As it increases its monitoring of the businesses that produce the clothing it sells, Chinese fast fashion giant Shein reports that it discovered two instances of child labor in its supply chain last year, reported BBC.
The working conditions at factories in its supply chain have drawn criticism for the corporation.
"Both cases were resolved swiftly, with remediation steps including terminating contracts with underage employees, ensuring the payment of any outstanding wages, arranging medical checkups and facilitating repatriation to parents/legal guardians as needed," Shein stated.
"Following appropriate remediation, the contract manufacturers were permitted to resume business."
Shein said that its supplier policies had since been strengthened. Any infractions pertaining to forced labor or child labor are now grounds for contract termination immediately under the new regulations.
According to the company, it put a temporary stop to orders coming from the suppliers in question and didn't start doing business with them again until they made more of an effort to resolve the problem.
The disclosure seen in Shein's 2023 sustainability report coincides with rumors that the company intends to go public with the sale of shares.
The two cases, according to the firm, were discovered in the first nine months of 2023; none were discovered in the final quarter of the same year.
It occurs as the business prepares to possibly list its shares for public sale.
Shein reportedly submitted preliminary paperwork for a London listing earlier this year, according to the BBC.
Leading Republican Marco Rubio, an admirer of Donald Trump, wrote to then-UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in June, alerting him of Shein's "deep ties to the People's Republic of China" and "grave ethics concerns."
In his letter to Mr. Hunt, Mr. Rubio stated, "The dirty secrets behind Shein's success are slave labor, sweat shops, and trade tricks."
"Shein has a zero-tolerance policy for forced labor and we are committed to respecting human rights," an official from the company stated at the time. We encourage our contract manufacturers to acquire cotton only from authorized regions since we take transparency throughout our whole supply chain seriously."
That came just a few weeks after a Swiss advocacy group, Public Eye, revealed in a report that many workers in Shein's supply chain were still being required to work excessive overtime.
Shein responded to the study by telling the BBC that it has made "significant progress on enhancing conditions" and was "working hard" to solve the issues brought up by Public Eye.