No Chinese Cotton Used in Goods Shein Sells in US, Company Lawyer Says
A lawyer for Shein submitted a letter to the U.K. Parliament denying its U.S.-bound products contain any Chinese cotton. The letter, sent Jan. 20 after several British lawmakers in a hearing earlier this month expressed concern about forced labor in the company's supply chains, said that the company complies with the laws and regulations of the countries in which it sells.
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In her statement, Yinan Zhu, Shein's general counsel for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said that Shein does "not prohibit the use of Chinese cotton in our products specifically where such use would not contravene the laws and regulations of the jurisdictions in which we operate. However, to the extent the laws of a jurisdiction impose restrictions on the use of materials from certain regions, such as in the case of the U.S. Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (the “UFLPA”), we have adopted policies and procedures to ensure that we comply with such laws."
Specifically, for products sold into the U.S., "we require that our contract manufacturers only source cotton from regions that are approved and comply with relevant local laws, which currently only comprise Australia, Brazil, India, the United States and, in limited cases, certain countries in EMEA and Southeast Asia," the letters said.
Zhu stated that Shein's latest figure for cotton testing positive for unapproved cotton was 1.3%, which is lower than the industry average, and that the figure had been confirmed by third-party validation agency Oritain.
She had declined to answer questions at a Jan. 7 hearing of the U.K. Parliament's Business and Trade Committee on whether Shein uses cotton from Xinjiang in its products, but said that she would be able to provide written correspondence after the hearing (see 2501080074).
In a Jan. 27 response, MP Liam Byrne thanked Zhu for her "comprehensive and detailed response," and he said that it was "encouraging to hear that [Shein's] prohibition on forced labour, as formalised in your Supplier Code of Conduct and enforced by SRS audits and other aspects of your SRS programme, applies universally to all products, regardless of the market in which they are sold."
He also asked if the same standards Shein applies to its U.S. products were held in the U.K., and for clarification about recent allegations on the use of child labor by Shein contract manufacturers (see 2405300043).