WUNRN
CAMEROON - ACTIVIST FIGHTS BREAST
IRONING, A RITUAL MUTILATION OF GIRLS
Volunteers
from Gender Danger and women and girls who have participated in outreach
programs about breast ironing. (Photo courtesy of Chi Yvonne Leina)
By
In
Cameroon, the breast, one of the most conspicuous signs of a woman’s femininity,
is a target for ritual mutilation. Breast ironing, apractice that involves flattening a young
girl’s breasts with highly-heated stones, pestles, spatulas or coconut shells
among other objects, is often carried out by an older female relative on a
victim.
It
is considered a human rights violation by the Friends of the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA).
According
to UNPFA, one out of every four girls in Cameroon has been affected
by breast ironing, equating to nearly 4 million young women. Breast
ironing is primarily practiced in the Christian and Animist south of Cameroon,
and less frequently in the Muslim north, where only 10 percent of women are
affected. It is also practiced in Guinea-Bissau, Chad, Togo, Benin, and
Guinea among African countries.
As
a 14-year-old girl, Chi Yvonne Leina, now 32, became a witness to this custom,
which is practiced by all 200 ethnic tribes in Cameroon. She often went to
her grandmother’s hut after school, which is located in the Northwest region of
Cameroon, and usually heard the sounds of her cousins playing.
But
one particular day, the hut was eerily quiet.
“[W]hen
I approached the hut I heard my cousin crying inside,” Leina told theGrio. “I
was curious, so I peeped through a small crack in the door.”
What
Leina saw next would change her life forever. “I heard my cousin groaning
and I saw my grandmother warming a small grinding stone. [G]randma was using
that small stone, which she warmed on the fire, to press my cousin’s breast, and
was pressing hard on the breast, and she was crying.”
That
was Leina ’s first encounter with breast ironing. Although this practice can
result in physical damage in addition to retarding developing breasts, many elders
condone it. Mothers or close relatives of young girls who perform the
practice believe breast ironing will deter sexual predators.
Those
who carry out breast ironing hope to minimize young girls’ sexual activity, so
they get an education and become financially independent. Teen pregnancy
out of wedlock is on the rise in the region. Such a life event curtails any
hope a young woman has of pursuing a lucrative career.
In
its 2011 human rights report on Cameroon, the U.S. State Department explained
the cultural motivation for stunting breast growth among adolescent girls.
“The procedure was considered a way to delay a girl’s physical development,
thus limiting the risk of sexual assault and teenage pregnancy,” the report
states. “Girls as young as nine were subjected to the practice, which resulted
in burns, deformities, and psychological problems.”
Yet,
there is strong evidence that breast ironing does not achieve the desired
goals. “Statistics confirm that in addition to being a human rights violation,
the practice is ineffective in deterring pre-marital pregnancy,” according to a
Friends of the UNPFA press release. “One-third of unwanted pregnancies occur between
the ages of 13 and 25, with more than half falling pregnant after their first
sexual encounter.”
For
many women, including Leina’s cousin, the negative effects can be deep, long-lasting,
and counterproductive to personal growth.
“All
I know is she became suddenly a shy person, which she wasn’t before,” Leina
said. “And she fell out of school and got pregnant some years after.”
In
2007, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) became one of the first
agencies in the west to report on the practice. Dr. Flavien Ndonko of GTZ,
in research he shared with theGrio, listed among breast ironing’s many
dangerous consequences: high fever, breast cancer, severe chest pain, infection
as a result of scarification, cysts, breast deformities and complete disappearance
of the breasts.
“Saying
that breasts are destroyed is an understatement,” Dr. Ndonko said in previously
published reports. “Adolescents are traumatized, mutilated. This is a
serious damage not only on their physical integrity, but also on their psychological
well-being.”
Despite
the suffering called by breast ironing, it persists in both rural areas and
cities. Older women, often in secret and unbeknownst to men, undertake
the torturous operation with faith that it will prevent the difficulties
suffered by young women who experience sexual assault, or sex without
preparation.
Authorities
have tried to stress the need for education and contraception as humane,
effective substitutes, yet this tradition, which some says dates back to the
1800s, continues.
Several
months after Leina witnessed her cousin’s agony, her grandmother attempted to
iron her breasts as well. Leina resisted and threatened to alert the entire
neighborhood, so she was spared. “From that day it came to my mind that
when you use your voice you can actually free yourself from some things,” she
said of the incident.
This
experience influenced the young woman’s decision to study journalism and women’s
studies as a university student.
During
the years since, Leina, has worked as a journalist for magazines and in
television, reporting extensively on breast ironing. One year ago she also
founded Gender Danger, a non-profit that helps spread awareness about breast
ironing in the hopes of ending the practice.
Mrs.
Agwetang is one of the 35 volunteers working for Gender Danger in Cameroon who
go into communities at least once a month to lecture girls and women about the
dangers of breast ironing.
“We
have women that we have trained on this very issue who can go out and also
support other women,” Agwetang said.
Leina’s
organization has already reached over 15,000 women. In the near future it hopes
to reach many more girls and women in Cameroon who are affected by breast
ironing daily.
Because
the custom is clothed in secrecy, taking place behind closed doors between
women, Agwetang believes many girls don’t know how to process the pain.
“Sometimes
there are certain things that happen to a girl at an age, and [at] that time
she doesn’t understand,” she told theGrio. “She just goes through the
things and she bares the pain and she just prays about it.”
For
Leina what is most troubling about breast ironing is the resulting the emotional
scars.
“Your
mom is doing that to you. What is the message she’s passing to you as a little
girl?” Leina said. “That you’re having breasts: It’s wrong, it’s shameful. You
don’t like your body.”
As
the practice is taboo, victims often suffer in silence. But thanks to Leina
and other activists fighting to end it, more victims and even perpetrators have
been speaking out against it.
“I
think it’s the culture,” Agwetang said. “They don’t want to talk about certain
things. But now that we are going out… they open up and they tell you their
experiences. And even some parents, they tell you what they did to their children
and they really regret it.”