CREEPER Act of 2017

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, sex toys with children is disgusting, and I believe it is something that one would want simply to say pass a bill to cease and desist.

But I would like to discuss H.R. 4655, the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots Act of 2017, also known as the CREEPER Act of 2017.

There is no doubt that we oppose what this bill is intending to do. The bill seeks to prohibit the importation and transportation of child sex dolls.

There is no doubt that child sexual exploitation is a serious, grave problem in our country. It is a growing and ever-evolving problem that requires a multifaceted response, and one might argue that the creation of these dolls, besides being exploitation of our most precious resource, is just to make money. That is absolutely both disgraceful and absurd.

Combating child sexual exploitation requires aggressive action by the Congress of the United States, and we must remain always vigilant to stamp out any new methods in technology developed and used by child predators to harm our children.

Just yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that, in a coordinated effort spanning all 50 States during March, April, and May, 2,300 suspected child sex offenders were arrested. In my own hometown of Houston in 2016, 126 people were arrested as online predators as part of a coordinated effort to tackle the problem of child exploitation; and last year, 13 were arrested.

We must protect our children everywhere from any and all bad actors who want to do them harm. I am concerned, however, that the majority has not given us sufficient time to properly consider this bill, its basis for making a correlation between the possession of obscene dolls and possession of child pornography, and its relation to child abuse. Those are important points, and I know that this bill has great intentions. We might have made it even greater.

We also did not have the opportunity to assess whether this bill would implicate a reporting statute for sex offenders or to identify any other problems and perhaps an opportunity to offer ways to improve this bill to ensure we are, in fact, protecting all of our children. Mr. Speaker, I look forward, however, to hearing further in the discussion of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for his explanation of the CREEPER bill. As I stated, it is disgusting, but, more importantly, it harms our children.

What we want to do in this Congress is to ensure that not only do we register our concern for the fairness of the criminal justice system, the criminal code, but that we provide the greatest protection we can ever provide for our children.

So the idea of sex toys and the utilization of child sex toys is what I want to be clear, and the importation and transportation is a dastardly act. I hope as this bill makes its way through the Congress that we will be assured that it frames itself to go after those who are the most vile and vicious as it relates to the child sex toys and in keeping with the confines and the parameters of a just criminal code.

Might I also just say that I just feel compelled, as the gentleman I know has worked on many issues, to remind this House that we have a crisis at the border. It is very important as we relate to children and children being taken away from families--mothers--that we also turn our attention to protecting those children.

So with that point, I want to indicate my support for effective measures to protect our children. I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 4655) to amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit the importation or transportation of child sex dolls, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous materials on H.R. 4655 currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we consider the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots Act of 2017. It criminalizes the importation and transportation of child sex dolls.

I have mixed feelings today about bringing this bill to the floor. I am happy that this legislation is moving through, and we are taking steps to address a problem that very much needs to be addressed. I am distraught, however, that this problem even exists. I am saddened that there are people in this world who would create realistic child sex dolls and distraught that there are people in this world who would buy them.

These dolls are being manufactured in China and Japan and being shipped all over the world. Consumers can order bespoke dolls providing pictures of specific children they would like the doll to resemble. They can indicate a preferred facial expression, such as sadness or fear. These dolls can be programmed to simulate rape. The very thought makes me nauseous.

While a small group of people advocate for the use of these dolls to curb pedophilia, there is absolutely no scientific literature supporting this view. To the contrary, these dolls create a real risk of reinforcing pedophilic behavior, and they desensitize the user, causing him to engage in sicker and sicker behavior. They put our children in danger, and we must not tolerate them.

In April of this year, Amazon announced it was removing anatomically correct child sex dolls from its website. I call upon all internet- based retailers and media platforms to do the same.

Australia and the United Kingdom have already taken steps to criminalize the importation of child sex dolls and are actively prosecuting these cases. There is no reason that the United States should not follow suit.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Mr. Donovan of New York for introducing this bill. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Donovan), the chief sponsor of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, this truly is, as the gentlewoman from Texas said, a disgusting topic, but it is one that I think is very necessary to protect our children and to protect our society.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

I, again, thank the gentleman from New York for offering it. His experience as a prosecutor and his testimony to how horrific he finds it, even as a veteran prosecutor, should tell all the Members all they need to know about how important it is to pass this bill and start doing what the United Kingdom and Australia are already doing, and that is getting after the people who would import this kind of trash into the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding to me.

Before I came to Congress, I was an elected district attorney for 12 years in Staten Island, New York. Prior to that, I spent 8 years in the Manhattan DA's office as a prosecutor.

Very few things disturb me after all of those 20 years of prosecuting cases, but then it came to my attention about sex dolls being shipped from foreign lands to the United States for only one purpose: to be used as sex objects that simulate a young child.

As the chairman spoke earlier, these dolls can be formed. They can be created. They can be designed to appear in any shape or form that the abuser wants them to be. They have realistic eyelashes, realistic hair, warming devices, and cleaning apparatuses. They are totally, as my good friend from Texas said, disgusting.

They appear to be lifelike replicas of young children. A fully customized doll can cost up to $10,000. But the dolls that the chairman was referring to on Amazon were as low as $409 with free shipping. That is less than the cost of an iPhone.

The good news is, as the chairman brought out, Amazon no longer sells these products. The bad news is the dolls are still available for sale on other websites. The dolls when they are shipped are purposely labeled as mannequins to disguise what their true purpose is.

Science has shown that dolls normalize pedophilic behavior rather than discourage pedophiles from acting out on their urges or aggression.

The bill is supported by the Stop Abuse Campaign, the Stop Child Predators, and the Foundation for Responsible Robotics. Over 166,000 signatures have been written on a petition by Change.org. This demonstrates that this bill is something that the American people want.

In the first year of its ban, the United Kingdom found that 85 percent of the men who possessed these dolls also possessed child pornography.

We are trying to get ahead of this problem. We are trying to protect children. I believe this legislation will protect countless children from pedophiles throughout our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his support, and I urge all of my colleagues in the House to pass H.R. 4655, the CREEPER Act.