A growing Public Health Concern that must be decried!!!!!!!!
Have you heard about this practice??????
Breast ironing is a traditional practice consisting of massaging and/or flattening young pubescent girls breast with hot tools( I will talk about more further) in an attempt to disguise the signs of development. The reasoning behind this custom is to delay sexual intercourse, harassment, rape, and undesirable/early pregnancies.
Breast ironing is usually performed on young females breasts- age 10-19-by their mothers or a close relative. In some families, it's passed down from the grandmother to the daughter.
According to the perpetrators, this ignoble practice aims at deterring unwanted pregnancies, unscrupulous and malicious sexual behaviors, early sexual activities, and precocious marriages.
The prevalence of breast ironing is observed in Cameroon and some other parts of African countries like Central African Republic, Bénin, Tchad, Côte D'Ivoire, Guinée-Conakry, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo, and Zimbabwe. The United Nations estimate that around 3.8 millions of young females are victims of breast ironing- with Cameroon holding the highest number of cases.
Notwithstanding this practice, the prevalence of early pregnancies and rape incidences( this excludes under-reported cases as a result of stigmatization) among young girls remain high in Cameroon. Breast ironing practice hasn't really helped as a deterrent....
Sexual harassment, unwanted pregnancies, and rape are still a rife.
The following example isn't an isolated case: Veronica was just 28, mother of 5 girls and grandmother of 1 , and her oldest daughter has gotten pregnant at age 14. In an attempt to protect the younger siblings from getting pregnant at such a young age, Verinocia started to flatten their breast at age 10. She was trying her best to protect her daughters against predators.
There are 2 methods carried by those involved in this practice.
The first consists of heating tools like pestle, heavy stone, metal, sticks, spatulas, spoons, grinding stones, hot coconut shelves, and hot leaves over hot charcoals fire, and apply them against breasts with the intention of flattening and stunting their growth.
The second method involves wrapping the girl's chest with an elastic tight band overnight like shown in the picture. This makes the young female very uncomfortable during her sleep.
While at the moment no medical studies have been undertaken on the effects of breast ironing, experts are of the assumption that it can lead to breast cancer, the formation of abscesses cysts, complications from breastfeeding, discharge of milk, breast damage tissues, etc.... There are further speculations that there can be permanent damage to milk ducts, infection, dissymmetry of the breasts, cancer, breast infections, severe fever, tissue damage and even the complete disappearance of one or both breasts.Victims of this practice also end up with marks, wrinkles and black spots on their breasts(Tchoukou 2014).But I believe that the inescapable scars is psychological( depression, fear, anxiety, frustration, confusion, emotional pain, etc...).
My take on the issue is the need for sexual education in schools; the necessity to empower and educate young girls about risks of unprotected sex; Quite often young ladies don't understand their bodies changes when they reach puberty. In traditional African societies, raising the topic of sexuality among youngsters is still considered a taboo topic.
The social disorganization(family disruption, poverty, lower socioeconomic status) is certainly a predicting factor in pushing these young girls to engage in risky sexual behaviors leading to undesirable consequences. These mothers' desire is to protect their daughters against sexual predators, but they certainly don't know any other means. As indicated, the deterrence of sexual harassment is somewhere else.... not in breast ironing.
I can also speak for acculturation and loss of fundamentals values formerly instilled in young females(preserving their bodies until marriage, and not having children outside the wedlock).
How would I classify this issue?
A violence against women?
Child abused?
Violation of human rights?
I want to have your take on this issue.
Were you aware of this practice?
Share please!
Bawe RN (2013)Breast Ironing : A harmful traditional practice in Cameroon. Gender Empowerment and Development (GeED).
Julie Ada Tchoukou(2014) Introducing the Practice of Breast Ironing as a Human Rights Issue in Cameroon
Ndifor.M.I(2007). Breast Ironing in Cameroon: Just a rumor? Karolinska Institute, Department of public health
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