The Minister of Women and Children’s Affairs (MOWAC), Mrs. Juliana Azumah-Mensah, has condemned women and parents who bleach their skins and those of their children. She said the act is illegal and amounted to abuse of the human rights of such children, since it exposed their fragile skins to infections and skin disorders.
Mrs. Azumah-Mensah said since children had very low immune systems and their skins were softer, applying such harsh chemicals on their skins could amount to killing them slowly.
Mrs. Azumah-Mensah explained that the persistent use of creams with hydroquinone results in the lightening of the skin, as it removed the outer and protective covering of the skin, and with time leaving such bleached skins with scars and much darker than they were before.
Extracts from an Accra Daily Mail article by Belinda Enyoman Henya (original). Published 23 February 2012.
