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The Guardian
an hour ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Colonial ideas of beauty: how skin lightening products are linked to cancer in black African women
Two months after first going to hospital, a 65-year-old woman was dead – and her doctors are blaming the cosmetic creams she used on her face and body for decades. The anonymous patient, from Togo, is one of a string of recent cases reported in medical journals of cancers in black African women linked to skin-lightening creams and lotions, prompting dermatologists to call for better regulation. The melanin found in darker skin typically offers some protection against the sun damage which can cause cancers. 'Patients with black skin have a natural SPF of about 15, just by having pigmented skin,' says Prof Ncoza Dlova, head of dermatology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa,. 'If they remove that melanin [with skin lightening creams], they're actually removing the natural protection.' Estimates of skin lightening product use in African countries range from 25% to 80% of women. Lighter skin is often seen as more desirable, in a trend with complex drivers including values imported in the colonial era. Dlova and colleagues are writing up a paper citing more than 55 cancer cases, from countries including Mali and Senegal. 'If we are getting self-induced skin cancer, then that's a red flag and worrying,' says Dlova. 'We have to do something about it.' The market for skin lightening product is growing, with analysts predicting that the current market size of US$10.7bn (£8bn) will reach US$18.1bn by 2033. There are even reports of the products being used on babies and young children. For Dlova, they are 'a health hazard that needs to be addressed'. Almost every day, she says, her clinic in Durban will see someone with a skin problem linked to lightening products. 'Of course, not all of them are coming with skin cancer … They come in with fungal infections that are resistant to the common treatment that we normally use. They present with pimples, referred to as steroid-induced acne, as well as rosacea. Some present with permanent stretch marks; all these complications are extremely common.' The Togo patient had three large, painful, cancerous tumours on her neck, which she had tried to treat with antibiotics, antiseptics and traditional herbal poultices with no success before going to hospital. One of the tumours was removed, but the others were too close to blood vessels and she could not afford the recommended chemotherapy. She told her doctors she had used creams that included topical hydroquinone and highly potent corticosteroids for about 30 years. In another series of eight cancers, reported in Senegal, the women had used similar products for about 20 years on average. Two of those patients died. Hydroquinone as a skin lightener has been banned in South Africa since 1990, and other African countries including Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Kenya, and Ghana followed suit. Those bans were prompted by serious concerns about an irreversible form of skin damage called ochronosis. But regulation is often weak, and the products are reportedly still available from street vendors and cosmetic shops. The use of steroids in skin lighteners is a newer phenomenon. Topical steroids are used in dermatology to treat inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema, but a side-effect is that they make skin lighter, a fact exploited for their use in cosmetics. If the two problematic ingredients are used together they can have a 'synergistic effect', Dlova says. The International League of Dermatological Societies (ILDS) has published an alert warning about the dangers of misuse of potent topical steroids, and is calling for governments to better regulate the products. The problem goes beyond Africa, says the ILDS president Prof Henry Lim, with the problem first raised by its members in India. After South Africa's hydroquinone ban, there was a lull in how frequently dermatologists encountered complications of skin bleaching, Dlova says 'but again, in the last 10 years there was just a sudden eruption of the complications of skin bleaching again. Skin cancer per se had not been described before, it's only been described recently. So obviously, things have got worse – because from irreversible pigmentation [ochronosis] to skin cancer, those are really red flags implying that we need to do something about it.' While the desire for lighter skin is not new, Dlova suspects the rise of social media over the past decade has led to increased use, pointing to smartphone filters that make skin look smoother and lighter. Tackling the issue will require action from many sectors – not only regulatory agencies. 'Marketing, social media and media all have a role to play – fashion, celebrities and all of that. If they use black models who are lighter in skin colour, the message they are conveying is that you are prettier, you can be a model, you are more attractive if you are lighter. So we need to ensure that the advertisements include diverse skin colours when they are choosing their models,' says Dlova. She also wants to see skin health education in preschools to teach children to be proud of their natural skin, and to get across the message of using sunscreen. Some black patients will have skin challenges including pigmentation disorders, she says, which may require creams with lightening ingredients. But these should be used under medical supervision. Part of the ILDS advocacy will be asking pharmaceutical companies to make those prescription products more affordable, so that people do not need to turn to cheaper off-the-shelf products that may be dangerous.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Video shows protest in Kenya, not a demonstration against Togolese president
Togo has witnessed major anti-government protests that the police have repressed since late June. A video widely shared on social media claims to show a large turnout at one of the demonstrations. However, the claim is false; the video was filmed in Nairobi, Kenya's capital city. The East African country has also recently witnessed large-scale protests, with citizens demanding the resignation of President William Ruto. 'This is Togo right now. Citizens protesting as the Togolese President Faure changes the constitution to make him president for life, where citizens will no longer participate in voting for the president,' reads the caption of a Facebook video shared more than 690 times since it was published on June 28, 2025. The video attached to the post shows a crowd marching on a highway with loud noises in the background and smoke rising from items burning on the road. The video has also appeared elsewhere in posts shared on Instagram and a Facebook account belonging to a media organisation in Nigeria. AFP Fact Check has previously debunked the claim in French. In June, several protests, which were violently repressed by the police, shook the streets of Lome, the Togolese capital, resulting in the deaths of at least seven people (archived here). Citizens protested the arrest of government critics, rising electricity prices and constitutional reform that moved the country to a parliamentary system of government where President Faure Gnassingbe occupies the highest office (archived here). The opposition argues that the reform will allow the president to remain in power indefinitely. Swahili audio Some comments under the post talk about the need for a change in Africa's leadership structure, a sign that people believe the claim. However, others mention that the video was filmed in Kenya, not Togo. An AFP fact-checker based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, confirmed that some of the words heard in the video were in Swahili, a language spoken in East and Central African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unlike English and French, Swahili is hardly spoken in West Africa, where Togo is located. For example, the words 'wana retaliate' are heard in the 16th second of the video. 'Wana' in Swahili means 'in the process of'. Further evidence reveals the video does not show demonstrations in Togo. Kenyan protests A reverse image search was conducted on keyframes from the video using Google Lens. Among the search results was a YouTube link to the same footage, which was posted on June 28, 2025, without a caption (archived here). The YouTube video includes a watermark for a TikTok account called '@makofonyo3', where the original video was posted three days earlier (archived here). Again, it contained no details of what the clip depicted. However, a similar video from the same account was also shared on June 25, 2025, showing crowds marching along the four-lane highway, except this time a large road sign is visible, giving an indication of where it was filmed (archived here). Some of the words written on the gantry sign include directions for 'Nairobi', 'Kamiti Road', an urban road in Nairobi, 'Garden City', a shopping centre located along Thika Road, a major highway, also called A2, and 'Mombasa', a coastal city in Kenya. The highway sign was geolocated to Thika Road in Nairobi using Google Earth (archived here). AFP Fact Check matched various landmarks on Thika Road, like buildings and bridges, to both the video in the false posts and imagery from Google Earth. Furthermore, by expanding the view on Google Earth, we established that the video falsely linked to Togo was filmed from alongside the gantry on Thika Road during protests in June 2025 (archived here). Kenyan protests On June 25, protesters took to the streets of Nairobi, Mombasa, and other counties across the country to mark the first anniversary of the deaths of 60 people killed when thousands of youths stormed the parliamentary chamber in 2024, demanding Ruto's resignation. The anniversary marches were violently repressed by the police and rekindled anti-government protests (archived here). Several Kenyan media outlets mentioned Thika Road in their reporting, including Citizen TV Kenya (archived here). The Daily Nation published photos in which the four-lane highway can be seen several times (archived link here). Following the incident, the Kenyan government said it 'thwarted a coup d'etat' and denounced 'terrorism disguised as protest' (archived here). Since then, Ruto has continued to warn those who would 'overthrow' the government. The United Nations and other human rights groups have criticised the violence witnessed during the latest protests (archived here). Ruto, who was elected in 2022 after campaigning on behalf of the poorest, has faced significant opposition to his economic policies since 2024.
BBC News
7 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Togo protests: Faure Gnassingbé's dynastic power play sparks youth anger
A new constitution that has allowed Togo's long-time head of state Faure Gnassingbé to shift to a new role as all-powerful prime minister – and escape the constraint of presidential term limits – has triggered anger on the streets of the capital, Lomé. Protests are set to continue this least five demonstrators have died while confronting official security forces in recent it is not the orthodox political opposition – predictably crushed in local elections last week – that has mobilised frustrated young Togolese it is musicians, bloggers and activists who have tapped into popular anger and weariness with a regime that has been in power – under the leadership of Faure Gnassingbé or, before him – his father Gnassingbé Éyadéma, for almost six outstrips even Cameroon's 92-year old President Paul Biya - who has just confirmed his intention to stand for an eighth successive term in elections later this year – or Gabon's father-and-son presidents, Omar Bongo and Ali Bongo, latter of whom was deposed in a coup in August 2023. The lessons of that episode did not escape Faure Gnassingbé, a shrewd and often discreet operator who quickly moved to devise a new constitutional structure for Togo, to prolong his own hold on power while playing down his personal profile, in a bid to defuse accusations of dynastic will no longer need to stand for re-election in his own 59-year-old holds the premiership because his Union pour la République (Unir) party dominates the national assembly - and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, thanks to a constituency map gerrymandered to over-represent its northern heartlands and understate the voting weight of the pro-opposition coastal Bawara, Togo's civil service and labour minister, maintains the 2024 election was above board, with "all the major political actors and parties" taking part."The government cannot be held responsible for the weakness of the opposition," Bawara told BBC Focus on Africa TV last added that those with a genuine reason to demonstrate could do so within the law, blaming activists abroad for inciting "young people to attack security forces" in an attempt to destabilise the new constitutional framework was announced at short notice in early 2024 and quickly approved by the compliant government-dominated national assembly. There was no attempt to secure general public approval through a referendum.A one-year transition concluded this May as Gnassingbé – who had been head of state since 2005 – gave up the presidency and was installed in the premiership, a post now strengthened to hold all executive power and total authority over the armed occupy the presidency, a role now reduced to a purely ceremonial function, legislators chose the 86-year old former business minister, Jean-Lucien Savi de Tové. This reshuffling of the power structure was presented abroad by regime mouthpieces as moving from a strong presidential system to a supposedly more democratic "parliamentary" model – in tune with the traditions of the Commonwealth, which Togo, like Gabon, had joined in 2022, to broaden its international connections and reduce reliance on traditional francophone links with France, the former colonial transition to new constitutional arrangements designed to perpetuate Gnassingbé's rule passed off almost without outside comment from international partners whose attention is currently focussed on Gaza and Ukraine rather than was there any complaint from fellow leaders in the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), even after Togo held fresh legislative elections just weeks after the new constitution had been promulgated, in flagrant breach of the regional bloc's protocol on good governance and democracy, which says that after a change of constitution at least six months must elapse before any major election is shaken by the decision of three military-run countries - Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger - to quit Ecowas, remaining member governments are reluctant to challenge the behaviour of others in case they follow on the streets of Lomé it has been a different rapper and regime critic Essowe Tchalla, known by his stage name "Aamron", released a satirical video calling for the "celebration" of Gnassingbé's 6 June he was arbitrarily snatched from his home at the end of May by regime security agents and taken to an unknown location, anger surged among young urban Togolese. Hundreds protested on the streets of the capital on 5 and 6 June and scores were detained by government affair took a particularly sinister twist with the discovery that Aamron had been confined to a mental hospital, a measure more reminiscent of the 1970s Soviet Union than West Africa in 2025 – and the subsequent release of a hostage video –style statement in which he was filmed admitting to psychological problems and apologising to Faure Gnassingbé, remarks he has completely disowned after being released without late June brought a further wave of street protests, with the security forces confronting youths who had set up burning rights groups reported widespread random detentions, often of uninvolved passers by, while informal pro-government militia, often armed, roamed the streets in pick-up least five people were killed and two bodies were found in the lagoons north of central Lomé, though whether they had drowned while fleeing arrest or been deliberately killed was it is cultural figures like Aamron – and Honoré Sitsopé Sokpor, a poet known by his alias "Affectio" and jailed in January – who have inspired this latest upsurge in protests. They connect to young popular opinion in a way that conventional politicians much of the Togolese public appears to have lost faith in the formal political the local elections on 17 July passed off quietly, with Unir predictably dominant according to official results, Jean-Pierre Fabre, a leading opposition figure, said there were no other voters in his local polling station when he went to cast his see the new constitution as no more than a device to perpetuate the rule of the Gnassingbé dynasty – a regime variously described by West African regional media as a "republican monarchy" and "legalist authoritarianism". A leading Togolese human rights activist says popular frustration has reached unprecedented have been previous upsurges of mass 2017 the churches supported marches demanding reform while a charismatic new opposition figure, Tikpi Atchadam, mobilised young people across the previously regime-dominated the 2020 presidential election, the regime was taken aback by the strong performance of opposition challenger Agbeyomé Kodjo, who was openly backed by the much respected 89-year old former Archbishop of Lomé, Philippe Kpodzro. Although both men have since died, the political movement inspired by the late cleric remains highly active and is regularly targeted by the once again, we are seeing frustration boil over, particularly among young urban his constitutional revamp to a supposedly "parliamentary" system, Gnassingbé aims to retain full control, yet step his own personality back from the political firing that particular manoeuvre looks condemned to failure in the face of challenge from creative leaders of popular culture – bloggers, singers and grassroots social media the hashtag #FaureMustGo is now circulating. And recent weeks have seen the launch of a new campaign for change, known as M66, which stands for "6 June Movement" from the date of Gnassingbé's Melly is a consulting fellow with the Africa Programme at Chatham House in London. You may also be interested in: Three military-run states leave West African bloc - what will change?Social media revamp by 92-year-old president struggles to woo young CamerooniansHow Trump's Africa strategy may become a double-edged swordWhy Gabon's coup leader is bucking a trend by embracing democracy Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
Russia Today
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Russia Today
Moscow backs defense deal with African state
The Russian government has approved a draft law to ratify a military cooperation agreement with Togo, TASS reported on Tuesday, citing meeting documents. The decision by the government commission on legislative activity comes as Moscow deepens defense ties in West Africa, where French influence has waned in recent years. The deal includes provisions for joint military training and exercises, Vladimir Gruzdev, a member of the commission and chairman of the Board of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, told the agency. According to Gruzdev, the pact also provides for emergency medical assistance between the Russian and Togolese militaries. He described Togo as a strategically positioned partner, calling it the most 'organized and equipped' country in Tropical Africa. 'For example, the busiest seaport in the West African region is located on its territory,' he stated. Moscow has stepped up its military engagement in Africa in recent years, with President Vladimir Putin saying last November that several countries across the continent are increasingly seeking its security support. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger—Togo's West African neighbors—have severed defense ties with former colonial power France and expelled French troops over alleged aggression and their failure to contain surging jihadist insurgency in the Sahel region. The three countries have formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and turned to Russia – praised by their leaders as a reliable partner – for security cooperation to counter militant violence that has claimed an estimated 10,400 lives in the region in 2024. Togo is increasingly facing cross-border violence, with 10 attacks and 52 deaths recorded in 2024 – the highest since records began, according to the Global Terrorism Index. Last July, around 100 fighters from the al Qaeda-linked Group for Support of Islam and Muslims launched a large-scale attack on a military post near the Burkina Faso border, reportedly killing a dozen Togolese soldiers. In April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reaffirmed Moscow's support for the AES bloc, affirming that Russia is ready to help strengthen the joint Sahel forces, boost the combat readiness of each country's military, and assist in training armed forces and law enforcement personnel.
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Cihan Media Communications Releases Strategic Insight Report on Reparations Advocacy Ahead of UNGA 2025
'Africa's Reparations Call Now a Unified Demand' – President Mahama MALABO, Equatorial Guinea, July 18, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A new report released by Cihan Media Communications underscores growing continental consensus around reparative justice for Africans and people of African descent. This comes as African nations prepare for a major high-level side event during the upcoming United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2025, co-sponsored by Ghana and Togo. As outlined in the report, the call for reparations has transitioned from fragmented advocacy to a unified, coordinated demand, rooted in historical accountability, moral clarity, and Africa's pursuit of sovereignty and dignity. Delivering a progress report at the 7th Mid-Year Coordination Meeting of the African Union in Malabo, H.E. John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana and African Union Champion for Reparations, declared: "Africa's call for reparative justice is no longer a whisper—it is a unified demand grounded in historical truth, moral clarity, and our unwavering commitment to dignity. As we implement the 2025 Theme of the Year on Justice for Africans and People of African Descent through Reparations, we reaffirm our shared resolve to correct historical wrongs through restitution, healing, and holistic systemic transformation." President Mahama welcomed the African Union Executive Council's recent decision to extend the reparations focus across a decade (2026–2036), describing it as a crucial step toward mobilizing resources and institutionalizing the agenda across member states. He emphasized that reparations must shift from rhetoric to actionable state policy, calling on every African government to integrate reparations into national development plans, diplomatic priorities, and legal frameworks. "This undoubtedly affords us, as a Union, the opportunity to sustain the momentum for the realization of this noble cause," he noted. Restitution, Not Charity: A Strategic Framework The Cihan report draws on Mahama's call to action, framing reparations as essential to Africa's political and economic self-determination. According to the report, achieving reparative justice will require: Financial compensation for forced labor, resource theft, and systemic injustices; Technology transfer to bridge industrial and innovation gaps; Reparations funds, managed transparently, to support education, cultural restoration, and economic empowerment. Mahama further stressed the spiritual and cultural dimensions of the cause: "Restitution to the African, therefore, is restoration of our full human dignity," he said. "We cannot speak of development without identity or speak of unity without acknowledging the erasure that has fractured our heritage." He also highlighted the importance of partnerships with global allies, particularly the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), in presenting a unified voice at international platforms. "We call upon all nations, within and beyond Africa, to partner with us in shaping a more just and equitable world for the sons and daughters of the motherland." Despite resistance from former colonial powers, the report stresses that the call for reparations is not a plea but a rightful demand—a moral and economic imperative to correct centuries of stolen wealth and identity. Looking Ahead to the United Nations General Assembly In a significant diplomatic move, Mahama announced that Ghana and Togo will co-sponsor a high-level event at UNGA 2025 to accelerate global recognition and support for Africa's reparations agenda. "As we do more to correct historical wrongs, we are reasserting our full humanity. We are reaffirming our sovereignty. We are reigniting the flame of dignity that has always burned within the African soul." About Cihan Media Communications Cihan Media Communications is a Pan-African strategic communications and insights firm focused on amplifying African narratives, supporting justice and governance campaigns, and delivering data-driven reports that inform policy and public discourse. Photo: Contact: View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Cihan Media Communications
