Having completely upended the e-commerce industry with its flexible supply chain, the Chinese giant manufacturing company Shein is now infamous for all the wrong-doings that go on behind its factory walls. While Shein has met the demands of global manufacturers, with on-trend and budget-friendly trends, the true cost of its manufacturing process on Chinses workers and environmental damage, has made industry activists criticize its business model and call for change.
Since its inception in Guangzhou in 2008, the Chinese-owned e-commerce store has become extremely popular with its fast fashion garments. While most thought Shein’s manufacturing process was automated, it was later realized the actual method is traditional human labour, where workers are exploited and made to work around 18 hours a day with high daily targets and low wages.
Documentary highlights pitiful factory conditions
Many secret documents and studies on its factory have been carried out to understand the wrong-doings but since nothing is proven and the Chinese authorities are in denial, industry analysts can only sympathise with the workers for now without taking real action. One of these documentaries titled Untold: Inside the Shein Machine, hosted by award-winning freelance journalist, producer and presenter Iman Amrani, has shown footage from hidden cameras that reveal the dismal labour practices of workers, who are regularly working 16-hour days with a target of 500 garments a day with a fine attached if it is not made to precision.
Women especially are the most exploited as manufacturing factories are predominantly women, who are making the clothes, whose own designs are being stolen and reused by the factory owners and also who are manipulated to advertise the products to look happy.
The environmental damage of these fast fashion apparel from Shein is another big concern as these garments are not made for the resale economy as they are of cheap materials made in such exploitative conditions that they can be worn only a few times before being discarded. But the amount of water and other chemicals used to make a single piece remains the same and just goes to the environmental pollution daily. The resale and renewed purpose of these same clothes in another person’s wardrobe instead of being discarded is non-existent and the real issues of overproduction and overconsumption just pile up.
Use and throw policy increases environmental pollution
Maria Chenoweth, CEO of Textile Reuse points out, they’re producing and making these clothes and then trying to offer some small solution to the much bigger problem that they’re creating. Its greenwashing, making people think it's OK to buy this rubbish when it’s not.
It is ironic and laughable that Shein has launched a resale program to address the issue of textile waste in its factories at the same time as this secret documentary about the pitiful conditions within its factories. It just goes to prove that Shein management and the Chinses government are just greenwashing the entire manufacturing process with no intention to address sustainability or humanitarian issues. However, with industry malpractice analaysts and human rights activists now waking up and taking action the complacent attitude of the Shien management will soon be over.
