A New report by Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG) has revealed that despite being banned by a global treaty, mercury-added skin lightening products (SLPs) are still sold by some of the world’s biggest online retailers to unsuspecting consumers.
[ad]   
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and partners across 12 countries, including Nigeria, purchased 213 SLPs from 23 online platforms. Out of these, 191 (90 per cent) had mercury concentrations, ranging from 1.18 to 74,800.00 parts-per-million (ppm), above the one ppm specification by many governments and the Minamata Convention.
  
The information came at a time Parties to the Fifth Conference of Parties (COP5) of the convention are preparing to discuss the amendment proposed by the Africa Region, which seeks to address the enforcement loopholes and implementation failures relating to mercury-added cosmetics.
  
The African amendment is to strengthen the convention’s existing provisions, by prohibiting the manufacture and trade of all “mercury-added cosmetics.”  
[ad]  
The report highlighted the current lack of effective controls to prevent mercury SLPs from being manufactured and sold online. Online platforms continue to evade their responsibility to prevent unscrupulous merchants from advertising, marketing and selling illicit mercury-added SLPs, which perpetuate the injustice lived by people of colour, especially women and girls, who are conditioned to adopt Eurocentric beauty standards influenced by “colourism.”
 
Coordinator at Zero Mercury Working Group, Michael Bender, said: “Despite the Convention’s ban on manufacture and trade, the proliferation and online sales of mercury cosmetics continues. However, if adopted, the African Region’s amendment banning advertising and sales of illegal SLPs can help prevent online marketing.”
 
Executive Director at Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADeV Nigeria), Leslie Adogame, submitted: “In Nigeria, regulations apply to all advertisements and promotion of cosmetic products manufactured, imported, exported, sold, distributed or used in Nigeria.
 
“Notwithstanding, online retailers and e-commerce giants continue to flout the rules. It is time for regulatory agencies to commit to implementation of the Minamata Convention and aggressively enforce the zero-tolerance mercury in cosmetics level to improve consumer protection.”
[ad]