Breast Ironing - Incidence

Incidence

Breast ironing is practiced in all ten regions of Cameroon and has also been reported across West and Central Africa, in Benin, Chad, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Kenya, Togo and Zimbabwe. Breast "sweeping" has been reported in South Africa. All of Cameroon's 200 ethnic groups engage in breast ironing, with no known relation to religion, socio-economic status, or any other identifier. A June 2006 survey by the German development agency GIZ of more than 5,000 Cameroonian girls and women between the ages of 10 and 82 estimated that nearly one in four had undergone breast ironing, corresponding to four million girls. The survey also reported that it is most commonly practiced in urban areas, where mothers fear their children could be more exposed to sexual abuse. Incidence is as high as 53 percent in the Cameroon's southeastern region of Littoral. Compared with Cameroon's Christian and animist south, breast ironing is less common in the Muslim north, where only 10 percent of women are affected. Some hypothesize that this is related to the practice of early marriage, which is more common in the North, making early sexual development irrelevant or even preferable.

A rise in the incidence of breast ironing in recent times has been attributed to the earlier onset of puberty, caused by dietary improvements in Cameroon over the last 50 years. Half of Cameroonian girls who develop under the age of nine have their breasts ironed, and 38% of those who develop under the age of eleven. Additionally, since 1976, the percentage of women married by the age of 19 has decreased from nearly 50% to 20%, leading to an increasingly long gap between childhood and marriage. The later age of marriage may be due to changed social norms that allow girls and women to attend school through university and to hold jobs in the formal sector. Women who delay marriage in pursuit of education and career can procure the corresponding benefit of financial independence later in life, whereas girls who become pregnant are often forced to drop out of school and forgo formal employment.