Why Is UN Women in Partnership with Unilever, Which Profits from Racist Skin-Lightening Products?

One by one, under growing global pressure, corporations are abandoning products and branding that sustain foul notions of white supremacy. Unilever, a private-sector “partner” of the UN’s agency for women, isn’t one of them.

On June 19, Johnson & Johnson, a competitor of Unilever, announced that it would no longer produce its two lines of skin-lightening products marketed in Asia. The products, the company conceded in a statement, “represent fairness or white as better than your own unique skin tone.”

That was a monumental step for Johnson & Johnson. Unilever didn’t budge.

The British-Dutch multinational consumer goods company is responsible for Fair & Lovely, the most profitable skin-lightening product line, enormously popular in India, other parts of Asia, the Middle East and other markets. Despite a growing Change.org petition, so far signed by over 12,500 people and stating that the “product has built upon, perpetuated and benefited from internalized racism and promotes anti-Blackness sentiments amongst all its consumers,” Unilever seems impervious. And why wouldn’t it believe itself “too big to fail”? The giant multinational is backed by the world’s most powerful international body.

Earlier this year, AIDS-Free World learned that Unilever had entered into a partnership with the UN through the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, better known as UN Women. We asked UN Women to sever its relationship with Unilever. It declined. We ask again that it cut those ties immediately.

In February, AIDS-Free World wrote to Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, noting that Unilever has consistently undermined the mental and physical health and welfare of women and girls through the production, advertising, and sale of various “skin-lightening” creams, contributing to colorism and racism in many countries. These forms of discrimination cause mental anguish and create social stigma around darker skin and adversely affect the earning capacity and job prospects of darker-skinned women.

We pointed out that by promoting and praising Unilever, UN Women is condoning skin-lightening creams and disregarding its responsibility to protect the rights of women.

We were aware of Unilever’s long history of “bluewashing,” the corporate practice of associating with the venerable 75-year-old United Nations in order to project a reputation for social responsibility that has not been earned. We hoped that the UN’s youngest entity would see the practice as exploitation.

We received a reply to our letter in May. Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka made three substantive points: UN Women stands against discrimination; UN Women has balanced “both positive and negative impacts” of Unilever’s work; and UN Women might consider the points we raised in the future.

We were dismayed by a reply that seemed to say that UN Women is willing to tolerate racism in exchange for a token portion of Unilever’s enormous profits. What we saw was an intolerable quid pro quo and an indefensible trade-off.

Our hope is that now, in this critical moment of global dialogue on race and discrimination, UN Women will be stirred to reconsider such untenable positions. Indeed, twenty of the United Nations’ senior leaders from Africa and of African descent, including Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka, have published a statement declaring, “We commit to harnessing our expertise, leadership and mandates to address the root causes and structural changes that must be implemented if we are to bring an end to racism … .”

The statement goes on to promise that “[the] United Nations will wield its moral power as an institution to effect global change.” The signatories have seized their mandates to speak honestly and openly about racism, and we are heartened by the positive reception from the rest of the UN organization. The statement provides an opening now for UN Women to move from words to action, taking a decisive move forward by conceding that there is no such thing as a balance between “positive and negative impacts” of corporate partnerships when one side of the scale is weighted down with racial prejudice and discrimination.

We noted in our February letter to UN Women that Unilever works hard to convince millions of women that they need to buy skin-lightening creams to become white, fair, and beautiful, and that this beauty, in turn, will make them worthy of love and attention.

It is a profoundly anti-feminist and racist message.

In response to our request in February, UN Women refused to sever its partnership with a company that exploits colorism and racism for profit in more than 30 countries worldwide. But in the short time since, the world has been changing in profound ways. UN Women has both the power and the responsibility to change with it.

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Media contact:
Peter Duffy
AIDS-Free World
TEL: +1-646-924-1710
Email: media@aidsfreeworld.org