In Nigeria, Girls Are Still Being Subjected to Breast Ironing. Survivors Are Breaking the Silence.

Children typically anticipate celebrating their twelfth birthday, receiving gifts from their parents and enjoying the day with friends, but Mabel Peter didn’t feel that joy. 

She knew something ominous was coming. 

A day after Mabel, a Cameroonian refugee in Nigeria, marked her twelfth birthday at the Abiao, a refugee community where she grew up in Cross River State in southern Nigeria, three older women held her legs firmly in place. Beside her, her mother took a burning hot pestle straight out of a fire and pressed it against her daughter's breasts. 

Mabel shouted and wrenched in pain.

More than two decades later, Mabel is now 32 years old and living with her husband in Nigeria's capital city of Abuja. Still, she feels the damages caused by that ritual performed on her twelfth birthday, her breasts growing unbalanced and distorted, never the same. Her breast muscles became weak and saggy, and she suffered severe pain for years.

According to the African Health Organization, the ritual, ubiquitously described as “breast ironing,” should actually be called “breast flattening” and banned. As the African Health Organization describes it, the ritual is a cultural practice in which young pubescent girls are subjected to situations in which their breasts are forcibly “ironed, massaged, and/or pounded down through the use of hard or heated objects in order for the breasts to disappear or delay the development of the breasts entirely.” 

The agency notes that the practice is done to protect girls “from harassment, rape, abduction, and early forced marriage,” so they can stay in school.

According to the United Nations, “breast ironing” affects about 3.8 million women in Africa and is one of the five most under-reported crimes related to gender-based violence. In some west African countries like Cameroon and Nigeria, 25 percent to 50 percent of girls are affected, according to UN data. 

In Mabel’s community in Cross River State, the practice is typically forced on the girls by their mothers or other maternal figures.

Dr. Uswat Abubakar, a medical expert at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital in Nigeria’s Kwara state, told More to Her Story that “breast ironing” is done to children as young as infants and that it negatively harms the social, mental, and psychological well-being of victims. Women sometimes use unsterilized instruments on girls, resulting in infections, abscesses, tissue damage, and breast asymmetry – like Mabel experienced. This practice can damage glandular tissue, affecting breast milk production later in life.

“Breast ironing could be very painful. Apart from the instant ache, the practice can also result in worse physical issues, which include abscesses, cysts, itching, constant ache, burns from heated objects, and tissue harm,” she explained.

“Breast ironing” can result in immediate severe, sharp pains – like Mabel felt – and it can result in long-lasting physical discomfort, including itching, constant aches, and burns on the breast from the tools used.

Breast ironing in Nigeria

Typically, experts and victims say, the relatives of girls, including mothers, grandmothers, and older girls, hold the ritual event at night after bedtime to keep it a secret from family members, especially men. It generally takes place in the kitchen of a home with available tools.

Historically, “breast ironing” has been associated with a “breast rub-down,” mainly done during lactation by breastfeeding mothers to cope with irregularities in milk production and alleviate discomfort. However, it has developed into a damaging practice affecting girls who haven’t even had their first menopause.

The issue has been the subject of years of investigation. In 2010, the Washington Post published a searing column about the practice in Cameroon, one young girl “revealing a long, wide scar where a small nipple or budding breast should have been.” In 2012, a Tufts University student published a report that chronicled the use of heated tools, including grinding stones, cast iron, coconut shells, calabashes, hammers, and spatulas, to carry out the practice. Sometimes, breasts are wrapped tightly with a belt or other material.

“Breast ironing” is an ancient, long-time tradition in the Pygba community in Abuja. Local women told More to Her Story that they had nearly all experienced “breast ironing” at some point in their lives, and many reported that their mothers and grandmothers were also subjected to this generational practice.

Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child notes: "States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life. States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child."

Article 19 adds: "States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child."

In Nigeria, practices consisting of female genital mutilation, breast ironing, and forced marriages are criminal offenses categorized as dangerous traditional practices under the Violence Against Persons and Prohibition Act. The law prohibits “violence against persons in private and public life,” levying jail sentences and fines against convicted offenders.

Long-term health conditions caused by ‘breast ironing’

At 13, Loverth David lived in the Pygba community of Abuja, a bright future ahead of her. Her life changed when her mother forced her to undergo “breast ironing” to prevent sexual harassment, leading to lifelong pain and struggle. Now 27, Loverth experienced severe pains in her breasts before she got married in 2020 and had to manage the pain with painkillers.

“Before I married, I used to visit a chemist and buy painkiller drugs whenever I had pains in my breast, but when I got married, it became worse and affected me more," Loverth said.

In 2022, she delivered a newborn baby, but then got the shocking news from a doctor that the “breast ironing” had damaged her glandular tissue, which produces milk, potentially making breastfeeding difficult. "After the doctor informed me that the breasts that were ironed when I was young might affect me when I gave birth, my husband and I couldn't afford treatment for the glandular tissue of my breasts,” she said.

Maureen James, 25, grew up in the same community as Loverth and experienced the painful practice of “breast ironing” at the hands of her mother at age 14 and still suffers its health consequences. At 16, she began experiencing severe itching and bleeding from wounds and infection left behind in her breasts from the “ironing.” The distressing condition caused her mother to become frustrated, leading Maureen to run away from home.

“I ran out of the house and worked for some people at Wuse market here in Abuja," Maureen said. "One of the women who accommodated me noticed my nightly crying and constant itching. She took me to the hospital, where the doctor said the way my breasts were ironed had caused an infection requiring long-term treatment and possibly surgery. Due to the woman's financial difficulty, she couldn't pay the full medical bills, so I continue living with daily pain," she added, tears rolling down her eyes.

Olanike Timipa-Uge, a child rights advocate at Rise Up, a public health nonprofit based in Abuja, said that victims often don’t report the act of “breast ironing,” but it remains a widespread practice in the capital and throughout Nigeria. In December,, Rise Up started an outreach program in Abuja to educate girls about the health risks of “breast ironing.” Many of the girls  hail from regions including Niger State, where the act of “breast ironing” is rampant.

“We have been accomplishing substantial network outreach and advocacy programs to train mothers and fathers about the extreme health results of breast ironing," Timipa-Uge said. “We emphasize how this exercise damages the girls’ futures and hampers their aspirations. Additionally, we've sent several official letters to the federal government ministries involved in women and girls matters, calling for the cancelation of this brutal practice.”

With this effort, public health educators are trying to avoid the wounds inherited by young women like Peter, struggling decades later from the pain that began right after her twelfth birthday.