Breast ironing: 'Girls had Chests Flattened Out' to Disguise the Onset Of Puberty
The
mutilation is a traditional practice from Cameroon designed to deter
unwanted male attention, pregnancy and rape by delaying the signs that a
girl is becoming a woman. Experts believe that the custom is being
practiced amongst the several thousand Cameroonians now living here.
A
conference on how to prevent the abuse both in the UK and overseas is
being held today in Ealing, west London. Its organisers, a charity
called CAME Women’s and Girl’s Development Organisation (Cawogido), is
already working with the Met Police and social services to tackle the
problem.
The Independent understands a woman was arrested
two years ago in London because police believed she had performed the
procedure on her daughter. She was later released without charge,
although the Metropolitan Police was unable to confirm the report but
the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) said that the practice
was known to them. An Acpo spokesman said: “Similarly to the way we deal
with cases of female genital mutilation, we would treat this as a form
of child abuse. Police would take steps to safeguard the child or young
person and build a case of child abuse to put to the CPS for a decision
on charging.”
The UN has identified breast ironing as one of five
forgotten crimes against women and estimates that some 3.8 million
teenagers are affected. As well as being painful, it exposes girls to
health problems including abscesses, cysts, infection, tissue damage and
even the disappearance of one or both breasts.
Margaret
Nyuydzewira, co-founder and chair of Cawogido, said: “Breast ironing is a
practice that happens in the privacy of people’s homes so it’s hard to
see who is doing it. I am sure it is happening here, but people are not
willing to talk about it. It’s like female genital mutilation: you know
it’s happening but you’re not going to see it.
“I was contacted by
a police officer who arrested a lady for breast ironing her daughter.
There was a discussion of what the laws were and in the end they
released her because it was a cultural practice. My argument is if it
harms kids it should be against the law.” Breast ironing is common in
Cameroon but rarely discussed. Research in 2006 by a Cameroonian women’s
organisation and Germany’s Association for International Co-operation
(GTZ) found that one in four females in the country had experienced it.
In more than half of cases it is mothers who perform the procedure,
believing they were protecting their daughters. While most widespread in
Cameroon, similar customs have been documented in Nigeria, Togo,
Republic of Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa.
Cameroonian
journalist and women’s rights advocate Chi Yvonne Leina is founder and
coordinator of Gender Danger, a grassroots women’s organisation that is
fighting to end breast ironing. While her cousin was subjected to it by
their grandmother, Leina managed to resist and is now lobbying to wipe
out the practice altogether.
She said: “Mothers don’t want other
people to know they’re doing it. When my grandmother said she was going
to iron my breasts I told her I would shout and scream if she did and
tell the neighbours. She didn’t do it as she knew her secret would be
out.”
Leina believes the only way the practice will stop is if
women talk to each other about it. She said: “We need the silence to be
broken. When we move from place to place we carry on our cultures, so
anywhere where there’s a high concentration of Cameroonians I would
expect it to happen.”
Case study: My mother ‘ironed’ my breasts until they disappeared
"My
breasts developed fast when I was 12 and my mum said she’d have to iron
them so they’d disappear and come out later. There’s a particular leaf
in Cameroon that people use. They put it in the fire and then when it
was really hot they press it and massage it on the breast. It was very
painful and I cried a lot. But that didn’t work, so later they used a
long stick like a pestle heated in the fire. They repeated it after two
days and again until the breasts disappeared. It was so painful I
couldn’t sleep. When I was 18 my breasts did develop but with a lot of
malformation.
We need to do everything possible to stop this happening anymore. There’s no reason people should be doing this.”
