Disturbing, sexualized kids' outfits still for sale despite action from Amazon

Editor’s note: This article contains partially censored images of children in possibly disturbing and sexualized swimsuits

On Tuesday, Daily Hive published a story about shocking clothing for children being sold on Amazon via third-party sellers after receiving a tip from a reader last Wednesday.

This included swimsuits with slogans such as “Professional Hooker,” “I love to eat p*ssy,” and “A dirty HOE is a happy HOE.” Product detail pages included photoshopped images of children wearing the swimsuits.

In a statement emailed to Daily Hive on Tuesday, Amazon says it has removed all the questionable products. But Daily Hive found that several of them are still available.

WEEDKEYCAT/Amazon

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“All sellers must follow our selling guidelines, and those who do not will be subject to action, including potential removal of their account,” an Amazon spokesperson told us. “We have removed these products.”

Daily Hive also got in touch with the most prominent stores selling a significant chunk of problematic merchandise. CHARRA, the third-party seller in question, sold the clothing under the brand name WEEDKEYCAT. They were notified of all items we found in our investigation.

“Thank you very much for your reminder; we have removed related products here,” a CHARRA representative said.

But the reminder was likely in vain, as many of the flagged items are still very much available.

One of the reported swimsuits, which has the word “B*TCH” in bold lettering, is still actively listed.

WEEDKEYCAT/Amazon

Another two-piece swimsuit with a “Professional Hooker” icon is still available.

WEEDKEYCAT/Amazon

And here are multiple kids’ outfits with pro-drug messaging that have not been removed either.

WEEDKEYCAT/Amazon

All the products are easily searchable and contain the problematic terms — weed, marijuana, hooker — in their titles. They aren’t being latently or misleadingly advertised.

Neither Amazon nor the store has issued an apology for hosting the products.

What are Amazon’s rules around this?

Amazon has a list of Offensive Products policies for its third-party vendors.

Banned items include products depicting child abuse and exploitation, products intended for use by children that contains adult content, profanity or sexual references; products depicting children or characters resembling children in a sexually suggestive manner, as well as things marketed to or targeted at kids or teenagers that are age-inappropriate.

“These products are in violation of Amazon’s Offensive Products policies and have been removed. We regularly monitor our store for compliance with our policies and have done a thorough investigation to ensure that all products of this nature have been removed,” Amazon’s statement further read.

It isn’t just some of the reported listings that are still active — the third-party stores selling these items are also up and running. An investigation is underway.

“We will take any required further action with the third-party sellers who listed these items,” said Amazon. “Corrective actions for products that do meet our Offensive Products policies can include immediately suspending or terminating seller privileges, returning inventory, and terminating the business relationship.”

With hundreds of thousands of products being sold on Amazon, the shopping giant’s regulation system has, time and again, proven to be inefficient.

A 2019 investigation by the Wall Street Journal found thousands of unsafe, mislabelled, and banned products on the website, ready to be added to your shopping cart.

Daily Hive reached out to Amazon once again for a statement. On Wednesday, they replied.

“Amazon has blocked the sellers responsible for many of the products that were identified during this investigation as being non-compliant with our Offensive Products policies, and removed their product listings,” a spokesperson told us. “We continue to review our product catalog for any additional listings that missed our proactive controls.”