The French authorities have warned they may block market access to Chinese retailer Shein after it emerged the online fashion giant was selling sex dolls with a disturbingly \u201cchildlike\u201d appearance.<\/p>\n
Shein, which said the dolls were being sold by third-party sellers on its site, is scheduled to open its very first bricks-and-mortar store inside the upmarket department store BHV in Paris this week.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Last week, France\u2019s consumer watchdog \u2013 the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) \u2013 said it had discovered the dolls on Shein\u2019s website, noting that their descriptions left little doubt as to their \u201cpaedophilic nature\u201d.<\/p>\n The watchdog also fined Shein 40 million euros for what it called \u201cdeceptive\u201d pricing practices and for overstating its environmental record.<\/p>\n France\u2019s economy minister, Roland Lescure, told BFM TV on Monday: \u201cIn cases involving terrorism, drug trafficking, or child pornographic materials, the government has the right to request that access to the French market be prohibited.\u201d<\/p>\n Frederic Merlin, president of Societe des Grands Magasins, which owns BHV, called the sale of the dolls on Shein\u2019s platform \u201cindecent\u201d.<\/p>\n Besides the sex-doll scandal, Shein has also been facing criticism over its factory working conditions and the environmental impacts of cheap, \u201cthrowaway\u201d fashion products.<\/p>\n Founded in China in 2012 and now based in Singapore, Shein, which is privately owned by its founder and CEO, Chris Xu, has grown to become a global leader in \u201cfast fashion\u201d, whereby clothes are produced at low cost and adapt quickly to new trends.<\/p>\n The online retailer, which operates around 6,000 clothing factories in China, mainly sells to customers via a mobile app and ships products to more than 150 countries. In 2024, Shein\u2019s global sales amounted to almost 38\u202fbillion Singapore dollars (US$29bn), up 20 percent from the previous year.<\/p>\n While it has operated pop-up shops in the past, Shein is due to open its first permanent outlet\u00a0in central Paris on Wednesday, inside the BHV department store in the upmarket Marais neighbourhood. But a French petition opposing the opening has already collected more than 100,000 signatures.<\/p>\n Despite building a global business, Shein has a chequered labour and environmental record, with multiple investigations having uncovered troubling practices. In 2022, a Channel 4 investigation revealed that labourers at some of Shein\u2019s factories were working up to 75 hours per week.<\/p>\n A 2024 investigation by Swiss advocacy group Public Eye found this was still the case two years later.<\/p>\n In 2024, another report by Reuters revealed that two suppliers in the company\u2019s fashion chain were employing children under the age of 16, though it didn\u2019t reveal who the suppliers were or where they were located.<\/p>\n According to another 2024 report by the non-profit World Benchmarking Alliance, Shein failed to meet basic standards on human rights and working conditions.<\/p>\n For instance, the report found, Shein\u2019s supply\u2011chain mapping (identifying factories along the supply chain) was incomplete, reducing the transparency of Shein\u2019s working conditions.<\/p>\n On the environment side, Shein factories manufacture up to 35,000 items of finished clothing per day, involving high water and energy use, relying heavily on synthetic fibres and producing massive textile waste.<\/p>\n The manufacturers\u2019 high use of virgin polyester, a synthetic fibre made from petroleum-based products, and oil produces approximately the same amount of carbon dioxide as 180 coal-fired power plants, according to the environmental non-profit Changing Markets Foundation.<\/p>\n In May this year, following a year-long investigation into Shein\u2019s business practices between 2022 and 2023, the DGCCRF also found that Shein had misled French customers about price reductions advertised on its site.<\/p>\n The French government fined the fast-fashion giant 40 million euros ($46.9 million), which Shein accepted.<\/p>\n Several French fashion brands have withdrawn their products from the BHV department store in protest. Guillaume Alcan, co-founder of French footwear brand Odaje, told Le Monde, \u201cThere would be no sense being sold in the same shop as Shein.\u201d<\/p>\n A French bank pulled out of talks to buy the BHV building one week after the announcement of Shein\u2019s arrival, on October 1. Paris city hall also blocked plans for a rugby stadium in Paris to carry the BHV logo.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Disneyland Paris abandoned plans to open a Christmas pop-up store in BHV and pulled out of designing window displays for the end-of-year holidays, saying that \u201cconditions were no longer in place\u201d to \u201ccalmly hold Christmas events\u201d at the location.<\/p>\n In recent weeks, some BHV staff have also staged strikes and street protests.<\/p>\n French law grants authorities the power to remove illegal content, such as images of child sex abuse, from online platforms. If websites fail to comply, the authorities can require service providers and search engines to block access to internet addresses.<\/p>\n On November 1, France\u2019s consumer watchdog, the DGCCRF, issued a formal notice instructing Shein to take urgent corrective measures to remove the sex-doll listings from its website or face a full ban from the French market.<\/p>\n Shein responded with a statement saying it had banned all sex-doll products from its website and had temporarily removed its \u201cadult products\u201d category altogether, as a precaution. It also said it had launched an internal investigation into its product-screening measures.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fight against child exploitation is non-negotiable for Shein,\u201d said Executive Chairman Donald Tang. He said the listings were from \u201cthird-party sellers\u201d, but didn\u2019t say which ones or where they were based. He did state, \u201cI take this personally. Trust is our foundation, and we will not allow anything that violates it.\u201d<\/p>\n But child-protection NGO Mouv\u2019Enfants \u2013 which campaigns for an end to violence against children \u2013 said Shein\u2019s actions were insufficient. On Monday, it staged a protest outside the BHV shopping complex in Paris.<\/p>\n \u201cAs long as these dolls are available somewhere in the world, the company will remain an accomplice to a system that enables sex crimes against children,\u201d Arnaud Gallais, the cofounder of Mouv\u2019Enfants, told reporters.<\/p>\n Protests against Shein aren\u2019t only about ethics. They are also intertwined with economic anxieties felt by Parisian retailers who are globally renowned for their fealty to heritage and craftsmanship.<\/p>\n The backlash against Shein, therefore, partly reflects a fear that global competition \u2013 particularly ultra-low-cost, \u201cfast-fashion\u201d retailers \u2013 could undercut domestic companies that adhere to these values.<\/p>\n A June 2025 amendment to France\u2019s \u201cgreen industry\u201d bill targeted \u201cfast fashion\u201d brands by seeking to curb textile waste. Shein was explicitly singled out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The French authorities have warned they may block market access to Chinese retailer Shein after it emerged the online fashion giant was selling sex dolls with a disturbingly \u201cchildlike\u201d appearance. Shein, which said the dolls were being sold by third-party sellers on its site, is scheduled to open its very first bricks-and-mortar store inside the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
![\"BHV\"](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2244355375-1762266377.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C578&quality=80\")
What is Shein?<\/h2>\n
What are the main criticisms of Shein?<\/h2>\n
How have other French fashion brands responded to the arrival of Shein?<\/h2>\n
How has Shein responded to the \u2018sex doll\u2019 scandal?<\/h2>\n
Are French protests against Shein also because it is an \u2018outsider\u2019?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"