Shein: Two cases of child labour found at suppliers in 2024

Shein told MPs that it found two cases of child labour at its suppliers last year during an audit of its mostly China-based third-party manufacturers.

The fast fashion giant was responding to questions put forward by a parliamentary committee as it awaits regulatory approval for its initial public offering in London, The Guardian reported.

The findings were disclosed in a letter that Shein’s general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa Yinan Zhu wrote to MPs earlier this month, which was published on Tuesday.

Shein has faced multiple allegations of worker abuses in its supply chain and Zhu was questioned on the accusations by the business and trade committee last month.

Zhu was accused of “wilful ignorance” by one MP after she refused to reassure the committee that Shein’s products did not include cotton produced in the Xinjiang region of China, which has been linked to forced Uyghur labour.

In her follow-up letter, the general counsel said Shein had conducted about 4,300 audits covering about 317,000 workers in 2024, up from 4,000 audits covering 285,000 workers during the year before.

Zhu said one of the incidents had involved a child aged 11 years and eight months, who had spent time during their summer holiday at a factory where her father was the general manager and her mother worked, and “helped with tasks”.

The second case involved a child aged 15 years and three months, she said. Zhu also gave the ages of the children Shein previously had found working at suppliers in 2023 as 15 years and 11 months, and 15 years and nine months.

“We take a strict zero-tolerance approach to child labour,” Zhu wrote.

“We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that these isolated cases are removed from our supply chain entirely in future, bringing our network of third-party suppliers globally, including in China, Brazil and Turkey, along with us.”

“Nonetheless, and irrespective of these details, we took the issue extremely seriously, including designating the incident as child labour and immediately terminating our relationship with the supplier,” Zhu said in the letter.

Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter