Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein said it identified two cases of child labor in its supply chain last year as it tightened controls over the companies that make the clothes it sells.

The company said it had temporarily suspended orders from the affected suppliers and would not resume business until they had increased their efforts to resolve the issue.

The revelation in Shein’s Sustainability Report 2023 because there are apparently plans to sell shares on the stock exchange.

The company has faced criticism for the conditions faced by workers in factories across its supply chain.

“Both cases were resolved quickly. Remedial measures included terminating the contracts of underage employees, ensuring payment of all outstanding wages, arranging medical examinations and facilitating repatriation to parents/guardians if necessary,” Shein said.

“After appropriate restructuring, the contract manufacturers were allowed to resume their business activities.”

Shein said the company has tightened its supplier policies. Under the new rules, violations of child labor or forced labor are now grounds for immediate termination of contracts.

The company said the two cases were discovered in the first nine months of 2023 and none of those cases were found in the last quarter of the year.

This comes as the company lays the groundwork for a potential stock sale on the stock exchange.

The BBC understands that Shein filed the first documents for a stock exchange listing in London earlier this year.

In June, Marco Rubio, a leading Republican on the US Senate Intelligence Committee and an ally of Donald Trump, wrote to then-British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt warning him of “serious ethical concerns” and Shein’s “close ties to the People’s Republic of China”.

“Slave labor, factory exploitation and trade tricks are the dirty secrets behind Shein’s success,” Rubio wrote in his letter to Hunt.

At the time, a company spokesperson said: “Shein has a zero-tolerance policy towards forced labour and we are committed to respecting human rights. We take transparency seriously throughout our supply chain and require our contract manufacturers to only source cotton from approved regions.”

This was only a few weeks after a report by the Swiss advocacy group Public Eye said that excessive overtime is still the norm for many workers in Shein’s supply chain.

Responding to the report, Shein told the BBC that they were “working hard” to address the issues raised by Public Eye and that they had made “significant progress in improving conditions”.