On 4 September 2026, the Home Office said it was backing the Child-like Sexual Abuse Dolls (Offences) Bill, a Private Member’s Bill that would make it a criminal offence to possess, make or sell child-like sexual abuse dolls. The department said the maximum penalty would be five years’ imprisonment and that the measure had moved to committee stage. (gov.uk)
According to the Home Office, the policy case rests on a gap in existing law. Police have encountered these items during child sexual abuse investigations and while monitoring registered sex offenders, but current legislation does not create a specific offence for owning or making them. The Bill is also framed to cover seizure and forfeiture, which points to a more direct enforcement route if such items are found. (gov.uk)
In Policy Wire terms, this is a product-specific criminal law change rather than a stand-alone safeguarding package. Government factsheets on the Crime and Policing Act 2026 show that ministers are placing the proposal alongside wider reforms, including a mandatory duty in England for adults in regulated activity with children to report sexual abuse, a criminal offence of obstructing or deterring a report, a statutory aggravating factor for grooming in sentencing, and new provisions on AI child sexual abuse material and border searches of digital devices. (gov.uk)
That wider context matters for implementation. Read together, the Home Office statement and the 2026 Act materials show a common direction of travel: earlier reporting, tighter control of offenders, and more explicit statutory tools where government considers that older offences do not neatly fit emerging forms of abuse or abuse-related material. (gov.uk)
Ministers are also linking the Bill to additional enforcement funding. In May 2026, the Home Office announced £100 million for work on child sexual abuse, including £38 million for Operation Beaconport to reopen and investigate cases, and the 4 September statement cited that funding as part of the wider child protection response. For police forces and prosecutors, the message is that the proposed new offence is intended to sit alongside operational resource rather than symbolic legislation alone. (gov.uk)
External safeguarding bodies have backed the measure in notably consistent terms. The NSPCC said the Bill would close a dangerous gap in the law and added that there is no comprehensive evidence that these dolls prevent contact offending against children, warning instead about possible desensitisation. Barnardo’s, NAPAC and CEASE each supported the ban and argued that products designed to imitate children for sexual purposes should not be normalised or traded. (gov.uk)
The Bill still needs to complete the remaining parliamentary stages before it can become law. Until that point, the proposal is best understood as a clear statement of legislative intent: if Parliament approves it, possession and related dealing in child-like sexual abuse dolls would move from a recognised loophole to a defined criminal offence, aligned with the government’s wider 2026 programme on child sexual abuse, sentencing and reporting duties. (gov.uk)