach is already bloated from huge quantities of goat's milk and oily couscous, but the meal is not over. The next course is a pint of pounded millet mixed with water. Tijanniya chokes down the thick gruel — she has no choice. An older woman dressed in pink robes threatens to beat her with a long cane if she refuses.

Tijanniya wants to become a French teacher, but Elhacen says her parents have already arranged a marriage for her. "Her job will be to make babies and be a soft, fleshy bed for her husband to lie on."
...
Yet some young women in the capital refuse to bulk up. "I've always been thin, and I love my size," says Aminetou Kane, 28, a bright-eyed social worker. "I can work, I can dance, I can walk three miles to the beach." Many of her girlfriends, educated career women like herself, prefer to be slimmer, too, she adds. Another encouraging sign is the success of Nouakchott's first women-only gym, where around 300 women exchange their mulafa robes for sweats. "The membership is still tiny, but I'm hoping it will expand," says the owner, Zahoura Kajouane. "Some women join on doctor's orders, but others are image-conscious. One woman hopes to be the Shakira of Mauritania."