Skin lightening in Ghana

The practice of skin lightening and bleaching is a lucrative industry in Ghana, where higher value is placed upon being light skinned.[1][2] This practice has been present since the sixteenth century and was influenced by contemporary practices, and it is a very longstanding and controversial topic. Skin bleaching is a practice where women and men use various chemical and cosmetics products to attempt to lighten or whiten the color of the skin. These products often contain one or both of two chemicals: hydroquinone and mercury and can sometimes lead to negative physical effects, such as cancer and can cause rash and flaky skin, as well as uneven light and dark patches on the skin. Because of the health risks involved with skin lightening, Ghana has implemented legislation against the use of skin lightening products. Though the products have recently been banned, Ghanaian women can still acquire them through illegal means or use homemade skin lightening chemicals.[3][4]

Light skinned is frequently marketed via billboards and posters that feature light skinned models, playing on the public perception that looking multiracial or having lighter skin makes one more attractive.[1] Some Ghanaians also believe that if a lighter-skinned person is in a position of power, that they bleached to get into that position and is bleaching to maintain it.[4] Historians such as Jemima Pierre theorize that the desire for lighter colored skin stem from apartheid and the British colonization of West Africa.[1] White skin asserted class privilege and distinct racial privilege, prompting many Ghanaians to bleach their skin to achieve a similar color.[4][1] Over time this also became a major determinant of beauty, especially among Ghanaian women, and by the 1980s skin bleaching had spread throughout all socioeconomic classes of women.[3][5] Despite being a common practice among Ghanaians, lower-class people are often openly ridiculed for skin bleaching. Blacks who bleach their skin (regardless of socioeconomic status) are often ridiculed for aspiring and ultimately failing to become white.[4]