SEOUL, May 23 (AJU PRESS) - Alarming levels of hazardous heavy metals have been detected in children's products sold on popular Chinese online platforms AliExpress and Shein.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced Thursday that a recent safety inspection of seven children's items from Chinese e-commerce sites found high levels of lead, chromium and nickel in two products.
A children's watch sold on Shein was found to have lead levels 278 times higher than the legal safety limit in the winding crown. The metal back case contained chromium at 3.4 times and nickel at 4.4 times over the permitted amounts.
A children's necklace from AliExpress was also found to have lead levels 1.2 times the allowable limit, the city government said.
Excessive lead exposure risks harming reproductive functions and increasing cancer risks. Chromium can cause skin rashes from acute or chronic exposure and has respiratory toxicity that can lead to dizziness and headaches. Nickel can trigger allergic reactions, including itching and rashes.
The South Korean government has toughened regulatory scrutiny of Chinese e-commerce platforms following a series of detections of hazardous substances in products sold on them.
Last week, the Fair Trade Commission signed agreements with the operators of AliExpress and Temu to promote product safety and better protect consumers.
The number of AliExpress and Temu users, which had been increasing rapidly since last year, decreased last month amid safety concerns by 3.2 percent month-on-month to 8.59 million and by 0.7 percent to 8.24 million, respectively.
