Police forces and customs agencies in many western countries across the globe have seen a significant increase in the number of child-like sex dolls being imported across their borders over the past few months. Often anatomically-correct and in some cases costing many thousands of euros, the dolls are designed for no other purpose but to satisfy the sexual desires of the paedophiles who buy them. Alarmingly, the dolls are surprisingly easy to order from large online retailers including Amazon, eBay and China’s Alibaba.com, despite courts in a number of countries indicating that their importation is or may be illegal. To most right-thinking people, the very concept of a child sex doll should sound abhorrent, but some child abuse experts have argued that they may have a role to play in preventing paedophiles from physically abusing real children. One UK charity that specialises in working with paedophiles has even gone so far as to suggest the dolls should be prescribed as therapeutic tools for actual and potential child abusers.
While experts argue over the value of child sex dolls as a therapeutic tool, a growing body of evidence suggests that those who appear to be importing them into western countries in growing numbers are already committing other child abuse offences, making a complete nonsense of any suggestion they are being used by so-called “virtuous paedophiles”. A British former primary school governor arrested in November last year after customs officers intercepted a child-like sex doll he imported into the country was found to have 34,000 indecent images of children on his computer. In Norway, law enforcement authorities have found that some of the growing number of men importing the dolls into the Scandinavian country have already been convicted of sexual offences against children, and warned that purchasers of the dolls “may pose a risk of committing abuses against children in the future”. A number of dolls have also been intercepted by customs officers in New Zealand and Canada.
Child sex dolls are mostly made in and sold from countries such as China, Japan and Hong Kong, some of which take a much laxer approach to child abuse than nations in the west. In Japan, which only outlawed child pornography in 2014, a self-confessed paedophile has been selling child sex robots for more than a decade, and like experts who suggest they can be used to help prevent paedophiles from attacking children, claims his products stop potential child abusers acting on their impulses in the real world. Speaking with the Atlantic in January last year, Shin Takagi said his dolls offer paedophiles a way in which to “express their desires, legally and ethically”, arguing that there is no way to alter the desires of people who are sexually attracted to children. There is no evidence to suggest that Takagi’s dolls, or any other child sex robots for that matter, help stop paedophiles from physically assaulting minors.
On the contrary in fact. Some experts believe that child sex dolls normalise paedophilia and actually make it more likely that people with a sexual interest in children who use them will go on to attack a real child. According to the Atlantic, Peter Fagan from the John Hopkins School of Medicine believes paedophiles who come into contact with Takagi’s products will have their sexual impulses reinforced, and may then act on their feelings with a greater sense of urgency. Prof Noel Sharkey, who heads up the Foundation for Responsible Robotics, has called for all sex robots to be banned, be they modelled on adults or children, claiming they could encourage paedophiles and other sex offenders to rape a real person or child. In a report released back in July, Sharkey said it was difficult to predict how people would react to the emerging “sex robot revolution”, and suggested the growing trend could increase the likelihood that paedophiles and potential sex offenders who use them will go on to commit real world sex offences.
Contributing to Sharkey’s report, Patrick Lin, who has written a book on the ethical and social implications of robotics, condemns the idea that child sex robots could be used to treat paedophiles as “repulsive”, observing that the concept is as absurd as handing a racist a robot with brown skin to either verbally or physically abuse. People would quite rightly be outraged if a company or individual produced a doll of Middle Eastern appearance designed for anti-Muslim bigots to take their prejudice out on in the hope this would prevent them from attacking actual Muslims in the street, as doing so would normalise their behaviour and attitudes. While the jury is still out on the potential harm that might be caused by adult sex robots, dolls that have been designed to resemble children intended for use by people with paedophilic tendencies should be outlawed across globe. In the meantime, with no credible evidence they can help stop paedophiles from physically attacking children, it seems their most useful application is helping law enforcement agencies identify the would-be and actual child abusers who buy them.
