A 23-year-old man has been arrested over the importation of a childlike sex doll into Australia – a trend that authorities say has seen an uptick in recent years.
The ABF said in a statement that it seized a total of 226 childlike sex dolls and/or parts in the 2020-2021 financial year – up from 138 seized during the 2019-2020 financial year.
It is not clear whether the increase in seizures of childlike sex dolls is in any way related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has over the past 18 months fuelled a rise in e-commerce, a huge spike in adult sex doll sales and a disturbing surge in child sex abuse material around the world. A spokesperson for the Australian Federal Police told VICE World News last September that the amount of child abuse material being shared on the dark web appeared to be increasing, and that some sites hosting online child sex abuse material had crashed due to the overwhelming amount of internet traffic.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that in the 2018-2019 financial year, before COVID, the ABF seized just 30 childlike sex dolls.
Last year, Chinese e-commerce marketplace Alibaba shut down an offshore vendor selling childlike sex dolls into Australia, following complaints from Australian anti-sexploitation group Collective Shout. Media spokeswoman Melinda Liszewski said she and her team had discovered some dolls on the site “as small as 65cm, the size of a six-month-old baby.”
Source: Authorities Seize Another Childlike Sex Doll As Disturbing Trend Rises