Penney's Late Late Toy Show deal with RTÉ 'paused' amid forced labour cotton exposé

The Late Late Toy show has confirmed it will not go ahead with it's partnership with retail giant Penneys this year following the RTÉ Investigates exposé that revealed Penneys, along with other major Irish retailers like Dunnes and Tesco, were being supplied cotton that was sourced from two Chinese forced labour camps.

A spokesperson for Penneys has said the partnership between the two, which ran for the last 10 years and included the production of toy show socks, pyjamas, hot water bottles and more, was "paused" because the "Penneys ordering deadline for the Late Late Toy Show pyjamas coincided with the initial conversations with RTÉ Investigates."

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Penneys told RTÉ Investigates that there is no suggestion of any link between the Late Late Toy Show range of products and that it was "very proud" of the decade long partnership, adding that it was "looking forward to revisiting the partnership next year."

However, RTÉ has said the partnership with Penneys will not go ahead this year due to "a number of reasons."

When RTÉ Investigates quizzed RTÉ over other partnerships they might have with other retailers named in the programme they said, 

"RTÉ has had and will continue to have relationships with a wide range of retailers, including those named in the programme," adding that the State broadcaster "conducts due diligence on all commercial partners and keeps all commercial partners under review."

The RTÉ investigation found that the two Chinese companies, the Esquel Group and Jiangsu Lianfa Textiles, have long-established operations in Xinjiang, a region that grows up to 30 percent of the world’s cotton and is home to a persecuted minority group called the Uyghurs.

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The Uyghurs have been subject to “severe human rights violations”, according to the UN, including mass arbitrary detention, rape, forced abortion and forced sterilisation.

RTÉ Investigates verified video footage of Uyghur workers at both companies' sites as recently as December 2024, and obtained up-to-date corporate records to show their ongoing ownership of farms and factories in Xinjiang. The companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Both of these companies supply cotton to factories which supply clothing to major Irish retailers.