Despite being banned, skin lighteners with a very high level of mercury remain online. Many are being offered by the same e-commerce platforms where illegal products were previously found in 2019.
That’s the finding of new research by the Zero Mercury Working Group, a global NGO coalition that is committed to eliminating mercury uses, releases and exposure.
Around half of the lighteners purchased online were found to contain mercury concentrations over one ppm, the legal limit established by many governments and the Minamata Convention on Mercury.
About 137 countries, including Nigeria, have committed to the Minamata Convention to phase out and limit mercury, including in cosmetics. A meeting for parties to that convention is being held in Bali later in March to map out steps to curtail additional mercury-added products and processes and to reduce releases and exposures to mercury.
“Despite being illegal, our findings show the same high mercury skin lighteners continued to be offered for sale on the Internet,” said Michael Bender, Mercury Policy Project Director and ZMWG Co-coordinator. “What’s illegal domestically should be illegal online. E-Commerce must be held to the same standards.”
Between 2017 and 2022, ZMWG conducted three separate investigations, each time, confirming continued global access to illegal, high mercury skin lightening products. Most of the products sampled were manufactured in Asia, especially in Pakistan (43per cent), Thailand (8per cent), China (6%) and Taiwan (4per cent), according to their packaging.
Policy Manager at the European Environmental Bureau and co-coordinator of the Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG), Elena Lymberidi-Settimo, said: “Mercury is a dangerous neurotoxin which must be effectively controlled. Internet platforms must stop these Illegal products from being sold on their site.”
Products were tested in an accredited laboratory in the EU, after being screened using X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysers in three regional hubs: CASE in Côte d’Ivoire (for Africa), Ban Toxics in the Philippines (for Asia) and In Antigua and Barbuda (for Latin America and the Caribbean.)
In 2019, skin-lightening products bought online by SRADev Nigeria were tested for their mercury content, as part of a project by the Zero Mercury Working group (ZMWG). The Minamata Convention on Mercury requires each party to ban the manufacture, import or export of cosmetics containing over one ppm (µg/g) mercury, by taking appropriate measures.
Between 2020 and 2021, SRADev Nigeria’s continuous bi-monthly monitoring of the e-commerce sites shows that skin-whitening creams identified as containing potentially dangerous levels of mercury continue to be sold online.
SRADeV Nigeria, Executive Director and a member of Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG), Dr. Leslie Adogame, said: “Our testing and bi-monthly monitoring result shows the same products continuing to be sold locally and on the internet.
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In particular, e-commerce giants are not above the law and must be held accountable.”
According to Victor Fabunmi, SRADeV Nigeria Senior Programme Officer, “Our extensive monitoring clearly shows that local markets especially internet platforms around the country are profiteering from the sales of dangerous, high mercury and often illegal products. E-commerce giants in the country have repeatedly failed to ensure that cosmetics sold by third-party sellers are free of toxic and illegal substances like mercury.”
Therefore, to address this growing challenge, “coordinated compliance mechanisms are needed at the local, national, regional and global levels. In Nigeria, NAFDAC and Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Council (FCCPC) must now work collegially towards these unsafe products and accelerate their removal from commerce before they are sold to consumers, in order to improve consumer protection,” Adogame said.
