Cameroon ‘Aunties’ educate to protect rural girls from breast ironing

Eva Fernández Ortiz – Women News Network – WNN

Cameroon girls face multiple dangers as their bodies mature, including the dangers of early pregnancy where traditions have lead mothers to use any means necessary, including breast ironing, in efforts to protect them. Image: Carsten ten Brink

(WNN) CAMEROON: All mothers will do whatever it takes to protect their children’s well being. In Cameroon, this ‘protection’ goes as far as burning their teenage daughters’ breasts. Breast ironing is a traditional practice that painfully affects about one in four girls in Cameroon, Africa. But new education programs for girls by Cameroon volunteer ‘Aunties’ are showing progress.
“I was 11 years old. My mum did it to me. She put the pestle next to the fireside and massaged the breast. It was very painful…,” remembers Cameroonian Lindsay Efuengho, who is twenty-two-years-old.