Popular craft website Etsy caught selling childlike sex dolls that breach Australian child abuse laws

Sex dolls resembling children as young as 10 are being sold on a popular global website that millions of Australians use to buy gifts and craft supplies.

Sex dolls resembling children as young as 10 are being sold on a popular global website that millions of Australians use to purchase gifts and craft supplies.

E-commerce site Etsy is best known for selling handmade and vintage items like jewellery, bespoke wedding cake toppers and baby blankets. But the global shopping site has a growing dark underbelly selling child sex dolls and graphic slogan apparel.

One item available for sale titled “Boy sex doll” includes multiple explicit images of a silicon doll with a height of just 140cm, the average height for boys aged 10 -12 years old, and includes a diagram of how to move and position the doll.

A male sex doll that has distinctly young features and the height of an average 10-year-old boy has since been removed from Etsy. Picture: Etsy/supplied

Another listing gives purchasers the option to buy the child doll’s head as a stand-alone purchase.

One female doll is listed as having the height and weight of that commonly of girls aged 12 to 13 and is photographed wearing teenage-style clothing. The listing promises buyers “discreet shipping”, saying, “We ship in plain brown boxes with nothing on them buy a shipping label.”

Many listings allow purchasers to select the skin, hair and eye colours of the dolls, as well as the height, weight and genital sizing.

A female sex doll with the height and weight of the average 12 to 13-year-old girl previously listed for sale on Etsy. Picture: Etsy/supplied

Under Australian law, child sex dolls are considered child sex material. Importation carries a fine of up to $555,000 and up to ten years’ imprisonment.

In December last year, News Corp reported Australian Border Force had seized 191 dolls that had been sent to Australian consumers, up from 145 in 2019.

Also rife among the ‘global marketplace’, as Etsy refers to itself, are a growing number of highly graphic items like underwear and t-shirts with slogans such as ‘Daddy’s little c*****t’, ‘A**l Plz’, and ‘Daddy’s Little C**k W***e’.

Under Etsy’s current algorithm, the explicit items appear alongside items like writing journals and children’s clothing.

Listed on Etsy as "boy sex doll", this doll has since been removed. Picture: Etsy/supplied

Buyers were able to purchase the doll at the height of a child, or purchase the doll head as a standalone item. Picture: Etsy/supplied

While the items do not violate Etsy’s community guidelines, Melbourne-based Etsy seller Anna Cordell, a long-time user who started selling face masks on the platform during Melbourne’s lockdown, said the products are inappropriate.

“As well as the fact these products are placed alongside Father’s Day gifts and baby clothes, they eroticise child abuse. It does not belong on Etsy,” Cordell said.

“Surely a ‘Daddy please’ tattoo emblazoned across bare genitals is in breach of these guidelines.”

Since discovering the disturbing products, Cordell has partnered with Collective Shout to launch an online petition asking Etsy to remove the items and ensure they do not return.

“I’m certainly especially shocked at the placement of the products, but it’s all part of the larger issue that this stuff simply does not belong on Etsy,” Cordell says.

Collective Shout campaign director Melinda Tankard Reist agrees, and said the t-shirts, underwear and temporary tattoos, while not illegal, are part of a larger societal problem.

“These products fetishise girls and suggest they really want to be sexually abused by their fathers,” she said

“Etsy is perpetuating this falsehood and playing into this paedophile fantasy.

The company is promoting the idea that abuse is sexy.”

Etsy told News Corp a number of profiles selling the dolls have since been deactivated.

“We take the safety of our marketplace very seriously, and we regularly revisit and adjust our policies. We will continue to closely monitor this space,” a spokesperson said.

In 2015, Etsy banned the sale of spells, hexes and potions from its platform.

It did not respond to News Corp’s questions about whether it would introduce a similar ban on child sex dolls.

Originally published as Popular craft website Etsy caught selling childlike sex dolls that breach Australian child abuse laws