Why some Pakistani take all the risks to whitewash their skin
When, on the benches of the medical school, Isima Sobande had heard of mothers bleaching the skin of their babies, she had believed in an urban legend. But she soon saw him with her own eyes. Shortly after being posted to a medical center in Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital, a two-month-old infant, writhing in pain, was admitted "with very large boils all over his body". The young doctor discovered that his mother was applying a steroid cream mixed with shea butter, a "basic recipe" known to many Nigerians. "I was horrified," she says. "It really shocked me." "Our society is conditioned by the fact that having fair skin is a way to find a good job, to have a relationship, ... and for many, it's very important," says the young woman of 27 years with a soft voice. "It's gnawing us from the inside."
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In Africa, skin whitening is nothing new. Medical experts warn of the health risks of these methods of skin clarification for many years. The chanters of black consciousness have long been indignant against this harmful legacy and brainwashing due to centuries of slavery and colonization. But paradoxically, they probably have more echoes and influence in the rest of the world than on the African continent and the phenomenon continues to amplify.
"The use of products to whiten skin is increasing, especially among teenagers and young people," says Lester Davids, a professor of human biology at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "The older generation used creams, the new generation uses pills and injections," he notes. New modes of administration even more worrying: "We do not even know what these products, even more concentrated, will have as a consequence in the long term." With a growing population and very young, the African market is booming.
Second specificity of the continent, the market is very little regulated and any company, craft or multinational can access it. "More and more of our customers (cosmetics brands, ed) want to have information on the market for skin whitening," says Rubab Abdoolla, an analyst at Euromonitor International, a consumer consulting firm. In Nigeria alone, a giant of some 180 million people, 77% of women - more than 60 million people - regularly use lightening products (WHO, 2011). While affluent consumers can afford to buy tested products, others buy creams that contain dangerous levels of products that inhibit the production of melanin. These include hydroquinone (a banned carbohydrate derivative in cosmetics in the European Union), steroids, and even lead, which has also killed many of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers, who in their time white powders and pale complexion. Authorities often struggle to control money laundering innovations, which are increasingly taken in the form of injections or pills.
A poorly controlled market
The US Food and Drug Administration's consumer agency has not allowed any of these injections in the US, arguing that these products "are potentially harmful and may contain unknown harmful ingredients." Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya have totally banned those with high concentrations of hydroquinie and mercury, and the South African state of KwaZulu-Natal has asked its inhabitants to "reject any form of colonial beauty. ". In July, the government of Ghana also issued a precautionary message to warn of the dangers fetuses face when pregnant women take these treatments, especially so that the skin of the child is clearer at birth. But treatments remain easily accessible and poorly controlled in markets, on the internet or in specialized clinics and consumers become "totally addicted without even realizing it".
Why bleach your skin?
"Skin whitening is a way to access the power and privileges associated with whites," says Yaba Blay, an adjunct professor of political science at Central University of North Carolina, and an expert on the issue. "People want to be perceived as having more value, and that goes through the color of the skin," she continues. In Africa, beyond comparison with the former colon, fair skin suggests work in an office, not exposed to the sun, and is therefore a sign of wealth.
Recent movements of "black consciousness" are trying to change these perceptions. The hashtag #Melaninpoppin ('Melanin, it's trendy') celebrates black skin on social networks, the movie "Black Panther" with its almost exclusively black cast, with costumes inspired by traditional outfits and natural Afro hair, made evolve consciences and are signs of recoil from the very Euro-centered vision of beauty canons. But we are still far from a mass phenomenon.
"In the world of fashion in Africa, the clearer your skin is, the more you are considered pretty"
"The truth is that my beauty was more accepted abroad than in my own country," said Ajuma Nasenyana, a Kenyan model, who represented Victoria's Secret and Vivienne Westwood. "In the world of fashion in Africa, the clearer your skin is, the more you are considered pretty", she confides to AFP. "But fortunately, things are a bit evolving."
The young doctor Dr Sobande, also perceives this "positive" change on the other side of the continent, in Nigeria. "But it will take a lot of effort to change mentalities."
