BEHIND THE CLOSED DOORS of Cameroon's homes, mothers are torturing their pubescent girls with grinding stones, mortar pestles, coconut shells or even hammers heated over hot coals.

These painful and humiliating episodes are designed to halt or delay the development of their girls' breasts and to destroy any indication of emerging womanhood.  The mothers believe the resulting disfiguration prevents the young girls from becoming objects of male desire, and so protects the daughters from rape and premarital pregnancy.

The list of offenses against women in Cameroon grows long: genitals are mutilated; breasts flattened; bodies battered; hair cut off for rituals; and minds deprived of education. There is no compensation for hard labor that lasts from dawn to dusk in fields and backyards. Women are working the most, yet they are benefiting the least. The hands that rock the cradle that rules the world are described by many as a “necessary evil”.

And now the breast itself - a feminine symbol and the pride of womanhood - has become a target. Yet very few women who have been victims of breast ironing will acknowledge the fact. Many claim never to have heard about it.

That was Lindsay’s reaction when I first questioned her. Looking at her chest, I noticed a deformity and so suspected she must have “been there”. I kept visiting her in her tailoring workshop and talking about the need for women to share their sad experiences with others in order to help find solutions. I told her about my personal fight with my grandma which freed me from being a victim of breast ironing.  And I told her about my cousin who dropped out of school as a result of the act.

One day I dared to ask Lindsay again if she had ever been subject to breast ironing, and she nodded, her eyes fixed on her toes. She related the experience she had at the age of 11:

“On my way back from evening classes one day, I noticed my trousers were wet. I hid myself in a nearby bush to find out if I had unconsciously urinated in my pants. To my greatest surprise, it was blood. I was so frightened and ran to inform mama so we could go to the health center. I was so sure I had been wounded by a nail which was hanging out of the bench on which I sat in class that day.

I found mama slicing vegetables and chatting with my aunt. I began screaming right away, telling them I had a big wound in my private parts. Mama pulled me to the bathroom and asked me to show her the wound, when I did, she asked me if any boy had 'touched me' and I said no.

“I felt like an outcast amongst other girls. I knew many of my friends whose mothers did not press their breasts, and it made me feel sad. I spent my whole days in class thinking about what grandma will do to me after school, and so could not study. I ended up failing my exams and was dismissed for extremely poor academic performance,” confesses Aline.
 
At the 2000 United Nations (UN) Millennium Summit, countries agreed to focus development plans on eight goals, one of which is to eradicate gender disparities at all levels of educations by 2015.This is an an enormous challenge for sub-Saharan countries like Cameroon. Though Cameroon has progressed remarkably at the primary level of education, the secondary education still lags badly.

According to a 2003 UN report, the female-to-male ratio in school enrollment stands at about 0.80 at the secondary level and 0.45 at the tertiary level. This disparity is fueled by cultural practices like breast ironing and early marriages. Some families in Cameroon prefer to spend their resources on educating male children while keeping the girls at home for domestic chores.

It is not unthinkable that a Cameroonian girl could have her vagina mutilated at the age of nine and her breasts ironed at the age of 10, causing her to drop out of school at the age of 12 due to psychological trauma.  This girl could then be forced into marriage at the age of 15 and become a mother of six at age 23.  And if she were widowed at 30, she would be forced to undergo another set of dehumanizing widowhood rituals.

Such a woman would likely go through life regretting that she was born a woman.  She will never rejoice at the birth of a female in her family again.

Inflicting pain on girl children through breast ironing is, ironically, likely to result in the very outcome it is intended to prevent: forcing young girls to seek love away home and falling prey to premarital sex, and pregnancy or disease. Through counseling and a good education, however, it is possible to teach Cameroon's daughters to love and protect their bodies.

"Despite the ironing, pressing and massaging with hot kitchen utensils, my breasts refused to flatten, making me an object of scorn amongst my mates whose chests were still flat.”

Medical experts say the developing tissues in the breasts are forcibly expanded and destroyed by heat during the ironing. Research by the United Nations Population Fund reveals that breast ironing raises girls' risk for abscesses, cysts, itching, and discharge of milk. There can be permanent damage to milk ducts, infection, and dissymmetry of the breasts, cancer, breast infections, severe fever, tissue damage and even the complete disappearance of one or both breasts. Victims end up with marks, wrinkles and black marks on their breast.

Another victim reported that she developed breast cancer as a result of the mutilation and ended up losing one of her breasts in a surgery. She says her mother initially saw the cancer as a spell and resorted to more intense ironing sessions using a knife, heated over an open flame, to press them.

Like female genital mutilation, breast ironing violates women and young girls' fundamental right to enjoy good health, physical integrity and, of course, freedom from torture.  Yet even this violent approach has failed to stall an epidemic of premarital pregnancies, which have risen to approximately 30% of births, according to local health care workers.  The real culprit is a lack of effective sexual education.

Despite this evidence, many mothers prefer to make their daughters’ breasts less attractive to males - or to destroy them completely - rather than to face the embarrassment of talking about sex with the girls. With improved dietary habits in the country, girls are beginning to reach puberty as early as nine years of age, which in turns means the age of girls' first encounter with breast mutilation is also dropping.

Worried and otherwise well-intentioned mothers say their intent is not to inflict pain on their daughters but to protect them from the taboo of teenage pregnancy.  And for those mothers that cannot endure the sight of their daughters in pain during breast ironing, there are often local women who serve as professional breast flatteners who exchange their services for palm oil and wood.

"So long as it will not kill the girl, I will prefer the breast to be deformed and have her go through her education without an unwanted pregnancy or the deadly HIV virus," one mother told me.

According to gender consultant Dr. Awa Magdalene such practices rob girls of the self confidence they need to assert themselves in society later on in life. It is therefore a dual enemy to women’s emancipation. It not only violates the rights of women by inflicting pain but prevents them from accepting their bodies as normal human beings.

Given the secrecy that surrounds the practice, it is unlikely that breast ironing will ever be completely eradicated.  But pro-woman activists are working toward zero tolerance for the practice.

The effects of a recent nationwide education campaign by The Network of Aunties Association (RENATA), which is run by victims of breast ironing, are yet to be established. The campaign which took place in 2006, used radio and TV spots to prevent mothers from resorting to breast ironing.

Much needs to be done to kill the culture of silence, for so long as there is silence, no one can determine the harm done to little girls in the secrecy of homes.  These pubescent girls are still mere children and ought to benefit from children’s rights described in the Convention of the Rights of the Child. According to Article 19 of the convention,

States parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse while in the care of parents(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child."

The terms of this convention, ratified in Cameroon in 1993, state that the government has a legal responsibility to protect these girls from the injury and abuse brought about by breast ironing.

The perpetrators of this act are not in hiding. They can be found at any time, but nothing is ever done. The law's protections only take effect if it is medically proven that the breast has been damaged and if the case is reported within a few months of the damage.

Unfortunately, no girl has ever been bold enough to report her mother to a court of law. Blessing Nabila, a student in her final year of law school at University of Yaoundé, says she finds no use in reporting such a matter. She says issues of women’s rights are often handled nonchalantly in Cameroon's courts, except for a few cases handled by those female lawyers devoted to the cause.

The Preamble of the Constitution of the Republic of Cameroon itself says, “human beings, without distinction of race, religion, belief, possess inalienable and sacred rights,” and Article 1(2) calls for equality of all citizens before the law.  Ironically, the unequal status of women and girls in Cameroon is evident in all spheres of life, and discriminatory administrative policies, practices, laws, cultural beliefs and attitudes continue to curb women's enjoyment of their rights.

The more educated and exposed a woman is, the less likely she is to be convinced that a brutal act such as breast ironing could ever be a solution to the problem of teenage sex. Educated women understand the need for sex education, and will be more likely to counsel their daughters about their sexuality rather than mutilate their bodies.

Unfortunately, female education is not yet at acceptable standards in the country due to a number of factors, nearly all of which stem from cultural beliefs. Breast ironing reinforces this problem, since victims often drop out of school. The psychological trauma that accompanies the act usually makes it difficult for the girls to concentrate in school.