Question 10816 — commerce and crafts

Summary

Ms. Lisette Pollet alerts the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial, Energy and Digital Sovereignty to the particularly serious abuses associated with the company Shein, a Chinese fast-fashion giant and one of the busiest e-commerce platforms in the world. She recalls that a child-like sex doll, described as a "male masturbation toy", was recently put on sale on this platform. This object, the presentation of which clearly contained child pornography content, aroused deep indignation. The Paris public prosecutor's office has since opened several investigations and referred the matter to the Central Office for Minors. The High Commissioner for Children announced that she wanted to convene the major platforms in order to understand how such products could be marketed and what guarantees will be put in place to prevent such a situation from happening again. The Minister, for his part, indicated that in the event of a repeat offense, a ban on Shein's access to the French market could be considered. The MP underlines that this incident occurs in an already worrying context, while a joint report from ActionAid France and China Labor Watch recently denounced systemic exploitation of workers employed by subcontractors of Shein in China. According to this survey, the workers, mostly women, work up to sixteen hours a day, often without a contract, for wages of a few cents per item of clothing, in degrading conditions and without social protection. Some mothers are forced to bring their children to the place of production, thus exposing them to industrial risks. These facts raise the question of social responsibility, ethics and legality of a company operating largely on the French market, whose model is based on massive imports and extremely low prices. They also question the capacity of public authorities to prevent such abuses, to guarantee the protection of minors and to enforce the principles of the duty of vigilance provided for by European law. These elements highlight an economic model based on decentralized production, poor control of content and suppliers and a dilution of brand responsibility. The scale of the flow of products put online, more than 4,000 new items per day, makes any human control practically impossible and encourages the circulation of objects that are potentially illegal or contrary to fundamental rights. She would like to know what measures the Government intends to take to guarantee effective supervision of e-commerce platforms operating in France, ensure the conformity of products put on sale and reinforce the duty of vigilance of companies which rely on opaque supply chains. She also asks him what actions France plans to take at European level to impose real social and ethical transparency in the fast-fashion sector and protect sustainably the rights of children and women in the global economy.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

No timeline events have been ingested for this record yet.

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.

Documents

No documents linked.

Sponsors

No sponsors or actors listed by the source.

Related records

No cross-record relationships stored yet.