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Environmental

How the environment, resources, and nature of Cameroon relate to breast ironing

Geography

The population of Cameroon is 19 million, and 4.75 million are threatened with breast ironing (Thompson, 2011). 86% of people in Cameroon do not have the funds to obtain health care. Most women have breast ironing done between 8-12 years old to prevent sexual tension, but the common age for marriage for girls is 14.9 years old (Parmar and Agrawal, 2010). This can result in the woman not finishing her schooling and having more teenage pregnancies, which was what we were trying to avoid from the start. 

A secluded Cameroonian village (M. Schlossman, n.d.).

Most people would argue that Cameroon is an isolated county. Along with the country itself being isolated many have not ever heard of the practice of breast ironing. The lack of influence from the western world on Cameroonian villages makes it difficult for outside cultures to be aware of the breast ironing that is occurring "in secret", and also makes it difficult for those who do know of it to have an influential voice in halting the practice.

The western and central regions of Cameroon, have the highest rate of Breast Ironing. Where the other regions do have breast ironing that occurs, just not as high prevalence rate (Tapscott, 2012). There are not a lot of statistics that relate back to how many women are breast ironed in the region since not a whole of research has been done and is not a very common topic. Other countries in Africa that also practice Breast Ironing or something similar include Nigeria, Togo, Republic of Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire and South Africa (Hall, 2013). Breast ironing is slowly spreading to other parts of the country, as 1000 girls have experienced this in Britain (Sky news, 2016). Awareness of breast ironing is happening slowly, in an attempt to educate all individuals both in affected and unaffected regions in hopes of reducing the practice.

People of Cameroon are leaving the physical environment to go to western countries such as Britain. These people are not leaving the social environment and continuing their practices of Cameroon, to the western countries they arrive at (Sky News, 2016).

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