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In support of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21st, the Zero Mercury Working Group and WE ACT for Environmental Justice are calling for the elimination of mercury-added skin lightening products (Hg/SLPs) as an important step towards protecting consumers and helping to end colorism.
Read the full Press Release
A mother in northern Nigeria is visibly upset as she clutches her two-year-old child, who has burns and discoloured skin on his face and legs.
The 32-year-old used skin-whitening products on all six of her children, under pressure from her family, with results that she now deeply regrets.
Read the full Press Release
As the world observes the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on 21 March, the United Nations Environment Programme, the Secretariat of the Minamata Convention and the Secretariat of the Global Mercury Partnership, are releasing a set of messages for public use and engagement that highlight the urgent need to stop the production and use of skin-lightening products containing mercury and other hazardous substances.
Skin-lightening products, including creams and soaps sold over the counter in New York City, can contain high amounts of mercury, a harmful metal.
Health Department has removed 1820 products from store shelves
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA—January 30, 2025 —Today, Plaintiffs Larry Lee and As You Sow reached a settlement with Amazon concluding a nearly decade-long lawsuit addressing the sale on Amazon.com of brightening and lightening skin creams containing mercury. This settlement prohibits Amazon from selling skin lightening creams that contain mercury in excess of FDA limits.
Following a two-day technical workshop, the event culminated in January 22 with the adoption of the Libreville commitment on the elimination of mercury-containing skin-lightening cosmetics in Africa. This agreement calls for regional collaboration to foster stronger regulations, enhanced enforcement measures and public awareness campaigns to combat these harmful products.
Geneva—Today, as the United Nations highlights “the urgent need to address the harmful effects” of mercury added skin lightening products (SLPs) on the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21, advocates are calling on governments to enforce bans and collaborate globally to end the toxic beauty trade.
As the world observes the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on March 21, UNEP in collaboration with the Secretariat of the Minamata Convention highlights the urgent need to address the harmful effects of skin-lightening mercury-containing products (SLPs).
Toxic beauty ideals are among the many effects of racism, with people worldwide too often feeling pressure to change their skin tone, putting health at risk.
Among the decisions made at COP-5, Parties defined new dates to phase out mercury-added products including cosmetics, strengthened ties with Indigenous Peoples, advanced the first effectiveness evaluation of the Convention, and reached an agreement on a threshold for mercury waste.
Read more on Minamata Convention website
It is October 2013, and Rimiko Yoshinaga is standing behind a podium in Minamata, Japan, gazing at an auditorium packed with world leaders.
Silence descends upon the room as she begins recounting how a mysterious illness had killed her father decades earlier.
Yoshinaga would learn her father was one of thousands of Minamata-area residents poisoned in the 1950s and 1960s by industrial runoff laced with mercury, a neurotoxin.
For centuries, human beings have endangered body and mind in pursuit of the toxic fallacy that pale skin represents the highest form of beauty.
Gabon, Jamaica and Sri Lanka have joined forces to reduce the environmental and health toll of the skin lightening industry
$14-million initiative will support a holistic approach to eliminate mercury from skin lightening products and promote the beauty of all skin tones
Many skin lightening products include mercury, posing significant risks to human health and the environment
Eliminating Mercury Skin Lightening Products
Toxic skin-lightening creams are still sold freely across South Africa, despite clear health dangers and the legacy of apartheid.
In the dying days of apartheid, South Africa banned the sale of cosmetic creams that were designed to make black people look whiter. On 10 August 1990, the National Party health minister Dr Rina Venter banned the importation, manufacture and sale of cosmetic skin lighteners and also banned any products that claimed to “bleach”, “lighten” or “whiten” people’s skins.
By 2020 the manufacture, import and export of mercury-added products is no longer allowed
Parties agreed on a framework to monitor the effectiveness of the Convention in order to strengthen its implementation
The Third meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention on Mercury took place from 25 to 29 November in Geneva, Switzerland
Mercury—a toxic heavy metal that can cause serious and lasting health problems—turns up in many places that you wouldn’t expect. It has now been more than two years since the entry into force of the Minamata Convention, a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the adverse effects of mercury. But the production of many mercury-containing products continues around the globe.
In July, a 47-year-old woman showed up at the emergency department of her local hospital in Sacramento, California. Her speech was slurred, she couldn’t walk, and she was unable to feel her hands or face. The woman soon fell into a coma, where she remained for several weeks.
The cause of the woman’s desperate condition, health officials soon discovered, was a skin-lightening ingredient—mercury—that had been illegally mixed into her pot of face cream.
OAKLAND, CA—April 17, 2019—The consumer protection group As You Sow filed a lawsuit today against Amazon.com (Amazon) under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, commonly referred to as Proposition 65. The lawsuit alleges that Amazon has knowingly exposed consumers to mercury by allowing mercury-laden, skin-lightening creams to be sold through its website without ensuring consumers receive the legally required warnings.
The overall goal of the UNEP Global Mercury Partnership is to protect human health and the environment from the releases of mercury.