Originally Published by Representative Vern Buchanan
Congressman Vern Buchanan announced today that Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells, Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight and Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister have endorsed his legislation to protect children from predators.
Buchanan’s bill (the CREEPER Act 2.0) will help reduce pedophilia by banning the sale of lifelike child sex dolls used by predators to “normalize” their behavior.
Buchanan’s CREEPER (Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots) Act 2.0 would ban the sale, possession, importation and transportation of sex dolls resembling children. The original CREEPER Act introduced in Congress in 2017 banned the transportation and importation of child sex dolls but languished in the U.S. Senate. Buchanan’s updated version adds language from the Florida law that also makes it illegal to sell or possess the dolls.
In addition to State Sen. Book and Sheriffs Wells and Knight, numerous child protection and victim support organizations have endorsed Buchanan’s bill including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, the National District Attorneys Association, End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT-USA), Victims Refuse Silence, the Child Rescue Coalition and the Selah Way Foundation.
