Unilever and UN Women: A Scandalous Partnership

For decades, the multinational corporation Unilever has been hugely profiting from selling skin-lightening creams. In the last few years there has been a global backlash against products that deepen and exploit colorism and racism. We wrote to UN Women’s Executive Director, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, upon learning of a public-private partnership between her organization and Unilever, which lends the credibility of the UN to a company with deeply unethical and racist products.

Ms. Mlambo-Ngcuka equivocated and took no action—a fact we publicly decried.

In the midst of ongoing public outrage, Unilever has now published a statement pretending to take action to address growing accusations of racism. The full extent of Unilever’s “action” is renaming and repackaging just one of its several brands; a very carefully considered decision, based entirely on profits, to distract public ire while continuing to exploit the market for skin-lighteners. Unlike competitor Johnson & Johnson, which announced that it would stop selling skin-lightening creams, Unilever has brazenly chosen to insult women everywhere and to show unfettered contempt for those calling for real change.

With this latest move, UN Women has no recourse but to sever its relationship with Unilever. Coming from the global entity with the duty to protect women’s rights, UN Women's noncommittal response to our earlier statement was deeply offensive. UN Women’s continuing silence as this issue evolves and worsens is a new, separate affront.

No UN agency can control the actions of a massive multinational corporation. We are not asking UN Women to do so. What we are asking is that UN Women take a principled stance as the most prominent defender of women’s rights and confront Unilever directly.

That means an end to the partnership. UN Women can only continue to lose credibility each day that it maintains its silence and continues to support Unilever over the world’s women.   

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Media contact:
Sharanya Kanikkannan
media@aidsfreeworld.org
Tel: +1-646-924-1710