Washington Post Opinion Piece Draws Attention to Breast Ironing in Cameroon

March 8, 2010 — In a Washington Post opinion piece on Sunday, freelance writer Jamie Rich examined the Cameroonian practice of breast ironing, in which women use heated plantain leaves or hot stones to "flatten adolescent girls' developing breasts, intending to protect the girls from the dangers of sex, consensual or otherwise." The issue gained some international attention in 2006, when a not-for-profit launched an awareness campaign and the State Department began including breast ironing in its annual international human rights report. "But despite the increased attention, the practice persists," Rich says.

Local health advocates estimate that breast ironing affects as many as one in four girls, according to Rich, who interviewed Cameroonian women, girls, doctors and community organizers about the practice while living in the country. She writes, "Despite the pain and fear, many of the women and girls involved in breast ironing considered it a normal treatment for early breast development." Women believe that masking the development of their daughters' breasts will stave off attention from boys and men, Rich says. She adds, "Mothers told me they forcibly try to eliminate signs of puberty to protect their preteen girls from HIV and pregnancy. One mother explained that she did it out of love."

Rich continues, "In Cameroon, being young and pregnant is not uncommon." Local health workers estimates that about 30% of women experience unwanted pregnancies, she writes. Serges Moykam -- an ob-gyn in Douala, Cameroon -- said that promiscuity and rape both contribute to the high teen pregnancy rate and that breast ironing has no effect on either. He estimated that pregnant girls ages 12 to 17 make up 25% to 30% of his patients, adding, "It's very rare to see a 13-year-old girl who is still a virgin."

According to Flavien Ndonko -- an anthropologist at the German Agency for Technical Cooperation who runs the organization that launched the 2006 campaign -- breast ironing can lead to abscesses, infection, deformation, lactation problems, cysts, emotional stress and possibly breast cancer.

Rich writes that various groups take different approaches to combating breast ironing. Justine Kwachu, executive director of Women in Alternative Action, lobbies for criminalizing breast ironing, with 10-year prison sentences for individuals convicted of the practice. However, Vice Speaker of the National Assembly Emilia Lifaka said that few women still practice the custom and that education, not legislation, should be the approach to curbing breast ironing (Rich, Washington Post, 3/7).