Breast ironing is a violent attempt to prevent the sexual development of adolescent girls. It has scarred the bodies and psyches of millions of girls in Cameroon.
Some mothers today are still very primitive and backward; they still treat their adolescent girls like animals all in the name of mothers’ protection.It should be made known that in the of privacy homes, behind closed kitchen and bed room doors,pubescent girls in Cameroon are being tortured by their own mothers. Using objects like grinding stones, mortar pestles, coconut shells, or hammers heated with hot coal, mothers massage their daughters’ developing breasts to destroy any indication of emerging womanhood.
The breast, a symbol of feminism and the pride of womanhood is the target for these mothers. their reason for such an inhuman act is rather fickle as they claim they are just protecting their girls from rape and premarital pregnancy.This whole idea has therefore pushed mothers in Cameroon to deform the breast of their daughters.
Female molestation does not only end on breast ironing. It goes as far as female genital mutilation were a young girls’ vagina is mutilated to prevent her from being sexually arouse. In some cases, virgin girls are used as sacrifices or for rituals. This is a clear war waged against women which must be combat with full force and it should begin mostly in remote parts of the country where it is highly practiced.
However, it would be quite difficult to put this practice to an end when the victims themselves are not willing to talk. In fact most victims never report it and many claim to have never heard about the practice.Meanwhile in some areas in Cameroon it is still very rampant and there is no possibility of it coming to an end because it has become part and parcel of the people and must be done to every girl who starts developing breast at the age of 10.
