The recent campaign against bleaching creams carried out by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has sparked controversy among women in Kano State. The campaign, led by NAFDAC Director General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, aims to discourage the use of bleaching creams due to their potential health hazards.
However, many women in Kano, who have become accustomed to the use of bleaching creams, have expressed dissatisfaction with the campaign, arguing that it is a distraction from their beauty regime and should be ignored. The women claim that they are aware of the risks associated with the use of bleaching creams, such as cancer, black knuckles, skin burns, loss of protective skin layer, wrinkles, and bad odor. Still, they feel compelled to use them because Kano men prefer light-skinned women.
The prevalence of skin bleaching creams in Nigeria is a national health emergency, according to the WHO, with 77% of Nigerian women reported to use them, the highest in Africa. The societal idea that light-skinned women are more attractive to men has led many women to feel insecure about their natural skin color, prompting them to resort to bleaching creams to look lighter.
Kaltuma, a civil servant in Kano, shared her experience, saying she uses bleaching creams to maintain her light skin because her husband married another woman who has lighter skin. “I have to use creams to tone up my skin and look fresh and beautiful to catch the attention of my husband,” she said.
Maryam Bello, who lives with two friends, said she is jealous of one of them because she attracts more attention from men due to her light skin. “We are thinking of a way to send our friend packing from our house because we don’t make much money from men because of her. The men always get attracted to her while they ignore us. She is making us feel irrelevant because she uses bleaching creams,” she said.
Ummah Abdul, a photojournalist in Kano, confirms that women bleach because they feel insecure and are not attractive to men around them. She advised that NAFDAC can do a lot by changing the perception of men about the color of women through an aggressive nationwide campaign. “Kano men prefer marrying women who are light-skinned; in fact, they say they prefer such ‘even if she is a witch and cannot do the house chores well.’ With this kind of mentality, women are forced into using bleaching creams to tone up their skins to attract men to marry them. The men should know that black is beautiful and stop the discrimination. So NAFDAC should do more along this line,” she advised.
While NAFDAC is determined to stem the tide of the bleaching culture in Nigeria, the controversy surrounding its campaign highlights the need for a multi-faceted regulatory approach that addresses the underlying societal factors that drive the use of bleaching creams.
