Ebola is threatening much of the world’s chocolate supply.
Ivory Coast, the world’s largest producer of cacao, the raw ingredient in M&M’s, Butterfingers and Snickers Bars, has shut down its borders with Liberia and Guinea, putting a major crimp on the workforce needed to pick the beans that end up in chocolate bars and other treats just as the harvest season begins. The West African nation of about 20 million — also known as Côte D’Ivoire — has yet to experience a single case of Ebola, but the outbreak already could raise prices.
The world’s chocolate makers have taken notice.
The World Cocoa Foundation is working now to collect large donations from Nestlé, Mars and many of its 113 other members for its Coca Industry Response to Ebola Initiative. The initiative hasn’t been publicly unveiled, but the WCF plans to announce details Wednesday, during its annual meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, on how the money will fuel Red Cross and Caritas Internationalis work to help the infected and staunch Ebola’s spread.
Ivory Coast, which produces about 1.6 million metric tons of cacao beans per year — roughly 33 percent of the world’s total, according to data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization — closed its borders in August to Guinea and Liberia. More than 8,000 have been diagnosed with Ebola, and nearly 4,000 have died in those two countries and Sierra Leone. Next to Ivory Coast is Ghana, the world’s third-largest producer of cacao beans — 879,348 metric tons per year — or 15 percent of the world’s total.
Scene in Cameroon with Mount Cameroon in the background
by Anne Mireille Nzouankeu and Kristin Palitza
It happened a long time ago, two full decades, but Raissa Nana’s painful memories have remained fresh.
“My mother began to flatten my chest when I was 11. Every evening, she heated a stone in boiling water and pressed it on my breasts,” the 31-year-old remembered, her anger still written all over her face.
Dressed in a plain T-shirt that betrayed her flat chest, Nana recalled the physical abuse and humiliation she endured throughout puberty: “I cried out in pain, while my aunts were holding me down.”
By “ironing” her bust for years, the mother damaged Nana’s breast tissue irreparably.
The practice of “breast ironing,” in which mothers try to flatten their daughters’ developing breasts with heavy, heated objects is common in Cameroon as well as in many other West African countries, including Nigeria, Togo, Guinea, Chad and Ivory Coast.
Some women use stones or pestles to prevent breast growth, while others pound the tissue with heated plantain peels.
In nations where teenage pregnancy and rape are rife, trying to forcibly eliminate signs of puberty to protect their daughters seems worth the pain to many mothers.
A quarter of girls fall pregnant under the age of 15 in Cameroon, according to 2011 government statistics, while an estimated four per cent of women and girls are being raped.
“Mothers don’t want their daughters to get involved in early sexual activity, become pregnant and drop out of school,” explained Dr. Flavien Ndonko, technical adviser and anthropologist of aid organization German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Cameroon.
In a society, where discussing sexuality with children is a taboo for cultural and religious reasons, mothers resort to methods that have serious implications on their daughters’ health and psyche, according to Ndonko.
“They don’t realize how traumatizing breast ironing is,” he said. “It’s a very, very painful practice.”
But behavioural patterns are hard to change and myths difficult to set straight.
Even today, Nana’s mother, 52-year-old Emilienne, continues to believe the “benefits” of breast ironing outweigh the physical and emotional suffering it causes.
“I myself underwent breasts ironing. I did it to my daughter because I wanted the best for her,” she told dpa.
In Cameroon, 12 per cent of women have had their breasts ironed, according to a new study, for which GIZ surveyed about 6,000 girls and women between the ages of 10 and 82.
Contrary to general assumptions, breast ironing is not an old tradition. “It’s a social issue that is much more prevalent in urban than in rural areas. It originates from modern problems around sexuality,” explained Ndonko.
The psychological trauma the practice induces is immense.
“Girls get to understand that it’s not normal to have breasts, which has a long-term impact on their body image and sexual life,” said Ndonko.
“More than half of the women we interviewed associate breasts with shame,” he added.
Although Cameroon’s ministry for family and women’s empowerment classified breast ironing as a “violation of women’s rights” in 2011, the government has not legislated against the practice.
Eighty per cent of the women surveyed by GIZ said their breasts were permanently deformed by breast ironing. Nine per cent said they had difficulty breastfeeding their babies.
“We have seen girls developing cysts, infections, deformation and dissymmetry of the breast and psychological illness,” explained Sarah Ako, spokesperson of women’s rights group National Network of Aunties, which works closely with GIZ in capital Yaounde.
More than 10,000 women across Cameroon have joined the network to fight for the rights of younger generations. They run educational campaigns in schools, churches and on national radio to mobilize against breast ironing.
The good news is that the campaign has shown success. The 12 per cent of women suffering today from breast ironing represents a halving of the number in 2006, when an initial GIZ survey found that one in four women were affected by the practice.
“That’s a positive trend. It’s encouraging, but we’ll only be happy when we have zero cases,” said Ndonko.
Nana is one of the women who want to help break the cycle. As part of the Aunties network, she consults young women on issues relating to their sexuality.
Nana says she certainly won’t flatten the breasts of her own daughter, who just turned 14: “I don’t think it’s a solution to prevent premature sexuality.” – dpa
A bid to reconcile hardened enemies in Ivory Coast has all but broken down, according to participants and observers, and time is running out for a commission set up to heal the wounds of bitter strife.
More than two years after a political and military crisis that claimed at least 3,000 lives in the west African country in the wake of disputed elections, statements by rival sides reveal their deep differences.
Yet the word “reconciliation” is still on many lips in political circles. Supporters of President Alassane Ouattara make it an article of faith. So do members of the opposition Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) of former president Laurent Gbagbo, who triggered the crisis by refusing to accept defeat at the polls in November 2010.
In an early July tour of the cocoa-rich north, his electoral stronghold, Ouattara urged the FPI to “ask pardon of the victims” of the bloodshed, which lasted from December 2010 to April 2011 in a country already weakened by civil war and partition.
The FPI this week curtly rejected the call to “repent”. Many in the party still consider Gbagbo their champion, though he is detained by the International Criminal Court in The Hague facing charges of crimes against humanity. His supporters argue that Ouattara’s side was to blame for the post-electoral violence.
Created by Ouattara in September 2011, a national Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (CDVR) with a two-year mandate has endeavoured to resolve differences and has joined in the debate.
“In what happened to Ivory Coast, the wrongs are shared,” said the commission chairman, former prime minister Charles Konan Banny, closing a forum last week on the “profound causes” of a decade of hostilities.
“It’s up to all those who committed violations of human rights to acknowledge them and make an act of repentance,” he added, but the commission has less than three months to complete an enormous task.
Banny has indicated that he might ask for an extension of the commission’s mandate. “A time limit (is) not the best” of solutions, he told AFP, suggesting that two years are not enough for the work to be done.
Asked whether he would take up his post again if the mandate is prolonged, Banny evades the question. In political circles, many are speculating that the ex-premier might want to take up another challenge: the presidential election of 2015.
According to these observers, Banny may try to take control of his political party, the once all-powerful Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), which has now become the main ally of Ouattara’s Rally of Republicans (RDR). The PDCI’s leading bodies are due for renewal in October.
‘A great national catharsis’
Now that the reconciliation commission is nearing the end of its mandate, politicians, diplomats, observers and non-governmental organisations are taking stock of its record, often with great severity.
“The CDVR is at a dead end,” says Rene Legre Hokou, the chairman of the Ivorian League of Human Rights, (LIDHO), arguing that the panel has kept a low profile and shown few concrete results.
The commission has for months promised public hearings across the country in which the “executioners” would directly confront their “victims”, but they have yet to begin. Many Ivorians eagerly await what Banny has termed a “great national catharsis”.
Under fire from its critics, some members of the panel complain of a lack of sufficient financial resources and also argue that their task is being complicated by political and legal interference.
In the most recent episode they cite, 84 people who were part of Gbagbo’s regime or close to it, including former first lady Simone Gbagbo, have been summoned before an assize court to answer for their suspected roles in the crisis of 2010-2011. However, the date for the hearing has not yet been set.
While for Ouattara, there can be no reconciliation without justice, Gbagbo supporters see the latest move by the judiciary as a new illustration of “conqueror’s justice”. Ivorian prosecutors have so far taken no steps to deal with serious crimes blamed on pro-Ouattara forces during the crisis.
Scant grounds exist for a resumption of talks between the government and the opposition FPI, which have been stalled for months. Yet such dialogue is essential to pave the way for the presidential election in two years’ time, with Ouattara already a candidate.
CDVR member Simeon Ahouana, the bishop of the central town of Bouake -long the stronghold of rebels involved in a 2002 coup bid against Gbagbo – has annnounced that he has “concerns” about the forthcoming poll.
LIDHO’s chairman Hokou is more blunt. In his eyes, if there is no progress in reconciliation by 2015, “we must fear that we’ll fall back into even worse violence”. – AFP
A war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape.
“African” curves or an “international” silhouette? On the airwaves and the catwalks of Côte d’Ivoire, a war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape.
The young Ivorian singer Princesse Amour is hoping for a hit with her song celebrating “lalas”, the name she has given to slender, small-breasted women.
Dressed in ultra-tight skinny jeans, she sings over a pounding beat, her lyrics encouraging women to embrace their “little lemons”.
“I noticed that some girls were embarrassed to have small breasts” and “felt like they had to fake it by stuffing their bras,” she told AFP.
Her use of the term “lala” is no accident. It’s a reference to “lolo”, the word used to describe voluptuous women by Ivorian musical heavyweight Meiway in his 2000 hit Miss Lolo. His latest smash, Wiggle Your Bottom, a celebration of big booties, has had the whole of Abidjan shaking their stuff in recent months.
More “lala” than “lolo”
At a concert last year, Meiway told a handful of Europeans in the crowd: “You white people, you like your women flat and thin. Here, we like them big, with curves.”
But the aesthetic at the Miss Côte d’Ivoire beauty pageant is infinitely more “lala” than “lolo”.
Victor Yapobi, president of the organising committee, says: “Our beauties comply to international standards: minimum height 1.68m, 90cm around the hips.”
In Africa, “young women are becoming more and more slender”, he says, pointing out that a slim woman is still considered a marketing plus for brands.
But away from the podium, old habits die hard.
“Being thin is synonymous with being sickly and malnourished in African society,” laments Micheline Gueu, a candidate for Miss Côte d’Ivoire in a regional heat in the southeastern town of Aboisso.
Honour the real African woman
At the other end of the scale, however, the “awoulaba” (voluptuous women in the local Baoule language) also complain that their beauty is underrated.
On International Women’s Day on March 8, the “Awoulaba” beauty contest celebrating curvy women was reinstated after a seven-year lull.
The crown was taken by Esteve Alexandrine N’Goran, who told the audience of a thousand that she was there to “honour the real African woman”.
Emotional after her victory, the 38-year-old business woman and mother-of-three said that she wanted to show that women like her were both “beautiful” and “comfortable with themselves”.
“Roundly Beautiful”, an organisation set up in Abidjan in 2009 to support plus-sized women, lent its backing to the event. The group aims to “rid big women of their complexes” according to its president, Djeneba Dosso.
But Dosso admits that curves are not just a question of aesthetics. Ivorian women “don’t exercise and eat badly” she said, so her group encourages larger women to break bad habits.
Celebrated Ivorian artist Augustin Kassi is an inspiration to many. Since 1985 he’s been painting “fat women” as he describes them, in bright, joyful works of art.
A consistent opponent of what he sees as “cultural alienation”, for him Miss Côte d’Ivoire is a symbol of the “voluntary denigration of African beauty”.
He advocates diversity.
“The world is made up of different things” he says, paintbrush in hand. “It’s a rainbow.” – Sapa-AFP
The Ivory Coast on Wednesday began three days of national mourning after a stampede among crowds gathered for celebratory New Year’s Eve fireworks in Abidjan left at least 60 dead and dozens injured.
An AFP journalist saw many injured children, while images broadcast by RTI television showed bodies stretched lifeless on the ground outside the city’s main stadium.
Piles of abandoned shoes and clothing could also be seen at the stadium, where soldiers and police were deployed, along with UN peacekeepers.
“This is a real tragedy on this New Year’s Day,” President Alassane Ouattara said at the scene.
“We are all in shock,” he added, announcing that three days of national mourning would be held starting Wednesday.
The government said 60 people had died, with an average age of 18. Earlier, the head of military rescue workers, Lieutenant Colonel Issa Sako, told journalists that 61 had died.
“Forty-nine wounded were evacuated” by rescue workers, Sako said, adding that other injured victims had gone to hospital on their own. Another rescue official said at least 200 people had been wounded in all.
Sako said the flow of people at the stadium had caused a “very large crush” and that “in the crush, people were walked over and suffocated by the crowd”.
Officials said around 50,000 people had gathered for the fireworks.
Witnesses said the stampede had broken out after the fireworks ended, though the cause remains unclear. It erupted near the stadium’s main entrance, where security had set up tree trunks as crowd control barriers.
According to a police source, the crush occurred when two streams of spectators going in opposite directions crossed paths.
A security source added that rescue services “took some time to arrive”.
Interior Minister said the “exact circumstances” of the tragedy are “under investigation by the security services”.
Visibly shaken children were among the roughly 40 wounded taken to a hospital in the wealthy neighbourhood of Cocody, in the north of the economic capital.
A mother named Zeinab who had taken two of her children to the stadium found one of them in the hospital, a small boy who lay on a bed in a groggy state.
Zeinab said she “hurt all over” and showed a journalist the scratches on her body.
“I don’t know what happened but I found myself lying on the ground with people stepping on me, pulling my hair or tearing my clothes,” she said.
She said she had been knocked unconscious and that a young man had pulled her from the crowd.
The New Year’s fireworks, the city’s second in two years, had been touted as a symbol of national renewal under Ouattara after a violent post-election crisis that tore the country apart from December 2010 to April 2011, killing some 3,000 people.
The unrest began after Ouattara’s long-time rival and former iron-fisted ruler Laurent Gbagbo refused to step down.
He was later arrested by forces loyal to Ouattara, with UN and French military backing, and transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he is accused of crimes against humanity.
Though the troubled west African nation — the world’s top cocoa producer — is still recovering from the political and military crisis, Ouattara had struck a note of optimism in a New Year’s message on Monday evening.
He said the former French colony had “possibilities like seldom before” ahead of it, promising it would soon reap the rewards of economic growth and development. – AFP
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