“I have revealed my six children”

A mother in Northern Nigeria is visibly upset as she squeezes her two -year -old child who has burns and discolored skin on the face and legs.

The 32-year-old uses the skin whitening products of all six children, under pressure from his family, with results that she is now deeply sorry.

Fatima, whose name has been changed to protect her family’s identity, says one of her daughters covers her face whenever she goes out to hide her burns.

Another was left with darker skin from before – with a pale circle around the eyes, while the third has handcuffs on the lips and knees.

Her young child still has crying wounds – his skin takes a long time to heal.

“My sister gave birth to children with light-skinned, but my children are darker with skin. I noticed that my mother favors my sister’s children over mine because of their skin tone, and this is a lot of harm to my feelings,” says Fatima.

She says she used creams she bought at her local supermarket in the city of Kano without a prescription.

At first it looked like it was working. The grandmother warmed up to Fatima’s children, who were between two and 16 years old at the time.

But then the burns and the scars appeared.

Deleting the skin or lightening, also known as whitening in Nigeria, is used in different parts of the world for cosmetic reasons, although they often have deep cultural roots.

Women in Nigeria use skin whitening products more than in any other African country – 77% use them regularly, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO).

In Congo-Brasavil, the figure is 66%, in Senegal 50%and in Ghana 39%.

Creams may contain corticosteroids or hydroquinone, which can be harmful if used in high quantities, and in many countries they are only prescribed.

Other ingredients that are sometimes used are poisonous metal, mercury and codic acid – a by -product of the production of Japanese alcoholic beverage, sake.

Dermatitis, acne and discoloration of the skin are possible consequences, but also inflammatory disorders, mercury poisoning and kidney damage.

The skin can become a thinner, the result that the wounds take longer to heal and more likely to become infected, says the WHO.

The situation is so bad that the National Food and Medicines Control Agency in Nigeria (NAFDAC) announced a state of emergency in 2023.

It is also more and more that women whiten their children as Fatima did.

“Many people associate light skin with beauty or wealth. Women tend to protect themselves, as they call it, their children from this discrimination by whitening them from birth,” says Zainab Bashir Jau, owner of a dermatological spa in the capital, Abuzha, tells the BBC.

She estimates that 80% of the women she met have whitening their children or planning to do so.

Some were bleached as babies, she says, so they just continue to practice.

One of the most common ways to find out if someone uses skin whitening products in Nigeria is the darkness of their bones. Other parts of the hands or feet of the people become slower, but the bones tend to remain dark.

However, smokers and drug users sometimes have dark spots on their hands because of smoke.

So users of lightening the skin are sometimes wrongly assumed to belong to this group.

Fatima says this happened to her daughters at 16 and 14.

“They have been confronted with discrimination against society – they all point their fingers and call them drug addicts. This has a lot of influence them,” she says.

Both have lost potential fiancés because men do not want to be related to women who may be considered to be taking drugs.

I visited a popular cano market where people who call themselves “myxologists” create creams for skin whitening from scratch.

The market has a row of stores where thousands of these creams are sold.

Some pre -mixed varieties are arranged on the shelves, but customers can also choose raw ingredients and request the cream to mix in front of them.

I noticed that many whitening creams, with labels saying they are for babies, containing regulated substances.

Other sellers adopted using regulated ingredients such as codic acid, hydroquinone and a powerful antioxidant, glutathione, which can cause rashes and other side effects.

I also witnessed teenage girls who buy whitening creams for themselves and wholesale so that they can sell them to their peers.

A woman who was discolored hands insisted that the seller added a lightening agent to a cream mixed for her children, although this is a regulated substance for adults and illegally used for children.

“Although my hands are discolored, I am here to buy creams for my children so that they can be light -skinned. I believe my hands are this way just because I used the wrong. Nothing will happen to my children,” she said.

A seller said most of his customers buy creams to make their babies “radiant” or look “radiant and shiny”.

Most seem to be unaware of the approved doses.

A seller said he used a “lot of Kojic” – much above the prescribed border – if someone wants light skin and a little quantity if he wants a fewer change.

The approved dose of Kojic acid in Nigeria creams is 1%, according to NAFDAC.

I even saw traders give injections to women.

Dr. Leonard Omokpario, director of Nafdac, says attempts are being made to train people about the risks.

He also says the markets are attacked and there is an effort to grip ingredients for illuminated skin at Nigeria’s borders as they are introduced into the country.

But he says it was sometimes difficult for law enforcement officers to identify these substances.

“Some of them are simply transported to marked containers, so if you do not take them to the evaluation laboratories, you cannot say what is inside.”

Fatima says her actions will pursue her forever, especially if her children are not faded.

“When I trusted my mother for what I did because of her behavior. When the dangers of the cream heard and what stigma her grandchildren were facing, she was sad that they had to go through it and apologize,” she says.

Fatima is determined to help other parents avoid making the same mistake.

“Although I have stopped … The side effects are still here, please other parents to use my situation as an example.”