As most of you already know, Shein was exposed as being an extremely unethical company in 2022. This is because of its violation of labor laws, stolen clothing designs, and drastic negative effects on the environment. Because of these factors, I believe Shein deserves the widespread backlash it got. However, I am also puzzled by this, as many other popular companies are doing similar things while facing little to no consequences.
Many brands you use day-to-day may go against the same morals that lead you to boycott Shein. Clothing companies accused of child labor include Nike(accused by Discourse magazine), Zara(accused by Business and Human Rights Resource Center), and Urban Outfitters(accused by IndieGetup). Brands that violate other labor laws like underpaying or mistreating their workers include Forever 21(Accused by Los Angeles Times) and American Eagle(Internet Public Library).
Although most popular companies are extremely unethical, there are some ethical replacements. Ethical online clothing stores include Levi, Lucy and Yak, and Known Supply. Of course, there is an extensive amount of other ethical clothing companies available as well, but these were a few I found that were cute and at least semi-affordable. Additionally, any smaller, local businesses are also more likely to be sourced ethically. It’s great to shop at ethical businesses, but a lot of the time it can be unaffordable for the general public. However, thrifting is arguably the most ethical way to shop and costs far less than fast fashion. Any other way to reuse clothes is also great, whether that means shopping at vintage stores, online thrift shops, or even wearing your mom’s old clothes!
Other popular brands that have been accused of using child labor include Apple(Accused by Business Insider) and Samsung(Accused by New York Times). Amazon was also accused of mistreating workers and violating labor laws by the U.S. Department of Labor. Unfortunately, the only ethical phone company I was able to find is Fairphone, which isn’t currently sold in the US. One of the best things we can do to avoid buying unethical technology is to be more conscious when upgrading phones, avoiding upgrades unless they are really necessary.
In addition to clothing and technology, the chocolate industry is a particularly filthy business when it comes to child labor. The companies Mars, Hershey, and Nestle have all been caught sourcing from farms that use child labor, all accused by Wisestep. Unfortunately, these three companies own nearly all of the chocolate you could find at your local grocery store, including Reeces, Snickers, Twix, KitKat, M&Ms, and much more. Ethical chocolate brands are rare, but here are some you will likely be able to find at your nearest grocery: York, Ritter, Chocolove, Alter Eco, and Marich are all fair trade and don’t source from farms that use child labor(The Good Shopping Guide).
Unfortunately, child labor and overall unethical brands are all around us, in the food we eat and in the clothing we wear. This makes it difficult to buy nearly anything without supporting child labor, violation of labor laws, and environmental disaster. I am not suggesting that you shop entirely ethically, though it’s amazing if you can. Even just swapping out a few unethical products for more ethical ones is progress, and is of course much better than nothing. With a mixture of thrifting, buying from ethical companies, and reusing products, you can vastly reduce your support of unethical companies. It’s also great to reduce spending in general, thinking about whether or not you need the product you are thinking about buying, even with the negative effects it might bring. Our shopping habits lead to great consequences, so we must consider them as a factor while deciding what to put our money towards.
Kelly Pessis • Sep 6, 2024 at 8:16 am
It is likely the very companies that you named, along with campaigns from brick and mortar corporations, looking to squash their biggest competitor.
Shein uses jobbers and contractors all over the world, but probably mostly in China, Indonesia, Vietnam. Hundreds of these companies, they pay by the piece work which is exactly what American companies used to do before it was no longer competitive. It’s impossible to monitor the practices of your contractors at all times. After the initial backlash, and because Shein was going public, they cracked down on such abuses to the best of their ability.
As far as Shein stealing design, it’s very hard to copyright or patent a design. Most “stealing” is completely legal and pretty much all companies borrow design elements from runway fashion.
Your point about other companies having similar violations is so on point. Again it is because the competition wants to get rid of Shein that they are in the crosshairs when others are not.
Patty Sue Walker • Jul 4, 2025 at 8:10 am
It doesn’t matter if all the companies do it, they aren’t doing it like SHEIN is, and they, too, are being called out. Dolls Kill, Urban Outfitters, Fashion Nova, Zara, Amazon, Temu, DHGate, AliExpress, etc etc etc, have been called out repeatedly for this, articles written left and right. BUT- SHEIN is stealing designs at rates that are literally putting some smaller, but hugely talented, creators and artists out of business. Often they’ve even used the carefully set-up and curated pictures (sometimes taken by professional photographers and featuring models, hired with the creator’s own money if not a TFP shoot) lifted straight off of the Etsy page of the artists. That’s less adding insult to injury and more matching injury to injury. Then they send a shoddy replication of a handmade item out to people who rave about it because while it isn’t great quality, it was only $10 or $20, and will be worn once or twice. The original creator has to charge much more than that, but the quality will almost always be expressly higher.
I literally watched a young woman defend SHEIN the other day on a creator’s page that made a video with receipts showing a plain-as-day theft, theft of the same designs and art style she’s done for roughly a decade or so now. When the woman (and SHEIN by merit) was definitively proved wrong, she still doubled down and okayed it by saying big companies do it all the time. That is kinda, well it’s exactly, what your counterargument sounds like.
As far as how the employees are treated, it’s bad and it’s gonna continue to be bad, but the difference is these folks, while sure, paid by the piece, aren’t paid much, and they’re treated so poorly and worked so long (often 75 hour weeks with one day off a month for starters) that they even violate Chinese labor laws, and the CCP is not known for being sympathetic to workers.
Exploitation will happen with cheap, fast fashion. There’s literally no way to avoid it. They can ‘initiate steps’ and ‘implement measures’ all day long, but at the end of the day, the sole reason the costs are low is because they pay the workers so poorly while working them in the ground. And sure, it may be an ‘independent company’ that isn’t SHEIN that is providing the labor, but when it’s all said and done, if they’re providing for SHEIN, SHEIN is gonna be their biggest financial source (demand is too high for them to be providing anyone else with clothing and SHEIN definitely wouldn’t allow for the competition or loss of labor and production ), and therefore they should know exactly what’s happening.
And they do. It doesn’t take a special report by a magazine and journalist from across the world- who can usually just walk in a factory and see nine- and ten-year-old kids sitting at sewing machines from the jump, no undercover or anything- for them to know what’s happening in their buildings and right under their noses. They know, they know we know, and we know they know we know…and they also know we just don’t care. Gen Zers and Millennials demanding companies and countries (like, ehem, China) be held accountable for greenhouse emissions and oil consumption will excuse themselves and personal accountability with “there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” any time their overconsumption of shipped-across-the-globe trinkets, makeup, clothes, etc, is called into question. Ok, well, your local thrift store prolly doesn’t have a pair of nine-year-olds running an embroidery machine and sewing on buttons in the back because their small hands are deft at handling the needles.
We are in a sad, sad state of things when we will defend the currently (and possibly even historically) biggest sweatshop and waste producers solely because ‘the others do it too!’, and especially when they are churning out landfill waste, stolen ideas, carbon emissions, microplastics, and eating up resources at a rate that is hard to even begin to wrap one’s head around. All so we can keep getting goodies. You know the saddest part? I typed all this up, and I hypocritically shop there. I try to make my purchases small and few, and of stuff needed, since I thrift and secondhand everything else, but the truth is we’ve got our society stuck in the murk and mire that is ‘I want all the goodies for as cheap as possible’, fueled by influencers, dopamine desperation, and unfortunately, poverty. I won’t ask anyone in poverty to live below the standards they can possibly live by now (i.e, spending a couple hundred at Christmas vs a grand and still being able to load your kids up with toys, clothes, and games, or your child getting a nice, thick jacket, gloves, a scarf, and some boots during a flash sale, all for what Walmart has the jacket priced at). I grew up in dire poverty and the trauma that comes from that is often under- and overlooked. SHEIN and Temu would’ve helped us a lot. We got food stamps, but they didn’t buy school clothes or supplies, socks or underwear. So I won’t judge the impoverished simply trying to make a better life for their kids. But I will judge an influencer ranting about politicians not doing anything about the environment, after they just made a SHEIN haul video and made a couple of thousand on TikTok from the video’s engagement. Some of them are even flown into China to make literal propaganda videos for the company in “see guys? They aren’t bad at all! In fact, they’re good and virtuous ” videos.
The solution to all this is to build stronger local communities and to begin breaking ourselves away from consumerism, hustle culture, and what is essentially one big handheld billboard- our phone- and become more active with the world around us in productive and meaningful ways outside of folks without healthcare slaving away at jobs meant to fuel consumerism and growth the wealth of the wealthy, all so they can spend 3/5s of their wages on rent and the rest to barely pay bills, and then buy Funko Pops, Labubu dolls, designer bags, CMFRT hoodies, etc.
That first part sounded like one big fantasy, right? Well that’s because it is. I don’t see this happening in my lifetime. We will become more dystopian before we do anything, which isn’t pleasant to say or hear, but it’s our reality- one evidenced by the hoardes of people that legitimately feel bad for the poor, sad multibillion-dollar company that is SHEIN being picked on and bullied, solely and simply because they are *significantly* worse than all these other companies combined.
SARAH Prohaska • May 13, 2024 at 6:14 pm
Summer I love your outtake on this. I am hoping to be a small online apprarel business for short women. I live in LA and it is the mecca of denim, however charging 200$ for a pair of jeans seems crazy to me see as though I come from nothing and woukd hate to charge customers this. My only way is to source in Vietname, China or India to keep costs down. I am however going with businesses that do follow labor laws. I just hope I dont get any backlash since shopping sustainable is all the rage right now. Which I am all for but not for $200. What do you think?