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

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.