Killing Their Breasts: How Far Will Women Go to Avoid Rape..?

It is harder than ever to be a woman in this world. Sexual assault against women worldwide, occurs once every 2 minutes. It would stand to reason that women would try to find ways to prevent these assaults, both for themselves and their daughters. Ironically however, some of these efforts cause the very trauma they try to avoid. From female circumcision, to the legal requirement that women wear burqa's, women though the ages have been forced into practices that attempt to lessen their sex appeal, and decrease their chances of being raped. In Cameroon, the secret practice of 'Breast Ironing' falls into this category. Sadly, it does not work to curtail violence on womens' bodies, it IS violence on womens' bodies.

Women and men alike need rape education, NOT body mutilation. Although surely unintended, practices like these reinforce a "blame the victim" mentality, as if a woman's looks are responsible for a man's actions. Men don't rape women because of how big her breasts are. He rapes her to gain control.

If ironing breasts is not going to help a man achieve a healthy self-worth, then it certainly won't prevent him from raping someone. Leave your breasts alone. Use that iron to bash his head in.

-WTS

Breast ironing is a human rights violation. According to UNPFA, (Friends of the United Nations Population Fund), one out of every four girls in Cameroon has been affected by breast ironing, equating to nearly 4 million young women. 

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, and usually heard the sounds of her cousins playing.

But one particular day, the hut was eerily quiet.

“When I approached the hut I heard my cousin crying inside,” Leina said. “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. Grandma 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.

"Interestingly, women did not know how harmful this practice is. To them, they are merely keeping their daughters out of the eyes of sex predators. Not knowing that it is even better for this children to be sexually attractive now, than sexually unresponsive in future."

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.

As Per the US State Departments 2011 Report: “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. One-third of unwanted pregnancies occur between the ages of 13 and 25, with more than half falling pregnant after their first sexual encounter.”

"The medical personnel in our team disclosed the health risks of breast ironing, and behold, mothers wept at their ignorance. They could not imagine that what they see as mere help can adversely affect the lives of their daughters. Some women started telling their stories;

• Some say since they ironed their daughters’ breasts years ago, it has refused to grow again
• Some say that their daughters’ breast has grown extraordinarily big after the ironing
• Some say that their daughters’ breasts have grown in an unimaginable way; one very big and 
  one very small; one growing naturally and the other developing a hole in the middle; some
  growing in a shrinking manner.

The revelations were enormous. I could not help but weep when these women continued to reveal what they have been doing to their daughters and what they have passed through as victims of this painful and traumatizing act."

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."

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.

"Our next stop was at CWF Musang - Bamenda. It is another women’s group of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon. At CWF Musang meeting, I cried more than anyone else. In the course of the lectures the women started dishing out the different methods they use in ironing their daughters’ breasts:

• Use of grinding stone that they have
   heated on fire
• The use of hot banana
• The use of hot broken clay pot
• The use of herbs
• The use of hot cutlasses

And then as one woman mentioned that there is a method where the girl is sent under the bed, and then a hot mortar pestle is used to pound the breast from outside the bed by the mother."

Despite the suffering caused 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.

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. 

Leina Agwetang

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.

Leina’s organization has already reached over 15,000 women.

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.


For Leina what is most troubling about breast ironing is the resulting the emotional scars.

“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.”


Follow Nia Hamm on Twitter at @niaahamm

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