Sierra explains that unless you are among the select few who have gained the trust of a smuggler, you simply cannot obtain skin whitening creams, or “mukorogo” as they are known locally. The decision to ban the products came after authorities — from health and safety departments to customs and local government — received countless reports of damage caused to users’ skin by the application of these cosmetics, Simeon Kwizera , public relations officer at The Standards Council of Rwanda, tells CNN.
Bad or prolonged use of products containing mercury, steroids or hydroquinone can be toxic to your health, and despite the ban, there is still a demand for lighter skin, which keeps the market for these products very much alive, albeit smaller and underground.
Forty-five-year-old Olive (also a pseudonym) has managed to secure a regular supply of skin-lightening products.
She tells CNN that once a month, she goes to a cosmetics store in Musanze, a town known as a gateway for those wishing to see Rwanda’s famous mountain gorillas.
Once inside the store, Olive makes subtle eye contact with her vendor and uses a few code words to explain why she’s come. She is then given a tub of cream, hidden in a large envelope. The seamstress and mother of two has been lightening her skin for more than five years, and the ban has forced her to pay more and be flexible about her beauty regimen. “Before the ban, I used to buy [my cream] for Rwf 2,000 (about $2) to lighten my skin and make me look beautiful, but it is no longer available,” she says. The new brand he uses is twice the price.
“At least it’s doable,” Olive says before admitting that her inconsistent income has forced her to put her skin treatment on hold at times. In Rwanda, the average monthly income for a woman is Rwf 42,796 ($41.83). For another user, Clementine, who also asked to be referred to by a pseudonym, her cream became five times more expensive. It went from Rwf 2,000 (US$2) to Rwf 10,000 (US$10). She tells CNN she often skips meals so she can afford the produce.
But it wasn’t financial hardship that made Clementine, who doesn’t have a fixed income, stop using the lightening creams. It was only “after I knew how dangerous it was, and after my skin turned whiter than I wanted, that I decided to stop,” she says.

Nationwide raids

Regulations on skin-lightening products in the small, landlocked country of about 13 million people began with a 2016 ministerial decree that banned the use of 1,342 harmful chemicals and compounds — including hydroquinone above certain levels, mercury and steroids — in cosmetics. These three ingredients are commonly found in skin whitening products.
While the 2016 law outlined the banned ingredients and products, it wasn’t until 2018 that authorities began to crack down on violations. “There was a lag between the 2016 ministerial decision and its enforcement in 2018,” Yolande Makolo, a Rwandan government spokeswoman, told CNN. This is because various departments needed to build the capacity to inspect products and enforce the ban, he explains. During this period, laboratories were established to screen for harmful ingredients by the Rwanda Standards Board (RSB), an official regulatory authority for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. The Rwanda Food and Drug Authority was established and related laws, including penal codes, were enacted. Rwandan President Paul Kagame also publicly supported the initiative in November 2018, saying on Twitter that skin bleaching was “quite unhealthy among other things” and that it “involves the use of banned chemicals”. The president added that the Ministry of Health and the Rwanda National Police (RNP) “must rule this very quickly…!” Raids on shops and street markets began to take place across the country at the end of that year.
In 2020 alone, RNP spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Jean Bosco Kabera, tells CNN that the police seized about 13,596 units, i.e. skin whitening products, and that this number increased to 39,204 units seized in 2021 .
Law enforcement in Rwanda has relied on people tipping off their neighbors in order to crack down on the illegal sale of skin whitening products. However, the raids were accompanied by efforts to raise awareness about the chemical properties of the banned products, both among importers and local manufacturers, as a precautionary measure. RSB has “trained cosmetic importers, local manufacturers and all the value chains on the new policies and how to check the content in these products” for illegal ingredients or illegal levels of certain ingredients, public relations officer Kwizera said, adding that the training is in progress. Those who participate are then assessed and the products they import or manufacture locally are certified by the RSB. To date, 91 local cosmetic products, manufactured by 19 companies, have obtained RSB’s S-Mark, which serves to reassure consumers that safety and quality standards have been met, according to Makolo, who explains that the certification of safe cosmetics from Rwanda can help businesses reduce losses resulting from the importation or production of items that violate the ban and are subsequently confiscated. The government also ran awareness campaigns within the community as well as in the media and social media to inform people about the dangers of bleaching as well as the ban itself.

To become a taboo

According to Makolo, the impact of the ban was palpable.
“Generally speaking, the policies have been quite successful. These products can only exist illegally: the quantity is small, the awareness of how harmful these products are is high.” Using skin-lightening products has “become taboo,” she says. However, data to support this has not been made available to CNN.

Apart from Rwanda, what have other African nations done to ban skin whitening products?

Several African countries have adopted measures to combat the widespread popularity of skin whitening products. Here’s how some enforce their restrictions.

South Africa, 1990

The importation, manufacture and sale of skin whitening cosmetics is prohibited. It is also illegal to add hydroquinone and other bleaching agents to cosmetics. According to Professor Lester Davids from the University of Cape Town:

Mercury is still imported to be used in the arts industry locally, but is added to bootleg products. The government monitors shipments arriving at South African ports, mainly from Asia, as the continent is the largest exporter of these bleaching substances and products. Dermatologists report on cases they see, the skin whitening products their patients use, where they come from, and how they still get them. The government uses traditional and social media to raise awareness of the dangers of colorism.

Kenya, 2001

All cosmetics containing hydroquinone, steroids and hormonal preparations are prohibited

Government agencies have monitoring teams that randomly raid retail stores to check whether products meet the required standards. In 2020, the Kenya Bureau of Standards launched a “Wajibika na KEBS” program that urges the public to report substandard or illegal products being traded in the market. Selling banned skin-lightening products is considered a serious crime, so authorities hunt down products, make arrests and hand out tough sentences, according to Davids.

Ivory Coast, 2015

Ban all cosmetics with mercury, steroids, retinol derivatives, vitamin A and hydroquinone more than 2%.

Advertising and marketing of skin whitening products or other body hygiene products containing these substances is prohibited. A national committee was established to monitor the manufacture, import and distribution of cosmetics. Anyone selling or advertising the banned products is subject to a fine of 50,000 to 360,000 West African CFA francs (US$80 to US$575). While the ban was introduced in 2015, nothing has been done since then to strengthen it, including a lack of punishment for those who break the law, the health ministry’s director of legal affairs told CNN.

Ghana, 2016

Ban on the import and sale of skin whitening products containing hydroquinone

The government has worked with doctors to raise awareness of the long-term harms of using skin-lightening creams, according to Davids. Celebrities were also brought in to promote messages about being confident in yourself and your physical appearance, according to Davids. The country’s Food and Drug Administration stopped registering products for use that contained any of the bleaching chemical hydroquinone and launched an awareness program against the product being sold on the market.

Speaking about the impact of bans in general, Lesley Onyon, a toxicologist at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Chemical Safety and Health Unit who works on projects regulating skin lightening products, says that restricting access to skin lightening products through a ban will have some success, but it will drive up prices in the underground market — as the women in Musanze said they were experiencing.
Onyon adds that a ban “could lead to more locally produced counterfeit products as well as other illegal sources” and that “if a cheaper alternative is sold — what is sometimes called a hack — it can be more dangerous.” Rwanda’s ban appears to be doing better than other African countries that have imposed restrictions. In 1990, South Africa became the first country in the world to restrict the sale of skin whitening creams containing harmful ingredients, Kenya imposed its ban in 2001, Ivory Coast in 2015, Uganda in 2016 and Ghana in 2017 , but in many of these countries,…