Senegal women told 'all black' is beautiful
2013-02-18 11:24
Dakar - Outraged by adverts urging women to bleach their
skin, a spontaneous movement has emerged in Senegal arguing that black is
beautiful - and to act otherwise is to risk one's health.
The campaign sprang up in response to advertisements that
appeared in the capital Dakar last year for a cosmetic cream called "Khess
Petch", or "all white" in the local Wolof language.
The posters promised "rapid action" and
"results in 15 days". They showed before and after pictures of a
young woman who started out black and ended up with fair skin through
depigmentation, locally known as "kheessal" or bleaching.
"We were scandalised [by a poster] suggesting that
black is not beautiful because it recommends that young women should transform
themselves in a fortnight," said Aisha Deme, who runs the cultural website
Agendakar.com.
"In a spontaneous response, we wanted to elevate the
black woman and we launched "Nuul Kukk", which means "all
black", the young woman added, a flower pinned in her mass of frizzy hair.
So the campaigners put up their own posters in the
Senegalese capital, this time showing a proud black woman. The work was done
for free by fashion photographer Stephane Tourne and advertising professionals.
The Nuul Kukk campaign, which is highly active online and
has its own website, Twitter feed and Facebook page, features local stars,
including the rapper Keyti, the stylist Dior Lo and women's rights activist
Kine Fatim Diop.
The campaign is also backed by dermatologist Fatimata Ly,
who has been fighting the "kheessal" practice for 10 years as part of
the International Association for Information on Artificial Depigmentation.
'We have to fight'
For Ly, skin-bleaching is a public health concern because
"in the general population, 67 in every 100 women practice artificial
depigmentation".
These products reduce the body's ability to "defend
itself against [various] infections", and they also "have broader
effects on health, such as diabetes and high blood pressure", she added.
The skin-lightening phenomenon exists in several sub-Saharan
African countries and in the black diaspora. In Senegal, "it is mainly a
feminine practice, even if you find it among men in some particular groups,
such as performers", Ly said.
Whitening creams, milks and gels contain substances
initially intended for therapeutic purposes, such as corticosteroids and
hydroquinone, and should only be prescribed by doctors, according to Ly.
"Unfortunately, you can find them all across the
Senegalese market. They are products that are very accessible," she said.
At between $1.3 and $2 per product - five or six times
cheaper than in a chemist's shop - they are also affordable, Ly said as she
showed pictures on her computer of the damage caused by bleaching products,
ranging from swollen legs, bruises and open wounds to blemished skin and burns.
Women are nonetheless drawn to the products because they
believe they will make them more beautiful, according to researchers and
doctors, and Deme says it's an uphill battle to convince women otherwise.
"Today's society imposes criteria for beauty on us...
Everybody promotes women with fair skin: the papers, magazines, video clips,"
said Deme.
"What we recommend today is just to stop
depigmentation. We should stop importing these products and selling them, so
that there are no more scandalous advertisements," she added. "It
will take as much time as it takes, it will be long, but we have to
fight."
