Kano Beauties: What jealousy drove a mother to bleach all of her children?
As far as Africa is concerned, around 25 to 80 percent of women regularly use skin-whitening products. In the western part of the continent, Nigeria unwittingly tops the rankings based on a November 2023 analytical fact sheet compiled by the WHO.
A dark skin tone is only natural in several parts of Nigeria, including Kano State, but sadly, in this conservative northern region, it has been pushing mothers to apply skin-lightening creams to their children even though there are risks, like dermatitis, acne, and discolouration—all that can make a bad situation worse.
When I confided in my mum about what I did, due to her behaviour, and when she heard the dangers of the cream and what stigma her grandchildren are facing, she was sad that they had to go through that and apologised.
These were a woman’s comments after the consequences, and not the rewards of her bleaching experiment on her kids had started to show.
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In a BBC World Service report, Fatima was identified as a 32-year-old who felt that her sister’s newborns often got more attention than her six offspring due to the latter’s darkened skin tone. She decided to bathe them with skin-lightening lotions.
Even though I have stopped… the side-effects are still here, says the now contrite millennial mum who adds in the story published on Monday 24 March 2025 that I beg other parents to use my situation as an example, but is there anyone out there who would listen?
According to the BBC’s Madina Maishanu’s discovery when she visited one of the markets in Kano State where people go to fashion out a bleaching potion for even babies, the trend is widespread.
While sometimes, a skin-lightening therapy – frowned upon by the authorities, particularly the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) – goes well with no sign whatsoever that a person had applied creams that may contain corticosteroids or hydroquinone, poisonous metal, mercury, and kojic acid on their bodies, in other moments which are now being spotlighted would reveal the user having burnt-like knuckles.
Yet, the outcome does not suggest this severity or distortion in appearance could halt the practice because of the discrimination those with darkened skin experience when they interact with the betters in their imagination.
Skin bleaching in Africa is not a new beauty phenomenon, says the World Health Organisation (WHO), confirming that the practice originated from the transatlantic slave trade and continued during the European colonisation of African nations. A range of adverse effects linked with this involve obviously, skin diseases as well as serious systemic problems such as diabetes, hypertension and renal diseases.
As far as the continent is concerned, around 25 to 80 percent of women regularly use skin-whitening products. In West Africa, Nigeria unwittingly tops the rankings based on a November 2023 analytical fact sheet compiled by the WHO.
Findings in Mali reveal the rate as 25 percent usage; Nigeria is 77 percent of the time while Ghana and Senegal have recorded 39 and 50 use respectively. Strong regulatory actions are recommended to ban harmful skin-bleaching products from entering these countries.
Up to 346 kilometres from Kano State is Abuja in Nigeria’s federal capital territory, Zainab Bashir Yau, the owner of a dermatology clinic who the BBC interviewed says women tend to shield, as they call it, their children from that discrimination by bleaching them from childbirth. This appears to be the common understanding within the class that practices this riskiness.
In the meantime, Fatima is ruing what damage has been done to both her 14 and 16-year-old daughters.
After the skin-lightening experience, she said they faced discrimination from society – they all point fingers at them and call them drug addicts. This has affected them a lot. The consequence goes even further according to the BBC as these damsels are reported to have lost potential fiancés because men do not want to be associated with women who might be thought to take drugs.
