#58

FiLiA meets CAME women and girls

FiLiA: Today we have here, Margaret. She's a co-founder of Women and Girls Organisation. We have Geraldine, which she's also co-founder of Women and Girls, and Bernadette who is a volunteer of Came Women and Girls in Cameroon. Welcome ladies

Came Women and Girls is a community based organisation dedicated to improve the health and wellbeing of a variety of people from disadvantaged communities, especially Black and Minority Ethnic groups. They aim to develop their potential and mobilise them to engage effectively within the community. Today we are focusing on breast ironing and we are going to ask a few questions so you can let our listeners know more about breast ironing, how it affects people within the community in the UK or in West Africa.

 Let me start with Margaret, how did you start Came Women and Girls?

Margaret: The organisation itself, Came means Cameroon, which is women from Cameroon. We realized that we have to mobilize Cameroon women here to contribute to development in Cameroon. We realize that we are fortunate to be here in the UK and we cannot turn our backs on what is happening back in our country. And also we have a passion of looking at issues that are affect women and especially gender based violence. We have other women who are already involved in volunteering. Why don't we come together, build up a group that can contribute in supporting other women, empowering women, and also contribute in fighting gender-based violence. Okay. 

FiLiA: Nice to know that people are very aware of FGM but no one talks about breast ironing.

Where did the idea come to make awareness of this awful practise?

Bernadette: Exactly. It's the talk about the FGM that gave us the impetus to start speaking about this hidden practice breast ironing, because it's got the same rationale as FGM. Just the fact that FGM is being done. It's the same file that is being done on the child or the girl, and they all have the same reasoning. And that's why when we looked at it, we say it's a hidden practice. No one has ever talked about it. So in 2011, Margaret and I, we said, you know what? We have to create awareness about this because there are a lot of children and women survivors who are really suffering from it psychologically, and also going through the pain of it.

So this is where we got that drive and since then we haven't stopped until we achieve our goals.

 FiLiA: Thank you, Bernadette. Talking about the practice itself, I know there is implications of long term implications of breast ironing on the victims. What is the implications, long-term and short term implications of these practices on women and girls? 

Bernadette: The practice is something that we, as a group, we have been trying to say they should try to stop it or educate the women back home. Due to the cultural practices, and they're not able or willing to stop the breast ironing. We are doing everything to educate, especially the girls because the implications are so many. Most of the time the, you see the breast, they don't develop well. The children are traumatised. They have a lot of problem even getting married or breastfeeding children. So we are doing everything to see that the practice is eliminated or they should try to stop it. That's the main thing that we are trying to do back home. So there are members that are here, they're trying to support us.

It's not easy because we don't have the means to go around and try to educate the girls and the women back home. So they are here, they try to support us financially and do everything for us to be able to carry out the activities back home. But despite all this is not still very easy for us, but we are trying to do our best to see that the practice is reduced or eliminated.

FiLiA: You talked about back home because you were in Cameroon. In Cameroon you tried, as you said, you tried to create awareness. Could you let me know what's the hurdles you find on the way that probably stop you from creating awareness of this practice? 

Margaret: We have not stopped from trying to create the awareness. We have not stopped. We are doing our best to create their awareness, but at times we have financial problems, material problems to go out. Most of these practices are in the rural areas and going to the rural areas and the villages in Africa, it's not easy going to the rural areas. We need to have people to mobilise people who will be able to move around, see the families, the women, the children, especially the girls, we have to mobilise and to go around to do all these activities.

So at times we always have the financial part which is what is always what we really need to be able to carry out the activities. We do all our best with the support from the members here in the UK. They really support us to be able to carry out the activities and, you know, mobilising most of these girls are volunteering. Some of them are working. So they have to stop work, move around, do most of these activities, which is really good for us.

FiLiA: In terms of creating awareness. How do you create the awareness in society that is pretty much very cultural? I want to know how do you create awareness in a very cultural society that not very willing to change? What is the difficulties you find on your way?

Margaret: Of course there are always difficulties when it comes to changing people's attitudes, beliefs and practices because this is something people see as part of them, they see as something which is good for them. You know, for example, like breast ironing, you know, the child that is being educated by the mother, that what they're going to do is to protect them from harm, to protect them from the dangers of having unwanted pregnancy, to prevent them from dropping out of school. And the children believe that this is something that is good. 

When we are asked to create awareness, it's like the parents are asking, this is something we are doing to protect our daughter. This is something that is a cultural practice for us. This is something we have been doing for years and years. Why is it now that we should stop it? So we have a long, long way to go for people to understand the immediate impact and the long term impact of breast ironing.

 Our program right now is we need to work with other people and other organisation. For example, like, we're talking to FiLiA today.

We are looking in the years to come or months to come. How can we work together? How can we work together to create awareness in many forms, you know, to target other groups, to target other organisations? And because our work at the moment is looking at diaspora women, especially women from Africa, we want our activities to be diversified, even to target schools, to target, social workers, to target health services so that at least we can work as team because with only our organisation we are not going to realise what is happening, especially here in the UK. We need to work with other services so that at least we can recognize where the problem is.

 At the moment, one other thing that is for us, very important, there's no research that has been carried out especially the UK. If research can be carried out to know for example, the prevalence.

Where is it happening? And even to answer questions, why is it happening and how is it happening? So those questions can be answered. You can also help us in our awareness campaign if we have such information that is easily available. 

FiLiA: Thank you for that, Margaret. I have another question.

You talked about, I understand the cultural thing happening in Africa and I believe that as you said, that it happens because they are afraid of the violence against the girls within the villages, but in here in the UK, why flatten or iron a girl's breast if you have so many laws that protects women and girls?

Margaret:  do you know when we talk about law, there's a law for people to not steal, but people are still stealing. There are laws there. People know that there are laws there, but they'll still do what they think and don't forget Africans, when they move, they move with their cultural practices and coming here to the UK they move with their cultural practices and it's difficult to change a cultural practice or a cultural belief. It is something they see that they own it, even no matter what their status is, they still going to do it. So it is educating the whole community so that even girls can understand it and be able to say, no, I'm not going to do it. How can young girls say, no, you cannot do it? Or how can young girls refuse or contribute or participate and even contribute in our awareness program? 

These are some of the questions we are asking, and these are some of our needs, to target some of the girls who can also join us in this campaign.

It's not been an easy journey, but we are there and we are going to work hard to see that at least we are succeeding and the numbers are decreasing until it’s stopping all over together. 

There are times somebody's just asking, how many numbers do we have in the UK? I would say the numbers are not important. Even this one person, we can stop it. We don't want to hear of the statistic of 10,000 people being affected and then you start worrying, how, what am I going to do? Let's stop it. 

You know, in Africa they say when the fire starts, you don't start asking how and where did it start. You quench the fire before you look at where or how it started, so you prevent it. That's what we are doing now. Let's talk about it even as one person or two people. Let's stop where it is so we don't have to cry about the number of people who have been affected.

FiLiA: Talking about statistics, could you tell me numbers for people that actually suffer from these practices in Africa? Estimated numbers. Example in Cameroon, how many people has been affected with this practice? 

Margaret: I can talk of Cameroon. in Africa it is difficult to talk about it. Okay.  because you know, breast ironing, the name breast ironing came from Cameroon. In other countries they have their own name, which doesn't have an equivalent in English. So breast ironing is not a name across Africa. 

All African countries, they do it, but they have their own names. They have their cultural name, which doesn't translate into English.

In Cameroon there was a study that was carried out in 2006, that study targeted from 10 to 82 years, and it was estimated. The UN came up with their own number saying that across Africa they have about 4 million people who have been affected by breast ironing. 

But in Cameroon we say 50% of women and girls have undergone this ironing. 

FiLiA: That's a huge number. That is a huge, huge number. Yes. So I think awareness is very important in this case to let people aware of their practice, but as you say, and it's really, it's complicated to create awareness in a very rooted society within their culture. As you say, they move and they move with their culture. It is complicated, but in here, how do you support the victims? If someone comes to you or did you had any survivors of breast ironing that came to your organisation looking for support?

Margaret: We, we have cases we have women and girls who have undergone breast ironing in the UK, they're okay. Okay. In a sense for now. But we still, within our organisation, we still carry our counselling to support victims of breast ironing. 

If a case, there's a lady who is currently, she had breast ironing and she's suffering from breast cancer, of course she has been treated in the hospital. 

But I am not going to be telling her GP that she had breast ironing and she herself will be able to let the GP know that she had breast ironing earlier, although I'm suffering from breast cancer now, so that they can link the two things.

They can link the two things, but there's no research that has been carried out to link breast ironing to breast cancer and what the our organisation has been doing with most of the survivors we signpost them to this different organisations if we kind of understand what the underlying problem is because some come up with psychological problem, some with socially they're not able to mix up with. So we, we kind of look at like-minded organisations, women’s organisations on the same footing like us. And we tell them, okay, we send them or we call the organisation and say, look, we are having this lady who's based in this town here and she's had this issue.

Actually Women Resource Centre in Birmingham where Karen works. We've had quite a few people like Vicky, who's had it, and we've directed them to go there to go and meet them because they organize counselling there. So we signpost to the different organisations in different towns if they're not able to come to us. So that's how we work. We network with the other organisations to see how we can actually optimize the work that we're doing. 

FiLiA: I asked earlier on what was the health implications or long-term implications of breast ironing, but now I'm listening to Margaret, even though there is no research carried out and say that breast cancer might be related or linked to breast ironing but you think the two things can be linked. 

So basically breast ironing can cause cancer as a long term implication. What are the other issues, long term implications of breast ironing on women?

Margaret: We have been talking about abscess, inverted nipples, scars, abscess, sagging breasts because physically the breast is actually sagged. Then you have the abscess, they have the cysts. And then the most important, which is very, very painful, is the inverted breast because it stops lactation when they become pregnant, they're not able to breastfeed the child because of the inverted nipple, which was caused from the breast ironing. So those are some of the underlying issues that really crop up when breasts have been tampered with because physically it's been affected and most of the tissues have been damaged. So those are the issues around it.

FiLiA:  It's all awful to hear that women and girls have to go through all of this, just in the name of culture or in the name of people believing that girls or women should not attract men. 

I think you are doing a great job to try to improve or empower women in countries where they're not empowered. And I'm here to ask what is the goals and objectives and outcomes Women's and Girls Organisation in short and long term?

Margaret: We said earlier that our goal is more empowering women to look at issues and gender based violence. We look at it in general, whether it's domestic abuse, FGM breast ironing, and empowering.

The Cameroon women that are here in the diaspora to walk back in Cameroon so that at least they should be able to empower women that are back in Cameroon, to contribute to development and also to prevent some of these issues.

 I told you when we move, we move with our culture, so we should be able to fight breast ironing and back there. As we are fighting more back there, it should be able to also reduce the impact here. 

One other. activity, which is not related to gender based violence that we are addressing is looking at HIV/Aids and also looking at the issues of poverty.

All of this linked is interlinked to each other. We don't separate one from another. We tackle all of them together

FiLiA: I quite understand that because if you have loads, high cases of rape and abuse against women and loads of these women. I'm just giving an example in Congo where women are used as a weapon of war and rape is used as a weapon of war. So there's loads of women affected with HIV and in Africa as well. Loads of them. Some cases, they don't even know they have it. 

So I quite understand the link between the two. 

Another thing I wanted to say. do you have any appeal you want to leave here while we are doing this broadcast to our listeners? 

How do you want to be supported? How do you want to our listeners to do also to help you create this awareness to this really important issue that you brought in today?

Margaret: Already. I think this is a very good platform for our organisation to be able to come and actually express our concerns and our worries with regards to the work that we've been carrying out since 2011. And what we are actually appealing to our listeners is that this message has to go to every local corner.

How they're going to be able to help us to change the mind-set of all these cultural barriers that we've been having to be able to tell them like, no, please, let's stop this because it's detrimental to the girl or to the women who have been affected by these cultural practices. So we think this is a very, very good platform for our organisation, and we would like to network with like-minded organisations so that we can actually achieve more. Because as a team, if we come in as a team our voices, I think are going to go a long way to achieve our goals. And we are honestly very grateful to give us that you've been able to recognize the work that we are doing and be able to give us this platform to come and then meet with all of you and see how we can work together.

We have our website. At least you can see most of the work that is being done. What we have been able to achieve, we don't need much. We don't need much. Very little that somebody can do or give to us. We go a long way to helping our activities. 

 Right now in our plan of action, we need to train a lot of young girls who are victims of breast ironing, 

We want them to be the voice for the voiceless in our country and we need them also to work here in the UK. 

We want to carry out a research here in the UK and anybody who can support our research in any way somebody can decide that I'll do the research, we will be very grateful. because we need to know the prevalence, you know what is really happening. And there are times people want to volunteer. You know, we have room for volunteering and you can volunteer by going to Cameroon to talk to the victims, to talk to the women, to talk to the community. They want to hear a new voice. Somebody can decide, okay. And even there, there are a lot of students who are doing their research, they can decide, okay, I'm doing my research. Why don't I do my research on breast only? And that can even give room for us having something that has been written. 

So there's a lot that people can do to support us. 

FiLiA: Oh, that's really great to hear because we are about sisterhood and solidarity. So I think we are going to do great work together, but also, as you said, we are appealing to other organisations that can actually support Came Women, please do it. Together with this podcast, we are going to have the website included. If you can support them, please support them. They're doing a great job.

Margaret: Thank you very much for all the ladies that came in here and there are many people who are hearing about breast ironing for the first time. There are many people who are surprised to hear that something like that is happening. There are many people who would like to do something.

Yeah. I would say they're welcome on board. Come and join us in any way you can. You know, it will make a difference. We women, we have been made to be agents of change. Let's bring that change in any way we can.