Etsy seller providing childlike sex dolls modelled off 14-year-old Instagram star

An online seller has given a disturbing justification for selling ‘vile’ sex dolls online, with Border Force revealing a spike in the products being sent to Australia.

Vile child sex dolls are being sold brazenly on a popular online retail site, as authorities reveal more than 100 have been seized from Australians in the past five months alone.

One seller openly gloated on online sales platform Etsy that the sex doll they were providing was modelled off a 14-year-old Instagram star.

The seller, with the username Sexy Lady Fox, unwittingly revealed the horrific inspiration for the sex dolls when contacted by an Australian sexual assault advocacy group posing as an interested buyer.

The sex dolls are advertised as being 156cm tall — the average height of a 13-year-old girl — and are able to be customised to look like specific children if a photo is provided, according to disturbing texts sent to a member of advocacy group Collective Shout.

“We can change the wig,” Sexy Lady Fox said in reply when provided with two computer generated images of young children.

“I think it is very similar to the images you send me.”

An Etsy store was taken down after openly selling sex dolls and offering to change the look of them to match images of children. The headshots above are computer-generated images. Picture: Supplied

The image used to advertise a sex doll being sold in the Etsy store.

After NCA NewsWire notified Etsy of the seller, it swiftly deactivated the shop from the sales platform.

When contacted by NCA NewsWire, ‘Sexy Lady Fox’ gave an extraordinary justification for providing the disturbing product, which is regarded as child sex material in Australian law and carries a penalty for importation of up to $555,000 and 10 years’ imprisonment.

“We are selling the most required real dolls on the market,” the seller said, who identified themselves simply as Federica.

When asked if it was the intention to make the dolls look underage, they said: “To be honest, if I think that somebody (will) buy and use a real doll instead doing something wrong with a young girl, I’m grateful.”

This horrific justification was rejected by Collective Shout as “self-serving”.

“Men who are found with child abuse dolls are also (often) found with other forms of child sex abuse material, including things like photos and videos of children and babies being raped and tortured,” said Collective Shout campaign manager Caitlin Roper, who is also completing a PHD at RMIT University researching sex dolls and robots.

“There are reported scenarios from this year of men still incorporating living children into their child sex abuse doll use.”

Ms Roper cited research from the Australian Institute of Criminology, which concluded there was no evidence these products prevented child sexual abuse.

“Instead, they present a risk of escalation and may actually increase the likelihood of child sexual abuse,” she said.

The providers of the childlike sex dolls have proved they will go to extraordinary lengths to supply customised material to abusers, Ms Roper told NCA NewsWire.

“Men could see a girl out in public, take a photo and say, ‘I want a doll modelled on her’,” she said.

“They could send in photos of children they know or have some kind of caretaking power over, so there’s lots of ways men can use this to victimise living children.

“It’s a new way they can be victimised and abused even without their knowledge and without their presence.”

MP Jason Wood described the crime as ‘vile’. Picture: Gary Ramage

The brazen criminality comes as new data provided to NCA NewsWire reveals a spike in the number of childlike sex dolls being imported into Australia.

Australian Border Force (ABF) seized more than 100 dolls in less than five months to November 18.

So far this calendar year, 191 dolls or parts of dolls were found, compared to 145 in the whole of 2019, with the majority found in packages sent from mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.

Assistant Customs Minister Jason Wood said the ABF and law enforcement more broadly were “focused on combating the attempted import of these vile products into Australia”.

“Increased intelligence work undertaken across the Home Affairs portfolio and the ABF’s commitment to detecting this abhorrent material has ensured these items are stopped at the border,” he said.

Legislation introduced in June allows for a mandatory minimum sentence of four years’ imprisonment in situations where it is the person’s “second-strike” child sexual abuse offence.

“These penalties reflect the serious role that these products can play in normalising and desensitising offenders to child sexual abuse,” Mr Wood said.

“These products sexualise children and cause great harm. The ABF is committed to working closely with our law enforcement partners, both here in Australia and overseas, to combat this issue, and we will continue to pursue and prosecute.”

Other sites have appeared more proactive in eliminating the abuse material as the presence of childlike sex dolls becomes more common.

Earlier in the year, the ABF worked alongside major Chinese e-commerce marketplace Alibaba to shut down an offshore vendor importing dolls into Australia.

The border force’s superintendent in Queensland, Amanda Coppleman, said the increase of the crime was a huge concern and assistance from online retailers was crucial.

“Online e-commerce sites like Alibaba.com play a role in eliminating the supply of these childlike sex dolls and have the ability to shut down vendors,” she said.

“The fight against child exploitation is an ongoing and evolving one but each successful achievement is an important milestone.”

Originally published as Etsy seller providing childlike sex dolls modelled off 14-year-old Instagram star