Breast ironing, a painful practice for Cameroon's girls

By Jamie Rich (Originally published in the Washington Post)

DOUALA, CAMEROON -- A small pack of elementary-school-age kids surrounded me every time I left my favorite lunch spot, Chez Noura. They held up old wine bottles filled with fried groundnuts. "Madame, please, I need to eat," they shouted. 
 Breast Ironing "tools" (c) Washington Post

I never bought the nuts. I ran the eight-foot gantlet from the Lebanese restaurant's entrance to my parked Toyota SUV, with my 2-year-old daughter, Elle, slung over my hip. Sometimes I gave the kids taffy or leftover shawarma. Usually, I quickly strapped Elle into her car seat and, like many expatriate wives in this poor West African nation, tried to avoid the swirl of desperate children.

One afternoon, however, I saw something impossible to ignore. Unaware that one side of her tank top had slid off her tiny shoulder, a young girl standing in the crowd next to my car clutched a bottle of nuts under one arm and waved to me with the other, revealing a long, wide scar where a small nipple or budding breast should have been.

My eyes darted from the girl's missing breast to her big brown eyes and back to her chest. She disappeared in the distance as I drove away. The encounter revealed to me that a Cameroonian tradition I had heard vague whispers about might actually exist: breast ironing, in which women flatten adolescent girls' developing breasts, intending to protect the girls from the dangers of sex, consensual or otherwise.

The phenomenon gained some international attention in 2006, thanks to a campaign by a nonprofit organization. Since then, the State Department has included breast ironing in its annual reports on human rights abroad. But despite the increased attention, the practice persists. It affects as many as one in four girls, according to local health activists. Some mothers massage hot grinding-stones into their daughters' chests, while others pound the tissue with heated plantain peels. Sometimes, women rub kerosene or medicinal herbs on adolescent breasts.

To understand what would drive a mother to press a hot stone into her daughter's chest, I talked to local women, girls, physicians and community organizers. Despite the pain and fear, many of the women and girls involved in breast ironing considered it a normal treatment for early breast development. 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.

Elle and I moved to Douala from Alexandria in January 2009 to join my husband, Brian, who had spent more than two years working there and traveling back and forth to see us. I had first stumbled on the subject of breast ironing in 2006, and once we settled there I wanted to know if the practice was still a reality of life. The seemingly barbaric treatment sounded like a close cousin to female genital mutilation, which, although prevalent in other African countries, is rare in Cameroon, according to activists. Both traditions purport to preserve innocence, but those familiar with breast ironing explain that it evolved to counteract a teen-pregnancy problem.

I began looking into the practice by asking local women around Brian's office what they knew. Most of them responded with blank stares. When I asked Elle's babysitter, she became uncomfortable, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. She said she had never heard of it. A few weeks later, however, she confided that she had a cousin whose breasts had been ironed. Slowly, other women opened up, too, revealing not only the methods but also the purpose -- keeping young girls chaste.

In Cameroon, being young and pregnant is not uncommon. Additionally, an estimated 30 percent of women have unwanted pregnancies, according to local health-care workers.

Caroline Nkeih, a veterinarian and mother of four, said she knows two families with daughters who became pregnant at 12. For this reason, in her mind the merits of breast ironing outweigh any physical or emotional consequences. One afternoon at her home in the Bonaberi district of Douala, Nkeih explained why she ironed her daughter Endam's breasts two years earlier, when she was just 10 years old. "Boys can start looking at the girls, when their breasts appear. At 12 years old, they are still children, but the boys see the breasts," she said. She explained that if a girl develops at age 8 or 9, many mothers think it's necessary to "press the breasts."

Nkeih said she warmed a long wooden pestle over her gas stove and rubbed each of Endam's breasts for five minutes. She said she treated Endam twice before the breasts retreated, only to reappear a year later.

Serges Moukam has an ob-gyn practice in Douala and knows well the "poverty perpetuating" problem of teen pregnancy. Promiscuity and rape both factor into the high teen pregnancy rate, and breast ironing, Moukam said, prevents neither. In an interview in his cramped office, he said pregnant girls ages 12 to 17 make up 25 to 30 percent of his patients. "It's very rare to see a 13-year-old girl who is still a virgin," he said.

Flavien Ndonko, an anthropologist at the German Agency for Technical Cooperation, runs the nonprofit group that launched the 2006 anti-breast-ironing campaign and leads the fight against the practice in Cameroon. "It's body mutilation and against women's rights," he said. From his office in the capital, Yaounde, Ndonko listed the consequences of breast ironing, including abscesses, infection, deformation, lactation problems, cysts, possible links to breast cancer and emotional stress.

Ndonko first learned about the tradition in 2005 while training teen mothers and rape victims to work as part of a network of health activists. Breast ironing came up during discussions among the trainees. Ndonko said he realized he had uncovered an alarming problem. The following year, the German organization surveyed 5,651 girls and women, between ages 10 and 22, and found that 24 percent had experienced breast ironing. He said his organization's awareness campaign brought breast ironing "out of the kitchen," where the practice is usually carried out, and into the spotlight.

During an interview in his office, Ndonko produced a list of hundreds of victims. "They do it so girls do not become pregnant," he said. "But girls still get pregnant, even earlier than they thought." Slicing symbolically at his face with his hands, he added: "Not only breasts attract young men. What will they do? Cut lips, eyes, nose?"

Ndonko's findings matched what I encountered. During a meeting of local teenage girls in Douala, Dolvine Massah, 13, recounted the first time her mother ironed her breasts, when she was 11. She said her older brother called her to the kitchen, where her mother warmed plantains over the fire. Then, Massah said, her brother "arrested" her, forcing her lanky frame onto a wooden bench. She remembered screaming while her mother pressed the hot plantain peels onto her breasts. After a year of treatments, sometimes as many as three a week, Massah said she still feared that call to the kitchen.

Justine Kwachu, executive director and co-founder of Women in Alternative Action, a nonprofit organization in Yaounde promoting women's equality, lobbies not only for sex education but for punishment. In 2006, she began researching laws to criminalize breast ironing and other discriminatory practices. Kwachu, whose sister performed breast ironing, petitions Cameroonian parliamentarians for support of anti-discrimination legislation that proposes a 10-year prison sentence for those caught practicing the custom.

Others suggest more tolerance for the mothers. Emilia Lifaka, one of 25 female parliamentarians and the vice speaker of the National Assembly, said in a telephone interview that practices such as breast ironing call for more education, not legislation. Lifaka, who represents a region cited by local media as having a high rate of teen pregnancy, played down the prevalence of breast ironing, and said she thinks few women still do it.

Ndonko, the anthropologist and activist, painted a darker picture based on his research. He said that despite increasing awareness, he hears of new breast ironing cases "every day."

Recently, a lone preteen girl selling groundnuts approached me at my car. I still declined the nuts, but rather than ignoring her, I asked if she knew about breast ironing. She smiled, a bit embarrassed, looked down and nodded. She said her breasts had been ironed two years earlier.

Jamie Rich is a freelance writer who recently relocated to Alexandria after living in Cameroon.

Comments

[Agendia Aloysius]

I really doubt if breast ironing is still being carried out in Cameroon, and even if so, is it at the alarming rate potrayed in the article? I equally doubt the authenticity of this article and how scientific the purpoted research indicated in it was done.
That notwithstanding though, breast ironing should be discouraged.

[The Entrepreneur Newsonline Inc.]

....na for bamenda and southern cameroon.....una go change'am.....You guys have work to do in your communities....yet you idle in cyberspace...

[Kamarad]

Molua, welcome back! I see you have not recovered yet you are busy on cyberspace

[The Entrepreneur Newsonline Inc.]

Patriots do not go any where. Patriots neither vote to escape with their feet nor with their fingers...away from the keyboard....we are watching Cowards expense themselves with cheap talk....the time is nigh for the defense of the homeland...stay tune....and be ready...

[Flicted]

Molua aka entrepreknowonline reporting from New Haven County, Connecticut, somewhere North of New York City. Shut your mouth Nyamfuka.Hippocrazy

[The Entrepreneur Newsonline Inc.]

I see u use a pseudonym to hide your obscenity and ignorance. I guess you inherited that from your parents...Its just genetic....Intergenerational transfer of 'bushness'

[Ngum Anthony]

I happen to know some of the characters in this story. It is sad that Jamie Rich, whose equally vindictive spouse was recently fired from AES/SONEL Douala in favor of a Cameroonian professional has retuned to the United States and chosen to victimize the very people who granted the American couple the best of Cameroonian hospitality - inviting the morons into their homes.

The so-called "breast ironing tools" are utensils for preparing Cameroonian food but this bad journalist, returning to the USA in a broke state has chosen to make up a sensational story for sale to syndicated journalism.

Caroline Nkeih has children in school in the United States, is well-educated and does not practice the crimes Jamie is alleging.

Jamie has exhibited the worst form of journalism and US papers, normally in search of sensation, have bought it uncritically. Shame on you Jamie. Caroline may not file a law suit for defamation but may the Lord bless you and your husband.

The evil that women do also lives after them. Those who do not give equity cannot get equity in their lives.

[Ras tuge]

Well, this is very new to me, a true born child from Cameroon! And i truly wonder if such a practice can be as alarming as the pitiful, rotten, and widespread breast augmentation and shit that this Babylon hypocrites are practicing.

Why should it be right for a Babylon female to inflate her breasts with chemicals, or pierce her clitoris? Why is it right for Jamie Rich to pierce her nipples, rendering them hazardous to nurturing babies, and wrong for an African girl to do whatever she choses to do with her breasts?

It is amazing how these crazy Babylon elements somehow always manage to find something denigrating to say about Africa, when they are notorious for engaging in some of the most despicable practices that the world will ever know?

What this lowly riffraff fails to tell us is that abhorrent things like homosexuality, incest, cannibalism, and bestiality are the norm of their sick societies. And yet they would stand tall to demonize polygamy and other practices that are culturally significant to African societies.

Maybe this condescending hypocrite should explain to us why white women and men wouldn't stop raping dogs... i think alot of people would love to read about that. To hell with all these Babylon lunatics!

[The Entrepreneur Newsonline Inc.]

Yes....They celebrate homosexuality which my pig, goat, sheep and dog know better. Even low level mamals in the wild: lions, tigers, elephants know best. Yet, You won't find these ilks of caucasian stock doing videos of their bestiality and homosexuality. They celebrate, and pass it into law - men kissing men as if all women were taken out by an epidemic...Strangely, some unpatriotic Africans swallow such gullibility for their self interest: it rightly paints African black as a place not to live, and seek asylum somewhere.....

[limbekid]

@ Ras Tuge,

You make some really valid points. I was never aware of breast ironing myself, and one may consider it the anti-thesis of breast enlargement. However, I think everything boils down to the age of consent. What consenting adults do with their bodies is no one`s business (and that includes homosexuality). Africans should also stop being naive to consider homosexuality culture-specific. Even Western countries have had a hard time accepting this practice and it was considered crimminal as recently as a few decades ago. I`d say to each his own.

[Sesseku . Arrey]

Breast Ironing a Painful Practice for Cameroon girls my foot, Always looking for De-speakable things to Demonized Africa. Your Article is full of Hyperbole.

Some of them even deny that they are not from Africa, Some have even change their names,e.t.c. Jamie Rich is from Which part of Cameroon?

Don't you live in Babylon, I will like to read
"" HOMOSEXUALITY AND BESTIALITY AN ABOMINATION IN THE WEST"

[Kumbaboy]

Ras Tuge,

Cultural chauvinism is a trade mark of many demented Babylonians, Jamie Rich included.

It also appears, per Anthony's piece above, that Jamie is telling lies and willfully victimising a family that hosted her in Douala.

There Jamie and spouse lived a life free of taxes but rich in disdain for the local folk on a backbone of racism. The up-bringing of foreigners going to Cameroon is probably worth checking to eliminate red-necks from VISAs.

Little did the seemingly naive Cameroonian family know that the brazen "Babylonian" is in Cameroon escaping the more challenging life in the United States, including an escape from mortgage payments, other living bills and taxes!

[Der Berliner]

My intention here is not to profess any form of dignified propriety of societal behavior. All this 24/7 of West-bashing is not only cowardly, but digressional as well. Why always feel offended when some of our ill-practices are brought to light? Any snappish yelping over this article is silhouetted against the backdrop of a stunning hypocrisy. Moreover, most of the labeling you guys are struggling with reverence to tag as foreign, are all inherent in our societies and believe me, some are so widespread than any of us on this platform can ever dare to imagine.

I do not want to pry into the writer’s intention, and I have no intention of perusing this story, not cos of arrogance but for the mere reason that immediately I read the caption, I recalled from A-Z what this demonic practice is all about. I can still hear the horrific screaming of my poor little neighbor in the neighborhood in which I grew. This is not hearsay nor is it a misnomer or whatever, what I experienced with this little neighbor has left me thrilled to this day. Can you imagine a mother burning the peel of unripe plantain to boiling point and then raising her wicked hands to flatten this glowing peel on the breast of her 9-year-old daughter? What a fiendish endeavor! All this was been carried out in a reckless attempt to stop the normal sexual cycle of this poor little girl; the same is true of female mutilation.

Before laboriously attempting to unveil other people’s culture, we should look at ours into the eyes and assess if we are better off than those we do condemn. I will take my leave here; appalling memories wouldn’t allow me proceed.

[Bob Bristol]

A debate of this nature should rather be focused on what is good or bad about the practice ( if at all the practice still exist). It shouldn't be a yardstick for comparing the wrongs of Western versus African values.

Personally, I would condemn breast ironing on any platform if it renders the breast flappy. I mean, we all know the pleasures of sucking, licking or even of being caress by a "full-breasted" lady. A firm breast with protruding nipples plays an important part during intercourse.

The pitiable think about it is that it carried out by apprehensive parents on their innocent daughters. If it was a kind of practice done by adult on their bodies, as Limbekid intimates above, then we could pretend to be passive towards it.

[The Entrepreneur Newsonline Inc.]

When it comes to Africa bashing, Africans have excuses to make, 'as to the writers mind.' When last did you read a paper or watch news fotage and saw a caucasion corpse? Even at the peak of the Yugoslavian warfare......!

"It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history. It matters little who wins. To make a people great it is necessary to send them to battle even if you have to kick them in the pants. That is what I shall do." Benito Mussolini

[Ma Mary]

A number of things strike me here:
• How come I never heard about this practice growing up and through my adult years? Is it tradition or innovation?
• It seems as if there is no female input into the discussion. That is limiting, because the female voice is the most important in such a discussion
• Reflex defensiveness about bestiality, homosexuality, breast augmentation surgery, nipple piercing etc. Little men with chips on their shoulders and little self-confidence and depth often do that. If you have cancer of the eye, it is pointless telling the one diagnosing you that he has high blood pressure.
• On the other hand, if this is something very rare, could this be one of those instances in which some people create issues to attract funding from Western do gooders?

[Ras tuge]

Well, perhaps i must quickly remind you that there's a growing and troubling trend of teenage girls in the barbaric so-called West, with hordes of them as young as fourteen opting to undergo unethical breast augmentation surgery.

In cases such as these, the procedure has been performed with the virtuous consent of the parents, who mostly is the mother. And any eventual accountability rests on the shoulders of the mother, and not on the tender child who can't decide for herself by law.

This therefore disqualifies any suggestion that justifies breast implantation as a procedure that is performed by the free will of mature women. It also clearly erases the premise of the argument that breast ironing is an abuse as opposed to breast augmentation. And remember, we're mostly referring to lurid practices that are performed on children. I hope we're clear on this.

Nevertheless, inasmuch as i abhor this typically unusual practice, which i personally find disdainful, i still don't think that a Babylon that's infested with such excessive moral toxicity and decadence should be the one dictating notions of what is good or bad.

And yes, i would challenge any sick doctor who thinks that i may be more sick than he or she is. I have done that before, and i'll keep on doing this until Babylon hypocrites realise that i own my own mind. Babylon wouldn't let me circumcise my sons because they think the practice is barbaric, and 'they can't understand why Africans adhere to the weird practice', as they put it!

Well, i said to the crazy preacher, somehow you folks always seem to undermine anything African, but as long as i am the father of my sons, i'll circumcise them. And that's exactly what i did. There are countless examples of how Babylon wants us to live by their values, as if those are superior to ours. But i shall be the last man that would learn from such a bunch of lunatics.

My argument is that morality is basically conceptualized as a series of principles based on our cultural values, as well as on human reason. This simply means that Africans may not be on the same platform as Babylon elements when it comes to variations in our patterns of reasoning based on our differential values. Does this make us misfits as Africans? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

Consequently, some things that might seem normal for them might be extremely repulsive for us, as we have seen with abhorrent acts such as homosexuality, incest, breast augmentation, or even the nasty bliss of the ubiquitous faecal intercourse. They expect me to respect theirs as a norm, and yet they incessantly try to compel me to live by their questionable standards. This definitely smacks of blatant hypocrisy, if not madness to say the least.

Therefore, if this Babylon girl would explain to me why she prefers to narrate a tale about breast ironing, rather than explain to the world why polygamy is criminal in Babylon, or why she and others of her ilk are heavily involved in animal sex, then i would take her for a genius. Anything else is just a charade.

[ContryFowl]

The entire piece from Jamie Rich is very questionable & dubious as it is taking 3 or 4 encounters with unidentified & unverifiable young girls to be a symbolic representation of the experiences of Cameroonian & West African womenfolk. Even though she does not implicitly express this, there are the undertones & subtle suggestiveness which may lead a gullible & stupid reading public to make false inferences & illogical associations that have nothing to do with the reality of the African female.

What are the intents, motives & underlying currents of Jamie Rich's essay..???
What is the veracity & truthfulness of such stories that were gathered from interviewing 3,4,5,6, or even 7 or 8 individuals in one single city in Cameroon....???
The questions are many & they can not be satisfactorily answered by what Jamie Rich is insinuating within her essay on Breast Ironing in Cameroon.

I grew up in Cameroon, lived in Limbe, Muyuka, Banso, Bamenda, Mutengene, Bambili, Mbengwi, Yaounde & Douala. I also come from a very large extended family with plenty of females. I attended public schools throughout my growing years in Cameroon and never once did I encounter nor was aware of this practice as posited by Jamie Rich.
If my experience as a Cameroonian counts & matters, then I can safely say this essay from Jamie Rich lacks credibility, & seems to be a concocted piece of tall tales calculated to further some other nefarious purposes best known to the author.

It may be worthwhile to write a rejoinder to the Washington Post as well, to point & address it's readers to the worthlessness & untruthfulness of Jamie Rich's concocted Stories.

ContryFowl.

[Nyaukee]

Contry Fowl, your experience does not count here and the Washington Post journalist is not telling us anything new here. Please go and do your research. For starters read this 2006 BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5107360.stm

[Anonymous]

IRONING THE BREASTS OF THE THIRD WORLD

"It is humiliating to remain with our hands folded while others write history."

Even the devil (including our own timid and coup-transformed Meka, like his compatriot, the gen-d'arme, Sasseu Ngeusso)sometimes tells us truths. I'm amazed at this line from Mussolini. I wonder if "The Entrepreneur Newsonline Inc." could refer me to the source? It's a very powerful line indeed, when taken out of the senseless context in which it appears.

And about the breast-ironing thing, I wonder how rampant it is as some UN bodies have reported, following funded research by one or two US institutions of higher education, and a film that appeared on You-tube and was serialized in other media channels sometime ago? This topic has been hotly debated by academics on H-Net, last year, I think, though unfortunately no Cameroonian featured there to ground the discussions to reality. I was not surprised reading that discussion quite late, and finding attacks against the researchers for opting for an easy way to obtaining academic "tenure".

I expected statistics - so one could rank the problem on a priority list of social problems that permeate contemporary urban society in Cameroon; otherwise the rationale that it's a critical population problem. If the researchers and journalists could prove 100 cases of breast-ironing (though it is pitiful even if one did occur), then it would be good sociology or journalism. Otherwise one will tend to go with critics that see these "academics" and "journalists" (or recent university graduates to put it better) as simply taking the facile path to career growth - which is shameful indeed.

But let's not forget that the whole story of "breast ironing" itself was released to the international media by a Cameroonian journalist working with the UN in Yaounde and with little research. How can someone be working with the UN without adequate knowledge of research processes, data gathering, or of the significance of statistics? Anyways, he baited overseas academics and the international media, without even raising the problem in the local press in Cameroon (to the best of my knowledge).

What I find interesting then is the genealogy of the story, the practice in itself, and the social context, for these reveal a lot about social change in Cameroon and the whole issue of outside funding and representing the "third" and "voiceless" world. By "third world", I mean the region itself, and more importantly, those of its populations who are voiceless social categories, without access to the press and who have to be always represented by those funded or looking for funding. At the end of the day given the whole nature of neo-liberalist capitalism, problems simply become currencies with many denominations and faces...

Thus "breast-ironing" becomes many things to many people...

Who then are the real ones ironing the breasts of the "third world"?

[ContryFowl]

Nyaukee,

I am quiet aware of the BBC report, as you rightly said there is nothing new in what the Washington Post Journalist/Globe Trotting Hippie-Free-Opportunistic grabber & hedonistic somatotonic Legion is expressing.

That something is published by the BBC does not imply authenticity & veracity, so bringing in the BBC is moot & not germane to this particular discussion.

When we hear 30 percent of Cameroonian women according to local health workers, should we not question this kind of a blatant & transparent lazy LIE....?????

Where are the statistics to buttress those questionable points being posit by Jamie Rich....???????

Jamie Rich is eager & overpowered by a rapacious & vociferous appetite for self-expression, but is she a journalist & a writer.....??????

Crisscrossing the globe, scooping local tales from gullible wide-eyed Africans will not make Jamie Rich a HEMINGWAY OR A KIPPLING.....

It takes brain, intelligence, truthfulness, honesty & humility to be a writer of repute and if that is what this worn-out & loose woman is attempting to do then good luck to them.

ContryFowl.

[Nyaukee]

Contry Fowl,

I brought in the BBC story to show that the author did not fabricate this story as you seem to imply in your comment. In fact, a couple of years ago, the Ministry of Women's affairs teamed up with women's organizations across Cameroon to eradicate this practice. So whether it affects 30% of girls or 10%, it doesn't matter to me. The real issue is to eradicate it. This practice exists and we should seek ways to address it rather than playing the tiresome nationalist and anti-Whiteman card. Deal with the message and not the messenger.

[Sesseku . Arrey]

Nyaukee,
The Un-tiresome Nationalist
Ever seen you've been aware of this practice, what have you done so far about it ?
Please in details.

[ContryFowl]

Nyaukee,

Thanks once more for pointing out the obvious, but you are rather going down the wrong lane once more.

ContryFowl does not refute Breast Ironing per se, ContryFowl is refuting the manner in which it is being documented & reported on worldwide blogs, by unscrupulous, loose moral & wayward individuals looking to cash in on the backwardness & ignorance of the STUPID.

ContryFowl also does not believe in the whiteman card chicanery, rather on an honest appraisal of facts and their presentation as is.

If these woman is so concern about the atrocious practices of breast ironing in Cameroon, do you not think she would have had the due diligence to visit villages & other cities in Cameroon other than her writing from her experiences at her Landlord's home & a one mile radius consisting of little girls offering to sell her groundnuts....??????
Would she write in the same condescending manner on all the PANHANDLERS down there in Seattle or any other American city....???

Is she writing it out of an altruistic motive....?????
Why not start for example with Seattle or any other American city where there are thousands of homeless people, perpetually high on glue, cocaine, heroine, crack et cetera....????? & show us that she has had a track record of good journalistic reporting on social ills & offer us worthwhile remedies......???????

On the contrary this loose moral & hedonistic hippie would rather splash her non-sense on blog after blog, off course because no self-respecting editor is going to publish this ill-researched & sloppy journalistic bullshit masquerading for an essay on breast ironing in Cameroon.

Nyaukee,
Please take off the spectacles of adulation & see for yourself that it is not everyone who is awe of the WHITEMAN, or playing the WHITEMAN CARD...!!!!! some like ContryFowl, do sit them down in classrooms and teach them the basics of ethics & moral when they leave that their immoral dungeons & caves of obscurity where nobody in this entire universe will ever notice them.

If she does not write here in this blog where would she write....????
Off course the WashingtonPost is also not so different from this one too...!!!!

Thank you.

ContryFowl.

[ContryFowl]

Nyaukee,

If by any chance, you are the Jamie Rich herself then by all means do your homework thoroughly, then there will be no backlash from readers who are off course rightly outraged at the blatant LIES & distorted half truths you are peddling around the blogs as being factual happenings in Cameroon.

ContryFowl

[Nyaukee]

Sessekou Arrey, good that you asked; for the past two years, I have worked directly with the AWDF - African Women's Development Foundation - and women's groups in Cameroon, along with the Ministries of Culture and Women's affairs to sensitize Cameroonian communities in Cameroon about this problem. Please do a google search for additional information if you're interested.

Again, I don't care about the tone or motives of the writer of this article, I am interested in the facts which tie in exactly with what we have discovered on the ground in (mostly) urban and rural areas of Cameroon particularly in the Littoral, West, NW and SW provinces.

But of course, if you guys are bent on expressing your nationalist outrage just like Biya's communications minister does these days, I can't stop you...

[ContryFowl]

Nyaukee,

Each & every society in the world have their own peculiar problems, each & every human individual have their own particular problems confronting them on a day to day basis. Those are facts equally as are the facts being presented here for us to read by Jamie Rich.

ContryFowl's point is simple, before embarking on these self-righteous & pontificating third world crusades, why does this woman not begin at her own very backyard.

Cocaine, Heroine or Crack smoking are equally mutilations of both body & mind.
Daily murders, horrendous crimes, inhumanity & endless exploitation of the individual within American society are equally recommended themes which our now Famous Journalist in the person of Jamie Rich can also undertake as a task to expose to the world community.

Is this woman doing that....??????

Do you know WHY.....?????
Because no one in their right mind would allow such a loose moral individual anywhere near them, except again for wide-eyed third world folks, eager to always extend their begging bowls & cap in hand.

Please we know that these types are professional trouble-makers & careerists feeding off the misery, sorrow, confusion & ignorance of the stupid & gullible...!!!!!

ContryFowl

[Nyaukee]

Contry Fowl, you remind me of those individuals who support Robert Mugabe not because they believe in his policies but solely because his primary critics are Europeans and Americans - or those who will support Biya not because they believe in his policies but because he is criticized by the French media.

Fact: there is breast ironing in Cameroon. Even if it is done to 1% of teenage girls, it is something that must be stopped. Everything else is a side show.

So while I understand what you're saying, I insist that your focus distracts from the real issue at hand. Breast Ironing.

Final Word.

[ContryFowl]

Nyaukee,

Understandable & off course you are entitled to evaluate the issues & facts as per the depths of your understanding.

There is such a thing as associative inference, such a thing as a thematic development, as there is no one single human issue on this planet which is not inter-related, therefore it is not a matter of distracting from the facts of Breast Ironing which off course there is, it is a matter of SELECTIVE FOCUS, which is what we are criticizing here.

Nyaukee,

Do we all have to put on this Upstation Mountain Club our CVs...???
to tell who that we are doing what...????

Naturally it is the FINAL WORD on this topic, I enjoy putting in a word or two on the issue.
In a real life situation, you may be surprise to know that what you think you have deduce about Contryfowl or any other folks writing here may be only within the realm of your imagination.

Thank you.

ContryFowl.

[Watesih]

When there's a debate of this nature,we should pay attention to form and substance.First,Jamie Rich seems to have preferred the shock value,than the informative worth.People everywhere in the world sell things to make money,but it is exceedingly misleading to claim that hawkers shout out,"Madame,please I need to eat".This is condescending and a belated attempt to sound sophisticated and portray others as pets.No wonder the hawkers trailing her are only good for left over shawarma.What will necessitate a woman of Jamie Rich's stature to shuttle from Alexandria to Douala for two years with all these desperate children transforming her into a Karl Lewis,who has to run for her dear SUV every time in order not to be stained by the damned of the earth? A journalist lays out a story by showing the source of information and how he or she goes about to get this information.A journalist doesn't bank on chance.Jamie Rich gives us the impression that without stumbling upon the young girl with a scarred breast,there would be no story,despite the fact that a non-profit organization had raised the problem of breast ironing in 2006.Which is this non-profit organization? What were their statistics? How come you were aware of this problem since 2006 and never sent a single article to the Washington Post to this effect? "Ndonko's findings matched what I encountered",so says Jamie Rich,but what are the findings? How were they conducted? She always declines the offer to buy peanuts from pre-teen girls,but is always more interested in staring at their chests! The first time she stared at one she ran away,and the second time the other one did not run away but smiled as the voracious adult who paid more attention to her breast than her peanuts sought to know whether the said breasts were ironed.We don't know the relationship between pre-teens with ironed breasts and their penchant to selling peanuts.Apart from asking local women around the husband's office what they knew,and also stumbling on two girls selling peanuts,the rest of the evidence Jamie Rich is presenting sounds just like the Holywood story she wants the world to believe;"Caroline Nkeih, a veterinarian and mother of four, said she knows two families with daughters who became pregnant at 12".What is Jamie Rich struggling to discuss? Teen pregnancy? Prostitution? Poverty? or is she some type of a vindictive vixen?

[ContryFowl]

Watesih,

I could not have commented better, but you have said it all.
Now Jamie Rich comes in the form of Nyaukee to further pontificate & tell us of facts & statistics which are for some strange reasons only known to Nyaukee.
Criticizing this rapacious & vociferous marauding hippi on the hunt for salacious stories, which no credible print journal, magazine or newspaper will touch, turns everyone into a supporter of Mugabe & Paul Biya.

Again Nyaukee cleverly avoids what Ngum Anthony has already written above about this Jamie Rich & vindictive husband.

Apparently, this 2 are a thieving, vindictive & lying couple, bent on getting some form of a revenge against the families that hosted their sorry stay in Cameroon.

ContryFowl.

[Nahjela]

Just to say, I'm a Cameroonian female and this was done to me about the age of 11.
To tell u the truth, I was confused, sad and traumatised by the experience.
Whether u are aware of it or not, believe u me, this is still carried out in Cameroon and such a harmful and violating practice on underaged girls has to be condemned and stopped.
Enough said.

[njimaforboy]

Nahjela, we believe u even though some of us in Cameroon in our mid age have never heard about this practice. Our heart and prayers go out to you. This is a primitive and inhumane act against children and minors. Some parts of Africa even cut off the clitoris to inhibit sexual drive. There is no comparison between criminal acts like these against children and deviant behaviour between two consenting adults.
Nahjela, i think victims like you should fully expose and disclose the perpetrators of these crimes, if anything else. Remmber, u can do so without reavealing your identity.

[Der Berliner]

Njimaforboy, where can Nahjela complain or disclose such a trauma without an apparent ostracization, even in anonymity? Just go through the various contributions, make a résumé and see for yourself if it is feasible without leaving feathers behind. Just see how brief her anonymous contribution was, do you think it is the work of chance? It is time we sieve of traditions bros and sis.

[Der Berliner]

"some of our traditions"

[ContryFowl]

Nahjela,

It is very disturbing & quiet tragic to read of your personal experience. I am quiet sorry & confounded that such a thing could have happened to you.

Thanks very much for sharing such a profoundly disturbing experience on the web.
Perhaps it is time that individuals like yourself should tell your true stories to world, from the point of view of an actual living victim, without any of the sensational approach which is what ContryFowl is criticizing with Jamie Rich's Essay.

Once more thanks again & I hope my highly critical comments against Jamie Rich has not in anyway diminished nor minimize your own painful & personal experiences of this barbaric act...!!!!!

[Bob Bristol]

I have a feeling that this practice is carried out behind closed doors to girls who have fully developed breast ( or perhaps large breast ) at a relatively younger age. If this can be taken for a hypothetical statement then the following must be true:

- Most male children are ignorant about it.
- Teenage girls with small breast may know little or nothing about it.
-Victims may never let the cat out of the bag because it ridicules one of the persons closest to their hearts - their mothers. Or it justifies the flappy nature of their breast; which is not a thing for public consumption.

Nevertheless, if we have a ministry of social or women affairs, then it has a major role to play because the truth is that it exists.