Instagram slammed for ’fuelling’ the sale of child-like sex dolls online as Border Force seizes illegal trade
Instagram has been slammed for allowing companies selling child-like sex dolls to promote themselves on Instagram. But the problem is much bigger.
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Exclusive: Child-like sex dolls are being promoted and sold via Instagram.
An investigation by campaign group Collective Shout has slammed Meta, the social media giant behind the platform, for allowing companies that sell child abuse material to promote themselves on its site.
The group even found photos of child-like sex dolls with dummies in their mouths posted on the Instagram feeds of companies selling the products.
On some Instagram sites, sex dolls vendors tried to protect themselves by only posting pictures of adult sex dolls on their pages, but their websites also list child-like sex dolls.
Some of those dolls are just 109cm, flat chested and modelled on the bodies of pre-pubescent and toddler girls. Some are pictured with toys.
Many of the overseas companies, some of which are based in China, allow users to order by clicking through a website link in their Instagram bios.
Collective Shout Investigator Lyn Swanson Kennedy said, “Instagram is fuelling the child sex abuse doll trade”.
“Even just viewing that account generated a recommended list of similar companies,” Ms Swanson Kennedy said.
“These accounts really want to come down urgently.”
She said while it is illegal to order child sex dolls to an Australian address, Australian buyers can purchase them and send them to an overseas address.
Collective Shout, which fights against sexploitation, is concerned about other sites that might unknowingly profit from the sales of the dolls.
Ms Swanson Kennedy said they had discovered one Australian who promoted the sex dolls vendor on his social media platforms and offered a discount code for customers.
The Australian promoter describes himself as a ‘social media influencer’.
He has several social media accounts where he posts pictures of himself with his adult sex doll companion.
When contacted by News Corp, the man said he was shocked to hear the website he promotes sells child sex dolls and said he would disassociate himself immediately from the company.
He said his discount code had never been used by anyone, so he had not profited from any sales.
“I am totally against child sex dolls,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the eSafety Commissioner said, in Australia, the importation and possession of childlike sex dolls is illegal.
“Material that depicts these dolls is considered child abuse material under Australian law, and their use can have the effect of normalising and trivialising the sexual abuse of children,” the spokeswoman said.
She said in certain cases, the eSafety Commissioner can exercise a range of powers, including directing website operators and hosting service providers to take the material down.
“We encourage Australians to report this type of online content to eSafety for investigation,” she said.
Initially, a spokesman for Meta said it had conducted a thorough review of one account that was only posting adult sex dolls on its feed and found the account did not violate Instagram’s community guidelines because there were no images of child-like dolls in any of the posts.
However, after News Corp again pointed out the account was linked to a website that also sold child sex dolls, Meta removed the account.
“Meta has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation,” the spokesman said.
News Corp later went back to Meta for further comment after being shown accounts where pictures of child-like sex dolls had been posted on Instagram feeds.
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HUNDREDS OF CHILD-LIKE SEX DOLLS SEIZED
Law enforcement has seized hundreds of child-like sex dolls in the past five years and more than 20 people have been charged with importing them amid a crackdown on the illegal imports.
Since 2017 Australian Border Force (ABF) officers have discovered 319 dolls with 92 of them in the past financial year, a huge jump from the 14 found in 2017-2018 year.
The growing number of child-like sex dolls being imported into Australia has posed a major concern for the ABF which has discovered them trying to be imported by air, sea and postal shipments into NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, WA and Tasmania.
ABF Superintendent Clinton Sims has said ABF officers work are working hard to disrupt all attempts to import child-like sex dolls and child abuse material into Australia, including through the international mail system.
“Once they are seized we work very closely with our law enforcement partners to ensure those responsible for these abhorrent offences are prosecuted and stopped before escalating their offending,” Superintendent Sims said.
Last year, a NSW man pleaded guilty to a charge of intentionally importing goods comprising of a child-like sex doll and possession of child abuse material.
Stephen Ross Middleton, 31, was arrested by ABF investigators and NSW Police in December last year after it was discovered he had bought a childlike sex doll online.
Middleton told police the reason he ordered a ‘small-statured’ sex doll was so he could stow it away, saying “if you get a full-size one, people come over and they’re going to see it and think you’re a freak”.
He said he just ordered a sex doll online and it didn’t look like a child.
South Australian man James Sharp was the first person in Australia to be jailed for possessing a child-like sex doll.
James Sharp was sentenced to three years in prison for the crime in 2021.
The 33-year-old caught the attention of ABF and police officers when they started tracking a number of online purchases.
When officers raided his home, they discovered another child-like sex doll similar to one he’d had delivered from China.
New laws – the Combating Child Sexual Exploitation Legislation Amendment Act 2019 – came into force in September 2019 making it a criminal offence to possess a child-like sex doll, punishable by up to 15 years’ jail.
In the past two years 11 people have been reported as charged in NSW for possessing the dolls, two in Queensland, two in Victoria, four in WA and one in the ACT.
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