Source | Procuratorial Daily

Author | Xia Qing, Luo Tong

Once these soft pornographic figurines are purchased by minors, they will affect the physical and mental health of children, and the consequences will be unimaginable

Recently, the "Childhood Without Min" case handling team of Minhang District Procuratorate in Shanghai launched a public interest litigation "look back" activity to investigate the special treatment of soft pornography figurines around campuses.

Children come into contact with food, stationery, toys, and other items almost every day. If the text, images, and their own designs on these items contain vulgar content, it will directly affect the physical and mental health development of children. Recently, the Minhang District Procuratorate handled a case involving minors involved in pornography and soft pornography.

Xiaoya (pseudonym) is a 15-year-old high school student. As an anime enthusiast, she usually likes to buy anime figurines. In the summer of 2023, Xiaoya purchased some "revealing clothing and peculiar posture" figurine dolls from figurine stores and online platforms. Due to her addiction to figurines, Xiaoya's academic performance plummeted, and she also made friends with some delinquent youths on social media platforms due to early exposure to inappropriate content for minors.

At the beginning of this year, the "Childhood Without Min" investigation team of Minhang District Procuratorate immediately conducted an investigation into Xiaoya's situation through on-site visits, consultation of relevant laws and regulations, and other means. The investigation team found that some shops have posted advertisements for figurines containing soft pornographic content, selling soft pornographic figurines without providing any warning to underage consumers and their parents. Among them, a figurine shop displayed a "beautiful girl" humanoid billboard advertisement and posted a poster of a girl figurine in the store. The female character was dressed in thin clothing, with a design that highlighted the private parts of the female body, and was accompanied by a foreign language slogan "Girlfriend lent to you to borrow satisfaction 5". Some of the "Pretty Girl" series figurines in this store have revealing clothing and sexy body movements, with strong sexual implications. The store also sells soft pornographic figurines to minors through online platforms. In addition, there were many primary and secondary school students in the involved store, but no warning signs were posted in the store, which seriously threatened the physical and mental health of minors.

During the investigation, the investigation team also found that some imported figurine products had non compliant packaging. If a girl's figurine series imported product sold in a store in the jurisdiction has product descriptions in foreign languages, but does not have the product name, production factory name, and address indicated in Chinese, it belongs to the "three no" product and cannot be queried for execution standards and warning instructions. Consumers have no way of knowing the specific parameters and information of such products, which violates the personal safety and right to know of underage consumers.

In March of this year, in response to the above-mentioned issues, the Minhang District Prosecutor's Office promptly consulted with the district's market supervision department and suggested that they order the involved shops to rectify the above-mentioned behavior in accordance with the law, strengthen sales prompts, and carry out a special treatment action for soft and pornographic figurine products around primary and secondary school campuses in the jurisdiction, actively promoting "green" figurine legal publicity activities.