After the French and Shein controversy, the hunt for platforms selling child-like sex dolls is becoming more widespread in Europe. In Sweden, e-commerce giant Amazon was the target of a complaint from children’s rights association ChildX for selling child-like sex dolls. Two other e-commerce sites have been pinned, one located in Sweden, the other in China, but ChildX chose to hide their names to avoid directing traffic there.
As in France, Swedish law prohibits content that depicts children in a sexual manner. In its complaint, ChildX argued that the sale of the dolls could violate laws regarding the sexual exploitation of children. According to the NGO, the sale of such products on global platforms risks normalizing sexual violence against children and increasing demand for content that exploits children.
“We don’t want these sites to be allowed in Sweden because they trivialize child abuse. which could lead to an actual increase in abuse”ChildX Secretary General Ida Östensson told AFP. He urged the Swedish government to expand its blacklist of child pornography sites “to include more websites that encourage or facilitate child abuse.” He called for these sites to be banned, as Sweden’s blacklisting is currently optional for telecom operators.
He further believes that laws regarding child sexual exploitation should be expanded to cover the sale of products that sexualize children. Distribution and possession of sexual images featuring children is illegal, as is possession of sex dolls that resemble children. The sale of these dolls should also be illegal, according to ChildX, but this has never been brought to justice.
ChildX cites statistics showing that in Sweden, one in four children under the age of 15 have been victims of solicitation for sexual purposes and nearly one in ten teenage girls have been victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
