Breast-ironing: 'the whole community needs an education' | Global development

In a quiet suburban house on the outskirts of a city in northern England, Maureen * – a mother of two in her late 30s – sits cradling a large dark stone in the palm of her hand.

She had just been using a crush for a family meal. But a few years ago, she was using it for a very different purpose.

She warmed the stone and then pressed against the chest of her eight-year-old daughter. She stopped when her daughter was lying on the floor.

"When they [police] asked me why I did it, it was a tradition, "Maureen explains, recalling her questioning as bewildered social workers googled" bad-ironing "on the internet.

The practice is aimed at slowing physical maturity in girls to spare them the unwanted attention and predation of young men while they are still minors. But doctors say it does not matter to bad development, and threatens all kinds of physical and psychological harm.

The intervention is not confined to this city. A Guardian investigation heard anecdotal evidence of dozens of cases in London, Leeds, Esbad and Wolverhampton.

Yet British authorities, social workers and some NGOs appear to be unaware that the practice is in the UK and is not taking a proactive stance.

Police say they are unlikely to report their parents, and they are going to.

"What we would not expect is a victim to a police force and a report that is happening to us," says Allen Davis, the Metropolitan Police's lead on illegal cultural practice. "If people were to tell us where it was happening, when, to whom and by whom – then we will do something about it."

"Like FGM," "says Jess Phillips, the MP for Birmingham Yardley. "However, we must do everything we can to educate communities against the practices and seek to prosecute victims and protect victims."

Maureen says that having had her own bad when she was a child in Cameroon, she would be convinced that she would like to know that she would like to be pregnant.

"The area where we were living – it was not a good area," she says, describing youth gangs walking the streets, fighting and peddling cannabis. "I could not let her play outside.

"When you saw her, you could not see the baby in her – you just saw a teenager. So for me it was really a nightmare. "

Maureen called her mother in Cameroon, who guided her through the process.

"Some women say that they do [it] Because these girls … are prone to rape, "says Mary, a local community activist in London.

"We have chat groups most weeks and women have talked about bad-ironing," says Karyne Tazi, the executive director of the Women & Families Resource Center in Wolverhampton, who works to educate women on the risks of the practice.

"You're thinking about it:" It's painful but it helps, "says Tazi, adding that the practice has serious physical, psychological and overall health effects that many people are simply not aware of.

Jennifer Miraj, a nurse, recalls dozens of cases of women and girls who had been bad-fed while working in hospitals around the UK.

She said that they could not badfeed and had long-term problems with cysts and infections from milk production.

She said many women had "painful red infections and no opportunity to bond [with the baby] by badfeeding ", and that it was common for women who were bad-fed to be diagnosed with bad cancer.

Cathy Aba Fouda, who was subjected to bad-ironing in Cameroon, where the practice is thought to originate, which is bad cancer.

"We lost a young woman only last month who had been badfeeding a girl and died from bad cancer, aged just 24," says Fouda. "I do not know why we have a study on the link between the two."

Psychological problems are also very common after bad-ironing and can last for years, depending on Fouda. "When I had a baby, all the trauma came flooding back," she says, explaining that whenever the child reaches for her chest, she felt panicked about being hurt.

Yet some UK-based community activists appear to be unaware of the risks.

"Mary says, adding that some women say it improves mother-daughter bond. "Up to now I have not heard that it's related to cancer."

"The only thing is that the nipple is going to reverse, and it makes it very difficult if you have to badfeed."

"FGM, bad-ironing-it fundamentally comes back to control over women's bodies," says the anti-FGM activist Leyla Hussein, who also provides therapy to bad-ironing survivors.

"The whole community needs an education," says Mary Stella in Wolverhampton. "Because we're coming from a background where we think it's OK."

Nazir Afzal, a former chief prosecutor for north-west England, says that it is a specific law that provides for a specific law against badfeeding. "Sometimes you need to change to a message," he says.

But others believe this would spell disaster and would push the practice even further underground. "Look at FGM: from 1985 till now they are still looking for somebody to be ridiculous?" Says Mary.

"Going around in a sympathetic way saying: 'Do you know anyone undergoing this?' So that they can latch on to that child like a ton of bricks – that's not support, is it?"

Tazi says interventions need to be subtle. "More organizations need to have the resources and opportunities to get these communities to talk. Because if they do not talk, it will always be an underground crime … But the more people talk about it, the more we'll find solutions.

"When we first started, you'd have a cat group on bad-ironing and labia pulling and no one would turn up. But they've seen us: we're there, we're constant, we're trying to work around them, not criminalize them. And they're now more open to talking, "says Tazi.

In Maureen's case, she was held by social services for 10 days before being released back to her family. Maureen faced no criminal charges, only a police bond.

"A social worker would come around for one or two months, that's all. After then, they just dropped the box, "she says. Maureen moved her daughter to another school.

"If I knew the laws of this country, I should have kept my daughter at home for three days [instead of sending her to school], "She says, slapping her hands together in frustration.

"Until that bruise just went away. They [would] never known. "

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