The company told MPs that Shein found two cases in its suppliers’ suppliers last year after reviews by its chiefly Chinese third-party manufacturers.
Disclosures of online fast retailers planning an IPO in London are responding to questions from the parliamentary committee.
The figure is the same as in 2023, disclosed in a letter that Shein’s general counsel for Europe and general counsel for the Middle East and Africa wrote to members of Congress earlier this month and was published on Tuesday.
Shein faces allegations of abuse of workers in his supply chain, with the Cross-Party Business and Trade Commission personally questioning Zhu in January, following the letter requesting additional information.
Zhu refused to assure the committee at the hearing that Xie Yin’s products did not include cotton produced in China’s Xinjiang region, which was linked to forcing Uyghur’s labor, prompting a MP to accuse him of “deliberate ignorance.”
Zhou said in his letter that one of the incidents involved an 11-year-old and eight-month-old child, and the audit found that during the summer vacation, she spent some time in the factory where her father was general manager and her mother worked and “helped to complete the task.”
“Nevertheless, regardless of these details, we take this issue very seriously, including designating the incident as child labour and immediately termination of the relationship with the supplier,” Zhu said in the letter.
He said the second case involved a child aged 15 and three months old. Zhu also gave Shein’s children the age, which had previously said that it worked for 15 years and 11 months in 2023, and 15 years and 9 months.
The letter shows that Xie Yin conducted about 4,300 reviews of about 317,000 workers in 2024, while 4,000 audits in 2023 involved 285,000 workers.
“We adopt a strict zero-tolerance approach to child labour,” Zhu wrote. “We will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that these isolated cases are completely removed from our supply chain in the future, bringing our network of third-party suppliers to third-party suppliers including China, Brazil and Türkiye.”
The latest issues with Shein supply chain conditions emerged after the report said retailers were under pressure from valuation and their planned flotation fell to $30 billion (£24 billion) and that it had previously hoped for $6.4 billion .
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The pending list is still awaiting permission from British and Chinese authorities, but is seen as a potential victory for the London Stock Exchange and is now expected to be postponed until the second half of the year.
In addition to worrying about working conditions in the supply chain, businesses face difficulties in the U.S., Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to remove the $800 “de Minimis” rule that helped Shein to put the The items were mailed to the shopper.
The company also faces competition like Temu. Last year, Xie Yin’s sales rose 19% to $38 billion, down from hopes of $45 billion, according to the Financial Times. Net profit was reportedly down nearly 40% to $100 million.
Reuters contributed to this report
