Miss Nigeria, Chidinma Adetshina was criticised for promoting skin bleaching products.
Image: Instagram
When a mother of six from Nigeria, began using skin-lightening creams on her children, she never imagined the consequences.
Under pressure from her family, she believed she was giving her children a better future by making their skin fairer.
Instead, she was left with children suffering from burns, scars, and painful wounds—some of which may never heal.
Her eldest daughters, now teenagers, face social discrimination, with strangers assuming they are drug addicts due to uneven skin tones. One child has deep scars on her lips and knees, another has a pale circle around her eyes, and her two-year-old toddler suffers from weeping sores.
“My sister gave birth to light-skinned children, but mine are darker-skinned. I noticed my mother favours my sister’s children over mine due to their skin tone, and it hurt my feelings a lot,” she admitted.
The woman had no idea the creams she bought at her local supermarket contained harmful chemicals.
Initially, they seemed to work—her mother showed more affection towards her children—but soon, the burns and side effects became impossible to ignore.
Skin-lightening is a widespread practice in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, where 77% of women use such products regularly, the highest percentage in Africa. In Congo-Brazzaville, 66% of women use them, while the figures stand at 50% in Senegal and 39% in Ghana, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Many of these creams contain dangerous substances, including corticosteroids, hydroquinone, mercury, and kojic acid. Long-term use can lead to skin thinning, acne, permanent discolouration, inflammatory disorders, and even kidney damage.
Zainab Bashir Yau, a dermatologist in Abuja, warns that the issue is deeply rooted in societal beauty standards.
“A lot of people link light skin to beauty or wealth. Women tend to shield, as they call it, their children from that discrimination by bleaching them from childbirth,” she told the BBC.
She estimates that 80% of the women she has met have bleached their children or plan to do so, often because they themselves were bleached as babies.
Beyond over-the-counter creams, unregulated “mixologists” create custom bleaching creams, combining high doses of kojic acid, hydroquinone, and glutathione without medical supervision. Many parents unknowingly expose their children to severe risks.
One vendor openly admitted using dangerous amounts of kojic acid for a more dramatic whitening effect. Many parents, unaware of the risks, continue to apply these creams to their babies, hoping to achieve a "glowing" complexion.
The mother now lives with the regret of her choices and urges other parents to learn from her mistake.
“Even though I have stopped... the side-effects are still here. I beg other parents to use my situation as an example.”
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