Entertainment
Melanin Goddess-I Was Told To Start Bleaching My Skin, When I was 12
Also Known as the ‘melanin goddess’,Model, Khoudia Diop, 20, went viral after speaking out against racist bullying.
She said she was bullied and made to feel ashamed for the colour of her skin.
The Senegalese model, who has 540,000 followers on Instagram, started modelling aged 17.
She talked honestly about the culture of skin bleaching in her home country.
She revealed that she was first pressured to start using the bleaching products by her cousins, aged 12 or 13.
She calls them a “big problem” and says: “the products are creams and they are very, very cheap, often as little as a dollar. That’s how accessible they are for the women in my country.
“Of every 10 women, seven will use skin bleaching products. That’s how popular they are.”
The World Health Organization estimates that a quarter of Senegalese women use skin-bleaching products.