The Asian retail giant Shein has announced it will prohibit the sale of sex dolls on its platform, following condemnation from the French government. This decision comes just days before the company is set to open its first physical store in Paris, France.
The controversy erupted after reports that the platform was selling child-like sex dolls. In response, the French Finance Minister threatened to ban the brand from operating in France.
“These illegal products are horrifying,” stated Roland Lescure in comments to BBFMTV. He added, “I want to be very clear: if this behavior is repeated, we will have the right to request that Shein be banned from the French market. This is provided for under the law.”
The Paris Prosecutor’s Office has announced the opening of an investigation not only against Shein but also against similar platforms such as AliExpress, Temu, and Wish. The issue concerns dolls sold with explicit sexual content accompanying them. Le Parisien shared an image of one of these dolls, featuring a child-like appearance and holding a stuffed animal.
The ongoing investigation is focused on the distribution of “violent, pornographic, and inappropriate messages accessible to minors.”
Shein Acknowledges Responsibility
Shortly thereafter, Shein announced the removal of the dolls from its platform and initiated an internal investigation. Subsequently, a statement released the same Monday declared a “complete ban on sex doll-type products” and the removal of all related advertisements and images, as reported by ABC.
“These listings came from external sellers, but I take personal responsibility,” said Shein’s CEO, Donald Tang.
The Warning
France’s Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) previously issued a warning after confirming that “the Shein e-commerce site was selling sex dolls with a child-like appearance” and that “their description and categorization on the site leave little doubt about the nature of child pornography of the content.”
The French press later reported that DGCCRF had detected the distribution of similar products on the AliExpress platform during inspections.
DGCCRF also issued warnings about the Chinese platform Temu and the American platform Wish for distributing pornographic content without filtering it from minors.
Apart from Shein, this entity referred the other three platforms to the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office and instructed them to comply with French legislation.
This is not the first conflict between the French authorities and this Chinese giant, which frequently faces accusations of unfair competition in France and Europe.
In France, Shein has already faced several penalties related to the illegal imposition of cookies (small files stored on devices that access sites, often used by these sites to deliver targeted ads) without properly informing users.
The most recent penalty, a fine of 150 million euros, was imposed last September.
The government also plans to implement a two-euro tax on small packages from outside the European Union starting in 2026, targeting Shein and other Chinese sites like Temu.
