A pedestrian walks past the logo of Asian e-commerce giant Shein and of the Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville (BHV) at the BHV department store in Paris on November 3, 2025, just days before Shein opens its first physical store at BHV in Paris. JULIE SEBADELHA / AFP
Asian e-commerce giant Shein on Tuesday, November 4 pledged to "cooperate fully" with judicial authorities after French prosecutors opened an investigation over the sale of childlike sex dolls on the platform.
"We will cooperate fully with the judicial authorities," Shein's spokesman in France, Quentin Ruffat, told RMC radio, adding the company was prepared to share names of those who have bought such dolls. "We will be completely transparent with the authorities. If they ask us to do so, we will comply," he said. "We will put the necessary safeguards in place to ensure that this does not happen again," Ruffat said, adding that what has happened is "serious, unacceptable, intolerable."
The Paris prosecutors' office said it had opened investigations against Shein, and also rival online retailers AliExpress, Temu and Wish, over the sale of sex dolls. The probes were for distributing "messages that are violent, pornographic or improper, (and) accessible to minors," the office told AFP.
