New report exposes ongoing illegal manufacture of mercury-added skin whiteners
Brussels – At the start of the Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6) to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Zero Mercury Working Group (ZMWG) has released a new report, “Zero Out Toxic Production.” This report builds upon previous work of ZMWG in exposing the toxic and often illegal international trade in mercury added skin-whitening products (SWP). It underlines the importance of regulating and adequately monitoring the manufacturers of these products.
ZMWG and its partners from Pakistan, Kenya, the Philippines, and the United States purchased and tested samples from six widely available brands of skin whitening creams (SWCs) made in Pakistan, as per their packaging: Faiza, Golden Pearl, Goree, Aneeza, Parley and Face Fresh. The results are alarming: 35 of the 37 creams contained mercury levels up to thousands of times higher than the previous legal limit of 1 part per million (ppm), with one product reaching 24,000 ppm. Products were tested in accredited laboratories in the EU and the US.
All of the products purchased have already been identified by governments as exceeding the legal limit and relevant warnings have been issued; nevertheless, the trade of these products continues unimpeded. ZMWG estimates that more than 66 million mercury-added skin whiteners are produced annually, using over 110 metric tons of mercury compounds, with Pakistan, Thailand, and China together accounting for over half of global production.
Dr. Razia Safdar, from Sustainable Development Policy Institute said: “Let’s dive deeper into trade and manufacturing of mercury added skin whitening products. As a Party to the Minamata Convention, Pakistan needs to prohibit the manufacture, import and trade of skin whitening products having more than 1ppm mercury.”
Michael Bender, ZMWG co-coordinator and one of the lead authors of the report said: “We applaud the Competition Commission of Pakistan for recently initiating a nationwide investigation into companies involved in the production, marketing, and sale of skin whitening creams containing high levels of mercury. This will both protect consumers from serious health risks and ensure fair competition within the cosmetics market.”
This report comes at a critical moment. Following the 2023 COP decision to replace the 1 ppm threshold with a complete ban on mercury in cosmetics, the Secretariat gathered and summarized input, from Parties and stakeholders including ZMWG, concluding that eliminating mercury-added skin-lightening products is a multifaceted challenge that includes addressing regulations, supply chain management, capacitybuilding and awareness-raising.
Elena Lymberidi-Settimo, Senior Advisor on Mercury at the EEB and international co-coordinator of the ZMWG said: “It is imperative that manufacturing countries take immediate action, adopt, implement and enforce the mercury ban on cosmetics. Eliminating the manufacture, and hence the supply of Hg/SWCs at the source should be a priority, especially given the difficulties encountered when tackling their distribution or sales.”
Jam Lorenzo, Deputy Executive Director of Ban Toxics, Philippines: “The ZMWG report presents a somber truth — national bans on mercury-containing SLPs are not enough to curtail the sale of harmful SLPs. The smuggling of these products has historically been hard to regulate in countries like the Philippines due to limited enforcement capacity, and the advent of online selling platforms has only served to exacerbate the problem. Unless we address the root causes of the issue by implementing global restrictions on production, it will be difficult to protect human health and the environment from the adverse impacts of mercury-containing cosmetic products.”
Griffins Ochieng, Executive Director, CEJAD, Kenya, said: “These toxic creams are illegally sold via online platforms and pose a health risk to unsuspecting consumers across the global south such as Kenya.”
COP-6 provides an opportunity to address these challenges. ZMWG is calling on governments to adopt a strong, actionable decision that prioritizes halting production of mercury-added skin lighteners. ZMWG recommends that a future COP-6 decision should focus on:
- Identifying countries without bans and providing support;
- Targeting major production and trade sources;
- Funding field sampling and surveillance to monitor mercury in skin lightening products;
- Developing national demand-reduction strategies;
- Engaging relevant bodies to ensure compliance.
Mae Kennedy, Global Advocacy and Environmental Health Fellow at WE ACT for Environmental Justice said: “The continued production of skin lightening products with intentionally added mercury is an environmental injustice felt by people of color around the world, and it must be stopped.“
Complementary to the cosmetics decisions, ZMWG would also recommend concrete follow up steps to be adopted in view of closing the loopholes in the Convention and eliminating the detrimental use of mercury compounds in SLPs and other hazardous uses. Mercury added compounds are not currently regulated under the Convention, and this appears to be compromising its objective.
ZMWG is an international coalition of more than 110 public interest environmental and health non-governmental organizations from over 55 countries from around the world formed in 2005 and co-coordinated by the European Environmental Bureau and the Mercury Policy Project.
//ENDS
The Zero Mercury Working Group
The Zero Mercury Working Group is an international coalition of more than 110 public interest environmental and health non-governmental organisations from over 55 countries around the world, formed in 2005 and coordinated by the European Environmental Bureau and the Mercury Policy Project.
For more information:
- The full report: https://www.zeromercury.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/ZMWG-Zero-Out-Toxic-Production-Oct-2025-Full-Report.pdf
- Amazon double standard report: https://www.zeromercury.org/poisoning-for-profit-amazons-double-standard/
- The ZMWG campaign on skin lightening creams: https://www.zeromercury.org/mercury-added-skin-lightening-creams-campaign/
- The full database of mercury-added cosmetics: https://www.zeromercury.org/cream-catalog/
Notes to the editors
- Mercury is a neurotoxin, meaning that it damages the nervous system. Long-term use of mercury-added SLPs may damage the eyes, lungs, kidneys, digestive and immune systems.
- For more information on health risks from mercury SLPs, see the World Health Organization fact sheet: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/330015/WHO-CED-PHE-EPE-19.13-eng.pdf
- Testing was coordinated by ZMWG partners: SDPI (Pakistan), Ban Toxics (Philippines), CEJAD (Kenya), Mercury Policy Project (USA), and We Act (USA).
- The SWCs were purchased from local retail shops and from the official manufacturers’ websites in Pakistan, and from online platforms distributing these products worldwide: Daraz for Pakistan; Jiji, Jumia and Kilimall for Kenya; Shopee and Lazada for the Philippines; and two online platforms in the U.S. – Aleena Cosmetics and Axabee Skincare.
- Skin-lighteners are sold as creams, lotions and soaps. ZMWG testing indicates that hundreds if not thousands of them are available in the global market, see: www.zeromercury.org/mercury-added-skin-lightening-creams-campaign. Those that use mercury as an active ingredient often contain from 2 to 10 percent mercury by weight.
