To ask you to swerve Shein & Temu

You seem to be thinking that unless you do something 100% that it is not worth doing at all. Many disagree with that including me.
No one will probably be able to avoid using products made by slaves but they can use less of them.
If you take some care with what you buy, you can buy a lot less. If everyone halved their use of dubious purchasing, it could make lives better for many.

I can't always afford farm shops (which seems to be to many on the thread the only other place to shop besides Shein) so I sometimes buy lower welfare food products than I'd like. It's a mix.
Likewise my other spending. With a mix of secondhand, "ethical" purchases and just buying less, you can limit the amount made by slaves.

I mean, these are actual slaves, actual slaves, not just a "slave labour" concept where people are free but working too many hours. It's shocking that so many are ok with that.

By employ do you mean forced to work under slave labour conditions?

And that's the other side of the lazy, argument, that you're actually doing these slaves a favour by shopping with Shein or Temu because then at least they have work.

Temu has only been around for 3 years. So presumably just whatever they were doing 3 years ago.

wouldn't be mumsnet without a some self-righteousness...

FFS maybe they could wipe your arse too.

Why don't you do something practical about it. Not buying Christmas lights from Temu will do sweet FA.

So I ask again what are you now going to do with the 100,000 now unemployed?

Dark, but possibly true. Or they would find an even shittier place to work. It's so sanctimonious to think that Audrey from number 12 can change their world by getting her Christmas decorations from M&S rather than Temu. Really they know sweet FA about any of it.

Temu is simply a marketplace for individual sellers. It can’t rip anybody off because it doesn’t buy anything from anybody.

I don’t know if this is still the case but ten or so years ago the Chinese govt were basically removing the land of subsistence farmers to force migration to ‘free trade zones’ to supply the demand for factory workers for export products. There weren’t just thousands of people sitting around twiddling their thumbs and looking for (dangerous exploitative) jobs. By buying cheap products from countries with awful labour practices you create the demand for people to be coerced in various ways into jobs, and even into slavery.

Who's going to do that, the Chinese government?

The UK government?

The EU?

This is something I often struggle with. I see things on Etsy, click and look, and then later, Google ads shows me what appears to be exact same thing on Temu often for 90% less. Is the Etsy seller buying from Temu and selling on? Has Temu ripped off the original seller? Same with Christmas markets and craft markets.

They would likely starve to death on the streets. Or have to resort to sex work.

Redeploy them to clean up the vast environmental harm caused by fast fashion?

Genuine question. If Temu & Shein close down, what are you going to do with the 100,000 people they employ?

Lots of false logic on here

Firstly the idea that because someone buys things from Amazon/Shein/Temu whatever, that they are more likely to chuck stuff than if they buy from Sainsburys or Smiths and Smyths. Not so. I buy my clothes almost exclusively from Sainsburys and the charity shop. The stuff from the charity shop is a mixture of supermarket brands and Primark and Zara, those are the things in the wardrobe at the moment. And as I peruse around the charity shops tons of things dont even have a label on them so theres no way of telling if they come from Shien or whatever so the idea that charity shops have a blanket policy of not selling Shein items is nonsense

Secondly, although I buy from Amazon as I already have the account and my OH has prime for the postage etc, Im well aware these items are the exact same items as those on Temu and Shein even though Ive never bought from them, I probably have bought from them as has everyone else

In particular that children who have items provided by their school, perhaps within a tendering process by a supplier. Who do you think that supplier buys those pencils, pads, pens, stationary from? Down the chain somewhere will be the exact same factories that the poor struggling teacher is now buying stuff from. Same counts for any Local Authority or care home or any big organisation, they'll tender out contracts for suppliers and way down the line these will be the same items just relabelled and re packaged.

37 years in education, latter years at a senior level. You are filling gaps that leaders should not be leaving. How on earth would children write without a pencil - if the gap is left, leaders would soon fill it, believe me.
No/poor SATS results because of ‘no pencils’….🤯

I also recognise the risks and impact of children accessing unsafe/untested products on my watch. Parents, leaders, Trust, LA, H&S.

Tbf there are sweatshops and plenty of trafficked labour in the UK and no-one gives a shit

They’re learning about fast fashion and sweat shops as part of Geography. She came home saying they’re all shocked at the truth about Shein and Temu at school - of course lots of her friends are saying they’ll still shop there because it’s so cheap 😔

Here's the thing. For all those banging on about 'I'll shop where I like, I'm free to do whatever', nobody in this country would be willing to get out of bed for the money the people who make these things get paid.

We are exploiting a political and social regime we wouldn't countenance in this country. Everyone's anti-communism until it comes to getting stuff cheaper. Child slavery is a terrible thing we wouldn't accept on these shores, but we'll happily prop up the industry elsewhere.

We won't work in a sweat shop, but we happily pay somebody else to.

You know what I think we should do? Bring it all back here. The rag trade sweat shops of the 1970's, the piss poor worker's rights, your 13 year old stitching clothes instead of in school.

You think it's acceptable, campaign so we can do it here. If your dirt cheap clothes and crafts etc are so important to have, let's give up all the hard fought for rights and regulations here.

I bet absolutely none of you would willing walk into a Primark or H&M if the factory that made the produce was down the road and you saw your friend's kids going to work there, or your mother was ill because of the crap she was inhaling every day.

It's not OK because it's happening somewhere else. It's not OK because it suits you. It's not OK because you haven't got a lot of money. Can you imagine saying, 'but I'm poor and it's so much cheaper' in defence of keeping the sweatshop down the road open,? Would it be OK if it wasn't your daughter, your mother, your Dad having to do it, but another British person, who isn't paid enough to buy the items you, in your declared poverty, think are 'cheap'.

It wouldn't. There'd be an outcry. Nobody would be here talking about their freedom to buy what they like.

Pretty much. I'm highly sceptical of the "it's the only place in existence I can possibly buy things I desperately need to live" argument.

Because "things they need to live" usually turn out to be, taking examples from this thread: manicure sets, advent calendars and stocking fillers for adult children, and beauty bits.

When I was hard up I wasn't thinking about buying any kind of manicure set from anywhere, no matter how cheap. Every penny had to go towards food and the gas meter. There was nothing spare for beauty bits, even if they were rock bottom prices.

I suspect I have a very different idea of hard up to some posters on here.

"...so not sure why Amazon sellers would be allowed to flog stuff that didn’t meet safety"

There are fake supplements being sold via Amazon.