Team natural ka msitu!! skin whitening products banned

Nairobi’s River Road is a street famous for selling cheap bleaching products to Kenyans who will spend their last penny to look” good”,but little awareness is made regarding the products that are freely sold.

The products contain harmful chemicals that range from mercury; cortisone and hydroquinone. Research has linked the three chemicals to skin cancer, high blood pressure, thinning of the skin, kidney and liver failure.

Rwanda has deployed the Rwanda National Police to help eliminate the bleaching product in the country,they will  work together with the country’s Ministry of Health, Rwanda Investigative Bureau, Rwanda Food and Drug Authority, and Rwanda Standards Board (RSB) among other agencies that will help crack down on 1,342 prohibited brands  in Rwanda.

According to the police,the joint operation to seize skin bleaching cosmetics from the market is yielding positive results, Rwanda National Police (RNP) said Thursday.

“So far, we have seized 5,606 assorted pieces of banned bleaching products, including lotions, oils, toilet soaps and sprays,” Commissioner of Police John Bosco Kabera, the police spokesperson, said.

Up to 4,470 pieces were seized in Kigali, 574 in Northern region, while 445 and 117 were confiscated from shops in Eastern and Western regions, respectively, according to the report.

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“The illegal products were seized from beauty shops in Kigali, and Eastern, Northern and Western provinces where the operations have been conducted so far,” he added.

Kabera warned traders against flouting the law and “poisoning people.”

He also appealed to the general public to facilitate the fight by both desisting from buying these harmful products and reporting traffickers and sellers.

These products target the uninformed and naive members of society who have been brainwashed to accept that skin color could be a measure of beauty.

The media has largely been blamed for this notion through advertising which has mostly been done by light skin models. News anchors and media personalities are often the light skin ladies and gents. Sales jobs especially those that involve cosmetics do not shy away from stating that they are seeking light skin ladies to market their products, creating out a feeling that beauty is indeed measured in skin color.

Rwanda has led the way in its fight against these harmful products to avoid a much bigger problem tomorrow, whether Kenya and the rest of Africa will follow suit and save its coming generations from falling into a health crisis is yet to be seen. For now, all we can do is inform a sister to inform a sister, BEWARE of the content in your cosmetic products.

Should Kenya follow Rwanda in the ban?

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