Shein Defends Its Efforts to Avoid Uyghur-Harvested Cotton
Three senators asked Shein's CEO if the company's suppliers use cotton from Xinjiang, if they use laboratory testing to ensure there is no Xinjiang cotton in its garments, and other questions aimed at learning whether apparel made in part with forced labor is making it into the U.S. through the de minimis importation lane (see 2302090039).
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Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the one Republican on the letter, shared Shein's response, which came last month. The four-page letter acknowledged that the vast majority of its products enter the U.S. under de minimis, but Shein said that does not mean it neglects forced labor compliance.
Leonard Lin, global head of government relations, wrote that 4% of the products it sells to U.S. customers contain cotton, and "to further enhance our compliance with U.S. laws, we request that our manufacturing suppliers only source cotton from the U.S., India, Brazil, Australia, and Eastern China. Approximately 22% of the cotton fabric used in SHEIN apparel is made from cotton sourced from U.S. cotton growers or U.S. companies."
Shein doesn't have any contract apparel manufacturers in Xinjiang, it said, and said it has visibility from cotton to yarn, fabric and finished goods.
"Our cotton traceability system is bolstered by third-party cotton sample testing. Yarn and fabric samples are collected by third-party validation agencies and sent to Oritain, a global leader in stable-isotope analysis of cotton products and fibers," Lin wrote. "This allows SHEIN to confirm the geographic origin of the cotton its suppliers use."
Cassidy, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Shein how many of its audits turned up forced labor, and asked the company why it doesn't terminate those suppliers instead of giving them 90 days to remediate their practices.
Lin said remediation has to happen within 30 days, and that since its suppliers make products for other brands, improving the fashion ecosystem requires education and remediation. Only four of the zero tolerance violations it uncovered in 2022 were related to forced labor, Lin wrote, adding that those violations involved "restrictions on resignations or the withholding of a portion of workers’ wages" and the companies changed the practices. Lin also said Shein has audited them more frequently since the discovery. Those four were among more than 2,800 audits in 2022.
The senators had asked how many of the 84 zero tolerance audit violations in 2021 involved forced labor. The letter did not directly answer for 2021, but said the "vast majority" of zero tolerance violations were not because of forced labor.
Lin told the senators that Shein is moving away from shipping apparel from Asia directly to consumers in the U.S. "SHEIN is working to build warehousing facilities in the U.S. with the expectation that more container-shipped inventory will be maintained in the U.S.," he wrote, both expanding its Indiana warehouse and establishing a distribution center in Cherry Valley, California. "As SHEIN accelerates these efforts to provide a faster customer service experience, we will also be reducing de minimis entries, and paying applicable tariffs, like more traditional retailer entities," he wrote.