Children’s products sold by the Chinese-founded online shopping giant Shein (希音) contained toxic substances in amounts hundreds of times above acceptable levels, the Seoul City Government said yesterday.
Shein, headquartered in Singapore, has skyrocketed in popularity around the world in the past few years, offering a vast selection of trendy clothes and accessories at stunningly low prices.
That explosive growth has also led to increased scrutiny of its business practices and safety standards, including in the EU and South Korea — where Seoul authorities have been conducting weekly inspections of items sold by platforms including Shein, Temu and AliExpress (全球速賣通).
Photo: Reuters
In the latest round, they selected eight products sold by Shein, including children’s shoes, leather bags and a belt and found several to contain high amounts of phthalates — chemicals used to soften plastics.
One pair of shoes contained 428 times the permitted levels of phthalates — the highest observed so far during the Seoul inspections — and three bags had amounts as high as 153 times the limit, the city government said.
Phthalates are widely used to soften plastic and are found in thousands of products including containers, beauty products and toys. They have been known for decades to cause hormone disruptions and have been linked to obesity, heart disease, some cancers and fertility problems.
Seoul city official Park Sang-jin said that they have requested the removal of these products from sale, adding that since the city began inspections last month, most platforms have complied with such requests.
So far, Seoul authorities said they have inspected 93 products and found that almost half of them contained toxic substances. The items include children’s watches and coloring pencils.
Last month, the EU added Shein to its list of digital firms that are big enough to come under stricter safety rules — including measures to protect customers from unsafe products, especially those that could be harmful to minors.
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