“这是为了她们好……如果这些可怜的女孩骨瘦如柴、令人厌恶，她们怎么找到丈夫呢？”
艾尔哈森以强迫女孩进食为生，她对自己的工作感到自豪。“我很严厉……我会打女孩，或者用棍子夹住她们的脚趾折磨她们。我会把她们隔离起来，告诉她们瘦女人低人一等，”她说。这种虐待儿童的行为是毛里塔尼亚审美标准的可怕产物，该标准将肥胖的身体理想化。据艾尔哈森说，女人的工作是“生孩子，成为丈夫的柔软、丰满的床”。强迫进食者甚至因妊娠纹而获得额外报酬，妊娠纹被认为是任何试图增重的毛里塔尼亚女性的最高成就。
这种强制喂食的做法被称为“leblouh”或“gavage”，这是一个法语术语，指“把鹅养肥以生产鹅肝的过程”。这种对女孩和妇女的非人化行为远远超出了语义范围。从历史上看，毛里塔尼亚的摩尔人占该国 310 万人口的三分之二，他们将女性肥胖视为地位的象征，而瘦弱则表明丈夫无力养活她。因此，为了显示财富，高收入的女孩会被用牛奶喂肥，以使她们在潜在追求者眼中更有吸引力。摩尔人的一句谚语就说明了肥胖和吸引力之间的关系，它断言“女人在男人心里占据的位置，就像她在男人床上占据的位置一样”。通过将体重与吸引力直接联系起来，这种审美标准鼓励了极端行为。
强制喂食和少女早婚
这种极端行为在像埃尔哈森这样的强制喂食者虐待年轻女孩的案例中表现得最为明显。年仅五岁的女孩被送到“育肥场”，大吃高热量食物，如小米和骆驼奶。强制喂食也可能在家里进行，通常由女孩的母亲监督。活动家 Lemrabott Brahim描述了这种母女关系如何延续勒布鲁，并解释说这种做法“深深植根于毛里塔尼亚母亲的思想和心中，尤其是在偏远地区。”在母亲或强制喂食者的管教下，女孩每天可能被强制喂食多达 16,000 卡路里的食物，其中包括多达五加仑的牛奶。实施勒布鲁的年长女性强制喂食者或亲属使用残酷的手段让女孩继续进食。例如，“zayar”技术包括将女孩的脚趾放在两根棍子之间，当她拒绝勒布鲁时，就捏她的脚趾。主管还可能“拉她的耳朵、捏她的大腿内侧、向后弯曲她的手指或强迫她喝下自己的呕吐物”，如果女孩们不吃完食物，还会受到殴打的威胁。2013年的一项研究使用了 2000 年的调查数据，发现“超过 61% 的经历过管饲的人报告称在过程中遭到殴打，近三分之一 (29%) 的人报告称，为了鼓励他们参与，他们的手指被打断。”除了这些极度痛苦的伤害之外，联合国人口基金会的 Mar Jubero Capdeferro指出，勒布鲁越来越危险，因为一些强制喂食者已经从使用骆驼奶转变为用“用于养肥动物的化学药品”强制喂食年轻女孩。
在 2018 年《未报道的世界》的一部纪录片中，记者萨哈尔·赞德亲眼目睹了这种残忍行为，并与毛里塔尼亚妇女进行了交流，以更多地了解勒布鲁。她描述了在食物更加充足的雨季，女孩们是如何被养肥的，目标体重增加 7 公斤。据赞德说，大约 25% 的毛里塔尼亚女性遭受勒布鲁，但在农村社区，这一比例可能高达 75%，因为“没有干扰，也没有简单的逃脱方法”。赞德关注了一个特殊的农村游牧民群体，其中有两个女孩正在遭受勒布鲁。她们每人需要两个小时吃完 3,000 卡路里的早餐，然后是 4,000 卡路里的午餐和 2,000 卡路里的晚餐。到喂养季节结束时，女孩们每天将摄入 16,000 卡路里的热量。赞德尝试了勒布鲁节食法——午饭后，她无法继续，但小女孩们被迫继续进食。“这太可怕了，”她描述道。一位强制喂食者声称强迫她的女儿吃勒布鲁节食法是一种爱的表现。为了解释母亲们怎么能给自己的女儿带来如此“痛苦和折磨”，赞德总结道：“在这个社会里，女人最大的力量就是美丽，而要美丽，就必须胖。”
赞德本可以很容易地将这句话改写为：“在这个社会中，女人最大的权力就是结婚，而要想结婚，你就必须很胖。” 2013 年的研究将童婚对勒布鲁的核心影响分解为“这些被强迫喂食的女孩的体型很大，给人一种错觉，以为自己身体已经成熟，可以结婚了。” 在创造这种错觉的过程中，勒布鲁抑制了女孩的结婚年龄，导致童婚危机长期存在。 从法律上讲，毛里塔尼亚女性必须年满 18 岁才能结婚，但事实上，年轻的新娘很常见； 2015 年的一项研究得出结论：“近三分之一的 15 至 19 岁女孩结婚。”根据2019 年的数据，37% 的毛里塔尼亚女孩在 18 岁之前结婚。 这些年轻女孩通常会嫁给年龄较大的男性。一名 29 岁的童婚受害者从四岁开始接受勒布鲁，12 岁结婚，13 岁“月经初潮后”就怀孕了。这些童婚和怀孕严重危害了毛里塔尼亚女性的身心健康。
Leblouh 的长期健康影响
即使结婚后，女性仍需承受极高的美容期望。穆罕默德·乌尔德·马德内医生回忆起一位患者：“她只有 14 岁，但体型却非常庞大，以至于心脏几乎因压力而崩溃。”他担心女性患上与体重相关的健康问题的风险，如糖尿病和心脏病。肥胖的其他长期影响包括高血压、高胆固醇、中风、骨关节炎、心理健康不佳、行动能力下降、睡眠呼吸暂停和癌症。由于 leblouh，这些国家健康问题对女性的影响尤为严重：截至 2016 年，毛里塔尼亚女性肥胖率为 18.5%，而男性肥胖率仅为 6.6%。
在疫情全球大流行的背景下，这些数据尤其令人担忧，肥胖人群因感染新冠肺炎“住院、进入重症监护室、进行侵入性机械通气和死亡的风险”更高。考虑到毛里塔尼亚的医疗服务障碍（该国每 1000 名公民只有0.18 名医生，而美国有2.59 名医生），肥胖的毛里塔尼亚成年人特别容易受到冠状病毒并发症的感染。这种额外的风险凸显了这样一个事实，即严格的美容标准严重限制了女性的健康和生活方式机会。一名 26 岁的女性描述了这种困境：“我总是很累，走路时会喘息。我想变得更苗条，这样我就可以更有活力……我很想能穿牛仔裤和高跟鞋。我想节食，但我害怕男人不再喜欢我。”她的话语体现了女性面临极大压力，不得不牺牲自己的身心健康来满足男性的目光，这种做法在新冠肺炎疫情期间尤其有害。
药物滥用和黑市毒品
然而，肥胖并不是唯一的威胁，许多女性滥用药物，服用黑市药物以加快肥胖。这些药物包括避孕药、可的松，甚至还有牲畜药物，例如“用于喂养骆驼和鸡的激素”。一位 26 岁的女性，据说她的丈夫“不喜欢和一袋骨头一起睡觉”，她不得不服用过敏药物，这些药物会间接增加体重，但可能会引发其他并发症。“我买这个是因为药剂师告诉我它危险性最小，”她解释道。这些药物很容易购买，而且监管不严格，据一位药剂师说，这可以部分归因于黑市药物销售给渴望的女性市场的利润。当 Sahar Zand访问毛里塔尼亚首都努瓦克肖特时，她注意到这些药物销售的公开性和显眼性，并评论说：“这太容易了。他们甚至没有试图隐藏它。”这样的市场充斥着为女儿购买药物的喂食者，以及为自己购买药物的老年妇女。Zand 甚至遇到过一个家庭，他们的女儿因服用增重类固醇而死亡，而另一个女儿仍在服用同一种类固醇。Madene 博士的话有效地概括了这场危机：毛里塔尼亚的审美标准是“公共卫生的严重问题”。
2008 年军事政变后倒退
最近的政治事件让我们对这场危机有了些许了解。到 2007 年，人们对肥胖的痴迷似乎有所改善——毛里塔尼亚政府试图加强国家公共卫生，提高人们对肥胖危害的认识。《纽约时报》甚至 开玩笑说：“直到最近，穿慢跑鞋的毛里塔尼亚女性就像穿细高跟鞋的骆驼一样常见。”审美标准在不断发展，人们越来越注重健康。然而，2007 年基地组织杀害法国游客事件导致前往毛里塔尼亚的外国游客减少，在 2008 年军事政变推翻民主政权后，新上台的军政府在穆罕默德·乌尔德·阿卜杜拉齐兹将军的领导下开始恢复传统价值观。活动组织“女户主”的领导人阿米内图·莫克塔尔痛恨地评论道：“当局希望女性回归传统角色——做饭、呆在家里，保持肥胖以取悦男人。”同一组织的成员 Aminetou Mint Ely 也表达了类似的观点：
“我们倒退了。我们有一个妇女事务部。我们已实现 20% 的议会席位配额。我们有女性外交官和女性州长。军方使我们倒退了几十年，让我们回到了传统的角色。我们甚至不再有一个可以交谈的部门。”
政府破坏文化进步有助于解释为什么毛里塔尼亚法律仍然无法追究“勒布鲁”的实施者的责任。儿童权利律师法蒂玛塔·姆巴耶 (Fatimata M'baye)哀叹道：“我从来没有成功为被强制喂食的儿童提起过诉讼。政客们害怕质疑自己的传统。”因此，政府积极延续对女孩实施“勒布鲁”的残酷迫害、童婚以及不断施加压力让她们增肥。
进步之路
然而，在这种倒退中，也有进步的希望。政变前宣传活动的成功表明，毛里塔尼亚女性愿意优先考虑健康，放松对美丽标准的限制。自 2003 年政府开始教育公民如何以道德的方式对待儿童和身体健康后，勒布鲁的发生率开始下降。在努瓦克肖特一家女性专用健身房工作的 Kajwan Zuhour 发现，到 2009 年，顾客越来越多：“女性不想再胖了，她们想变瘦，”她说。这种观念的改变源于 Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud 等女性的工作，她们参与了政府信息项目。她描述了有多少女性不知道勒布鲁的极端健康风险：“这里的饮食非常丰富——她们吃蒸粗麦粉、纯猪油……[而且]不知道这些食物会使人发胖，所以我们向这些女性解释每天要吃什么，这样她们就不会发胖，并且可以保护自己免受疾病的侵害。”这一观察表明，未来的信息宣传活动必须是多方面的，以覆盖不同的人群；一些女性故意喂食增肥的食物——并强迫年轻女孩吃——以增加体重，而其他女性则在不知情的情况下食用类似的食物。也许，这种差异可以部分地用城乡差距来解释，农村女性更熟悉勒布鲁和最容易导致体重增加的食物。尽管这种差异强调需要开展更多专门的信息宣传活动，但全国范围内的广泛努力以提高人们对勒布鲁不利健康影响的认识仍然是值得的。女户主协会的阿米内图·明特·埃利 (Aminetou Mint Ely)表示，“政府甚至创作了谴责肥胖的民谣”，展现了政府努力的创造性。
自从新军政府开始拆除和推翻这些政府计划以来，私营部门组织的作用变得越来越重要。例如，May Mint Haidy成立了一个非政府组织，以促进毛里塔尼亚妇女养成更健康的习惯：“我们开展了一项运动，说服这些妇女放弃强制喂食的习惯。我们作为一个非政府组织试图传播这一信息的原因是，这种强制喂食可能导致心脏病、血液病等危险的疾病。”这些信息对于确保成年女性不会危及自己或年幼女儿的健康非常重要。怀着这一使命，非政府组织可以恢复和巩固以前政府运动的工作，抵制美化肥胖的传统言论。他们还应该努力“在经济和政治上赋予妇女权力，特别是在农村地区，并……减少文盲”，这将进一步促进身心健康。勒布鲁和服用增重药物的主要动机是早婚和男性认可。如果女性感到自己有安全感，有能力，她们就不会为了他人而牺牲自己的健康。赋权和提高识字率还可以打击童婚，帮助女性对抗政府的歧视女性言论，使她们能够追求事业，帮助她们不仅避免自我毁灭的行为，而且积极掌控自己的福祉。
为了确保这些努力能够惠及农村妇女（Aminetou Mint Ely、May Mint Haidy和Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud都指出了这个问题） ，大型非政府组织可能需要与当地社区团体和“传统信息来源”合作。2007 年政变前夕，Haidy告诉《纽约时报》，只有约 25% 的毛里塔尼亚妇女看电视，收听广播节目的妇女就更少了；由于这一统计数据综合了全国所有妇女，因此农村妇女的媒体消费率甚至更低。鉴于这些限制，非政府组织还应考虑与宗教领袖建立联系，扩大清真寺的作用，使其既涵盖礼拜，也涵盖教育。
毕竟，许多伊玛目已经通过现有的媒体渠道展示了他们致力于提升妇女和儿童地位的承诺。例如，萨赫勒妇女赋权和人口红利项目（SWEDD）——横跨毛里塔尼亚、马里和尼日尔等多个非洲国家——通过广播打击童婚并提升妇女地位。如果参与此类工作的伊玛目能够将这些积极信息传播到农村清真寺，最好与当地宗教领袖合作，那么无法收听广播的妇女也可以获得赋权。毛里塔尼亚首都努瓦克肖特的伊玛目、SWEDD 成员哈德米纳·萨莱克·埃利有力地表达了伊斯兰教对伤害妇女行为的道德谴责：“伊斯兰教是一种尊重人类的宗教。因此，任何伤害个人身心健康的行为都是被禁止的。”有了这种支持，当地社区宗教领袖可能在确保有关勒布鲁危害的信息传达给毛里塔尼亚各地妇女的斗争中发挥关键作用。
毛里塔尼亚的美丽标准（体现在对年轻女孩的强制喂食、童婚和滥用增重药物）已有数百年历史。然而，它们并非无法改变。关于健康习惯、强制喂食的诸多危害以及儿童权益的宣传运动是取得进步的有希望的途径，特别是在宗教领袖的帮助下，在农村地区传播积极的信息。赋予妇女权力和提高识字率的其他举措将有助于消除父权制的性别关系并促进女性独立。Aminetou Mint Ely 和 May Mint Haidy 等女性的不懈倡导证明，这些解决方案完全可行。在她们的帮助下，毛里塔尼亚女性的健康和美丽将不再相互排斥。
Force-Feeding and Drug Abuse: The Steep Price of Beauty in Mauritania
“It’s for their own good…How will these poor girls find a husband if they’re bony and revolting?”
Elhacen, who force-feeds young girls for a living, takes pride in her work. “I’m very strict…I beat the girls, or torture them by squeezing a stick between their toes. I isolate them and tell them that thin women are inferior,” she says. This child cruelty is the horrific product of Mauritanian beauty standards, which idealize obese bodies. According to Elhacen, a woman’s job is “to make babies and be a soft, fleshy bed for her husband to lie on.” The force feeder even enjoys additional payments for stretch marks, hailed as a crowning achievement for any Mauritanian woman trying to gain weight.
This force-feeding practice is called “leblouh” or “gavage,” a French term that refers to “the process of fattening up geese to produce foie gras.” This dehumanization of girls and women extends far beyond semantics. Historically, Mauritania’s Moor population, which makes up two thirds of the country’s 3.1 million people, has viewed female obesity as a status symbol, with thinness being a sign that a woman’s husband could not afford to feed her. As a result, in order to display wealth, higher-income girls were fattened with milk to make them more desirable to potential suitors. Exemplifying this relationship between obesity and attractiveness, a Moor proverb asserts that “the woman occupies in her man’s heart the space she occupies in his bed.” By creating a direct relationship between weight and desirability, this beauty standard encourages extreme behavior.
Force-Feeding and Early Marriage of Young Girls
This extremity is evident in the abuse of young girls at the hands of force-feeders like Elhacen. Girls as young as five are sent to “fattening farms” to gorge on calorie-dense foods such as millet and camel milk. Force-feeding can also occur at home, often supervised by a girl’s mother. Activist Lemrabott Brahim describes how this mother-daughter dynamic perpetuates leblouh, explaining that the practice is “deeply-rooted in the minds and hearts of Mauritanian mothers, particularly in the remote areas.” Disciplined by their mothers or force-feeders, girls may be force-fed up to 16,000 calories daily, which can include up to five gallons of milk. Older female force-feeders or relatives who conduct the leblouh employ brutal tactics to keep their girls eating. For example, the “zayar” technique involves positioning a girl’s toe between two sticks and pinching it when she resists leblouh. The supervisor may also “pull her ear, pinch her inner thigh, bend her finger backward or force her to drink her own vomit,” and girls are further threatened with beatings if they do not finish their food. A 2013 study using survey data from 2000 found that “over 61% of those who had experienced gavage reported being beaten during the process and almost one-third (29%) reported having their fingers broken to encourage participation." In addition to these excruciating injuries, Mar Jubero Capdeferro of the U.N. Population Fund notes that leblouh is increasingly dangerous because some force-feeders have transitioned from using camel’s milk to force-feeding young girls “with chemicals used to fatten animals.”
In a 2018 Unreported World documentary, reporter Sahar Zand witnessed this cruelty firsthand, interacting with Mauritanian women to learn more about leblouh. She describes how girls are fattened during the rainy season, when food is more plentiful, gaining a targeted seven kilograms. According to Zand, about 25 percent of Mauritanian women endure leblouh, but the percentage could be as high as 75 percent in rural communities where women are especially vulnerable “because there are no distractions and no easy ways to escape.” Zand focuses on one particular group of rural nomads with two young girls undergoing leblouh. It takes them each two hours to finish a 3,000-calorie breakfast, followed by a 4,000-calorie lunch and a 2,000-calorie dinner. By the end of the feeding season, the girls will consume 16,000 calories every day. Zand tried the leblouh diet—after lunch, she could not continue, but the little girls were forced to keep eating. “It’s horrible,” she describes. A force feeder claimed that pushing her daughter through leblouh is an act of love. Trying to explain how mothers could inflict such “pain and torture” on their own daughters, Zand concludes: “This is a society where a woman’s biggest power is to be beautiful, and to be beautiful, you have to be fat.”
Zand could have easily re-phrased this statement as: “This is a society where a woman’s biggest power is to marry, and to marry, you have to be fat.” The 2013 study breaks down the centrality of child marriage to leblouh, for “the large size of these force-fed girls creates an illusion that they are physically mature and ready for marriage.” In creating this illusion, leblouh suppresses the marrying age of girls, perpetuating a child marriage crisis. Legally, Mauritanian women must be 18 years old to marry, but de facto, younger brides are common; a 2015 study concluded that “nearly one out of three girls aged between 15 and 19 gets married.” According to 2019 data, 37 percent of Mauritanian girls marry before age 18. Often, these young girls marry older men. One 29-year-old victim of child marriage began leblouh at age four, married at 12, and got pregnant at 13 “right after [her] first period.” These child marriages and pregnancies severely jeopardize the physical and mental health of the female Mauritanian population.
Long-Term Health Consequences of Leblouh
Even after marriage, women continue to suffer from extreme beauty expectations. Dr. Mohammed Ould Madene recalled a patient: “She was only 14, but so huge that her heart almost collapsed under the strain.” He worries about women’s risk of weight-related health problems such as diabetes and heart disease. Other long-term effects of obesity include hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, osteoarthritis, poor mental health, decreased mobility, sleep apnea, and cancer. Due to leblouh, these national health concerns disproportionately impact women: as of 2016, 18.5 percent of Mauritanian women were obese, compared to only 6.6 percent of men.
These statistics are particularly alarming in the context of a global pandemic, for which obese individuals have higher “risks of hospitalization, intensive care unit admission admission, invasive mechanical ventilation, and death” from COVID-19. Considering barriers to healthcare access in Mauritania (the country has only 0.18 physicians for every 1000 citizens, compared to 2.59 physicians in the United States), obese Mauritanian adults are especially vulnerable to complications from the coronavirus. This additional risk underscores the fact that exacting beauty standards are severely limiting women’s health and lifestyle opportunities. One 26-year-old woman describes this dilemma: “I’m always tired, and I wheeze when I walk. I want to be slimmer so I can be more dynamic…I’d love to be able to wear jeans and high heels. I want to diet, but I’m scared men won’t like me anymore.” Her words exemplify the extreme pressures on women to sacrifice their mental and physical health to appease the male gaze, a practice especially detrimental during the COVID-19 crisis.
Medication Abuse and Black Market Drugs
However, obesity is not the only threat, for many women abuse medications and take black market drugs to become obese more quickly. These drugs include birth control, cortisone, and even livestock medications, such as “hormones used to fatten camels and chickens.” One 26-year-old woman, whose husband reportedly “didn’t like sleeping with a bag of bones,” has resorted to allergy drugs that peripherally boost weight gain at the risk of other complications. “I bought this one because the pharmacist told me it was the least dangerous,” she explained. These drugs are easy to purchase and not heavily regulated, which can—according to one pharmacist—be partially attributed to the profitability of black market drug sales to an eager female market. When Sahar Zand visited the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, she noted the openness and conspicuousness of these drug sales, remarking, “That was too easy. They weren’t even trying to hide it.” Such markets teem with feeders buying drugs for their girls and older women buying for themselves. Zand even met a family whose daughter died from taking weight-gain steroids, yet another daughter continues to take the same steroid. Dr. Madene’s words effectively summarize the crisis: Mauritania’s beauty standards are “a grave matter of public health.”
Backsliding After the 2008 Military Coup
Recent political events offer some insight into this crisis. By 2007, the obesity obsession appeared to be improving—the Mauritanian government was trying to bolster national public health and raise awareness surrounding the dangers of obesity. The New York Times even joked: “Until lately, a Mauritanian woman in jogging shoes was about as common as a camel in stiletto heels.” Beauty standards were evolving, and increasingly health-conscious. However, the murder of French tourists by al-Qaeda in 2007 resulted in fewer foreign visitors to Mauritania, and after a military coup in 2008 that ousted the democratic regime, the incoming junta began to revive traditional values under the leadership of General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. Aminetou Moctar, leader of the activist group Women Heads of Households, bitterly remarked, “The authorities want women to return to their traditional roles—cooking, staying indoors, and staying fat to keep men happy.” Aminetou Mint Ely, a member of the same organization, expressed similar sentiments:
"We have gone backwards. We had a Ministry of Women's Affairs. We had achieved a parliamentary quota of 20 percent of seats. We had female diplomats and governors. The military [has] set us back by decades, sending us back to our traditional roles. We no longer even have a ministry to talk to."
The government’s unraveling of cultural progress helps explain why Mauritanian law still fails to hold the perpetrators of leblouh accountable. Fatimata M’baye, a lawyer for children’s rights, laments: “I have never managed to bring a case in [defense] of a force-fed child. The politicians are scared of questioning their own traditions.” Therefore, the government actively perpetuates the brutal subjection of girls to leblouh, child marriages, and continuous pressures to fatten themselves.
Paths for Progress
However, amidst this regression, there is hope for progress. The success of pre-coup awareness campaigns indicates that Mauritanian women are open to prioritizing health and loosening the hold of beauty standards. After the government began to educate citizens about ethical treatment of children and physical health in 2003, rates of leblouh began to decline. Kajwan Zuhour, who worked in a female-only gym in Nouakchott, noticed more and more customers by 2009: “Women don't want to be fat anymore, they want to be thin,” she said. This changed outlook emerged from the work of women like Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud, who was involved in government information programs. She described how many women were unaware of leblouh’s extreme health risks: “The diet here is very rich—they eat couscous, pure lard…[and] don't know this food is fattening, so we explain to the women what to eat every day, so they don't put on weight and they can protect themselves from diseases.'' This observation indicates that future information campaigns must be multifaceted to cover various demographics; some women deliberately feed themselves—and force-feed young girls—fattening food to gain weight, while other women unknowingly consume similar foods. Perhaps, this difference can be partially explained by an urban-rural divide, in which rural women are more familiar with leblouh and the foods most conducive to weight gain. Although this variation underscores the need for additional specialized information campaigns, sweeping, nation-wide efforts to boost awareness of leblouh’s adverse health effects are still worthwhile. Aminetou Mint Ely of the Association of Women Heads of Households remarked that “the government even commissioned ballads condemning fattening,” demonstrating the creative extent of its efforts.
Since the new military junta began dismantling and reversing these governmental programs, the role of private sector organizations has become increasingly important. For example, May Mint Haidy founded an NGO to promote healthier habits among Mauritanian women: “We have carried out a campaign to convince these women to give up the habit of forced feeding. The reason we as an NGO are trying to spread the message is because this forced feeding can lead to dangerous diseases like heart attacks, blood diseases.” These messages are important to ensure adult women do not jeopardize their own health or that of their young daughters. With this mission in mind, NGOs can revive and build upon the work of prior governmental campaigns, counteracting traditional rhetoric glorifying obesity. They should also work to “empower women economically and politically, especially in rural areas, and…reduce illiteracy,” which would further promote physical and mental health. The primary motivations for leblouh and the consumption of weight-gain drugs are early marriage and male validation. If women feel secure and capable in their own right, they would be less likely to sacrifice their health for others. Empowerment and improved literacy would also battle child marriage, arm women against misogynistic government rhetoric, enable them to pursue careers, and help them not only avoid self-destructive practices, but actively take charge of their well-being.
In order to ensure that such efforts reach women in rural areas—a problem noted by Aminetou Mint Ely, May Mint Haidy, and Yeserha Mint Mohamed Mahmoud—larger NGOs will likely need to partner with local community groups and “traditional information sources.” Immediately before the coup in 2007, Haidy told the New York Times that only about 25 percent of Mauritanian women watched TV and even fewer tuned into radio programs; since this statistic aggregated all women across the country, it suggests that the rate of media consumption is even lower for women in rural areas. Given these limitations, NGOs should also consider forging connections with religious leaders, expanding the role of mosques to encompass both worship and education.
After all, many imams have already demonstrated their commitment to uplifting women and children through existing media channels. For example, the Sahel Women’s Empowerment and Demographic Dividend project (SWEDD)—which spans multiple African nations including Mauritania, Mali, and Niger—combats child marriage and uplifts women through radio. If imams involved in such efforts could spread these positive messages to rural mosques, ideally partnering with local religious leaders, women without access to radio could be empowered as well. Hademine Saleck Ely, an imam in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott and a member of SWEDD, powerfully articulates Islam’s moral repudiation of practices that harm women: “Islam is a religion that honours human beings. Any action that harms an individual's physical or mental health is therefore forbidden.” Given this support, local community religious leaders may be critical in the fight to ensure messages about the dangers of leblouh reach women across Mauritania.
Mauritania’s beauty standards—manifesting in the force-feeding of young girls, child marriage, and the abuse of weight gain medications—are centuries-old. However, they are not immune to change. Information campaigns about healthy habits, the many dangers of force-feeding, and child advocacy are promising avenues for progress, especially with the assistance of religious leaders to spread positive messages in rural areas. Additional initiatives to empower women and increase literacy would help dismantle patriarchal gender relations and foster female independence. The tenacious advocacy of women such as Aminetou Mint Ely and May Mint Haidy prove that such solutions are entirely possible. With their help, the health and beauty of Mauritanian women can cease to be mutually exclusive.