WASHINGTON – Congressman Vern Buchanan announced today he is introducing federal legislation to ban the sale of sex dolls resembling children after a grotesque incident involving a Florida girl.
Buchanan’s call comes after NBC TV in Miami reported this week that a lifelike doll resembling a real girl in the Miami area was being sold on the Internet. The mother said a photo of her child was stolen and her likeness was turned into a sex doll that was legally for sale on Amazon and other websites. The girl’s mother was horrified and expressed concern for her daughter’s safety.
“This is sickening and cannot be allowed to continue,” Buchanan said. “We need to enact a national ban on these obscene products that are known to encourage pedophilia and the exploitation of children.”
Buchanan, co-chairman of the Florida congressional delegation, said he would be re-introducing the “CREEPER Act” which passed the U.S. House in 2018 with Buchanan’s strong support but died in the Senate. Buchanan said if the bill did not pass this year he would re-introduce it in the 2021 session of Congress as well. Specifically, the CREEPER Act would ban the importation and transportation of child sex dolls, effectively banning their sale.
Florida is one of only three states, along with Kentucky and Tennessee, that already ban the dolls.
Buchanan is a national leader in the fight against human trafficking which targets many young children. He has introduced and co-sponsored several bills addressing the crime and has worked closely with the Sarasota-based Selah Freedom and its President Elizabeth Fisher. Fisher said child sex dolls are known to encourage pedophilia and sexual crimes against children by normalizing the vile act. “Allowing for the manufacturing or possession of child-like sex dolls not only encourages pedophilia, but it creates an opportunity for the predator to exercise sexually violent and exploitative actions on a prototype, which lowers their inhibitions and grows their desire to abuse a real child,” Fisher said.
Last year, Buchanan introduced the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Prevention Training Act to combat human trafficking by educating students about the rapidly spreading crime. Buchanan also chaired Florida delegation hearings on human trafficking earlier this year and in 2017. Also in 2017 Buchanan wrote a column on the growing problem of human trafficking in Florida. In 2014, Buchanan co-sponsored the End Sex Trafficking Act to help law enforcement detect, investigate and prosecute sex trafficking predators in the U.S.
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