Mega online retailer SHEIN has imposed a “complete ban” on the sale of sex dolls after the French Government slammed the site for selling the R-rated products “with a childlike appearance”.
On Monday, the fast fashion giant issued a statement, confirming it imposed a “total ban on sex-doll-type-products”, with a spokesperson confirming to an AFP news agency that it was a global ban.
In the statement, obtained by CNN, SHEIN claimed it pulled all the items as soon as it became aware of “these serious issues”.
“We take this matter extremely seriously,” the statement read.
“Such content is completely unacceptable and goes against everything we stand for. We are taking immediate corrective actions and reinforcing our internal controls to prevent this from happening again.”
All listings and images linked to them have been deleted from the online retailer.
“These publications came from third-party vendors, but I take personal responsibility,” Donald Tang, SHEIN’s chief executive, said.
“[The] fight against child exploitation is non-negotiable for SHEIN.”
The global ban comes shortly after the Paris prosecutors’ office said it launched investigations into SHEIN, as well as other online retailers for selling “childlike” sex dolls, with France’s anti-fraud office, the DGCCRF, accusing the online store of selling sex dolls with “child-like appearance”.
“Their description and their categorisation on the site make it difficult to doubt the pedopornographic nature of the content,” a statement from the anti-fraud office read, per CNN.
French Finance Minister Roland Lescure threatened a ban on SHEIN from the French market over the products, stating, “These horrible objects are illegal”.
“I want to be very clear: If these behaviours are repeated, we will be entitled to… ban access to the French market for the SHEIN platform,” he told French publication BFMTV.
The DGCCRF also claimed that the sale of the dolls depicts SHEIN’s insufficient safeguards to protect minors from accessing pornographic material via its site, which is a crime in France.
Sarah El-Haïry, France’s High Commissioner for Childhood, also told BFMTV that she wanted to identify the sellers and buyers of the products.
SHEIN is expected to open its first store in Paris, followed by additional branches to open across the country.
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