Shein to cooperate with French investigation into sale of childlike sex dolls | Shein

The Asian e-commerce firm Shein has pledged to cooperate with French prosecutors who’ve opened an investigation into the sale of childlike intercourse dolls on its platform.“We’ll cooperate totally with the judicial authorities,” Shein’s spokesperson in France, Quentin Ruffat, instructed RMC radio, including that the corporate was ready to share names of those that had purchased such dolls.“We will likely be fully clear with the authorities. In the event that they ask us to take action, we’ll comply,” he stated.Shein introduced on Monday that it will ban intercourse dolls from sale on its websites after French authorities condemned the corporate for that includes some that resembled kids.In an announcement, the corporate stated it was imposing a “whole ban on intercourse doll-type merchandise” and had deleted all listings and pictures linked to them. A spokesperson instructed the Agence France-Presse information company the ban utilized globally.Shein’s govt chair, Donald Tang, stated: “These publications got here from third-party distributors however I take private duty.”Solely days earlier than Shein was because of open its first bodily retailer in Paris, France’s finance minister threatened to ban the retailer from the nation if it continued promoting the childlike dolls.The Paris prosecutors’ workplace stated it had opened investigations towards Shein and different on-line retailers over the sale of intercourse dolls. France’s anti-fraud unit reported on Saturday that Shein was promoting “childlike” dolls of a probable pornographic nature.The French every day Le Parisien revealed a photograph of one of many dolls bought on the platform. The pictured doll measured round 80cm (30in) in peak and held a teddy bear.Shortly after the fraud watchdog’s assertion, Shein introduced that the dolls had been withdrawn from its platform and it had launched an inside inquiry. Quickly after, it introduced the ban on intercourse dolls.Shein stated it was organising a devoted workforce to make sure the “integrity” of content material on the gross sales platform.Shein is due on Wednesday to open its first bodily retailer on this planet inside the celebrated BHV Marais division retailer in central Paris, a transfer that has sparked outrage in France.Frédéric Merlin, the director of the corporate that owns BHV, stated promoting the childlike dolls was “unacceptable”, however on Monday he defended his determination to permit Shein into the division retailer.“Solely garments and objects conceived straight by Shein for BHV will likely be bought in retailer,” he stated.Shein, a Singapore-based firm that was based in China, has confronted criticism over working situations at its factories and the environmental impression of its ultra-fast-fashion enterprise mannequin.France has already fined Shein 3 times in 2025 for a complete of 191m euros ($220m). These sanctions had been imposed for failing to adjust to on-line cookie laws, false promoting, deceptive info and never declaring the presence of plastic microfibres in its merchandise.The European Fee can be investigating Shein over dangers linked to allegedly unlawful merchandise, whereas EU lawmakers have accepted laws aimed toward curbing the environmental impression of quick style.