Brazil has decided to prioritise the issue of hyper-realistic baby dolls that can be found all over the country.
Around 30 bills concerning these figurines, known as "reborn dolls," have been introduced across Brazil.
The laws include proposals to ban them from receiving public healthcare and to prevent collectors from using them to claim priority in queues for public services.
Social media has been flooded with videos of collectors treating the dolls as real children, receiving immense backlash and ridicule.
The controversy took a serious turn when, in early June, a man slapped a four-month-old baby on the head, claiming he had mistaken the infant for a doll.
As the country is drowning in the new proposed bills, a closer look has unveiled that the laws are addressing the issues which are not happening in real life.
Reportedly, so far, only one case involving a woman with a psychiatric disorder, has been confirmed, in which someone attempted to take a doll to a public hospital.
Isabela Kalil, a political science and anthropology professor at the FESPSP university, noted, "If a topic is trending, these politicians will propose laws about it even if they make no sense."
Highlighting the timing, she added that Brazil's leading far-right figure, former President Jair Bolsonaro, is now on trial for an attempted coup and is barred from standing in next year’s election.
Kalil also noted that although the attention grabbing is working for the right, they have also been subject to mockery and criticism.
However, the professor shared that the actual victims of the situation are the women who make up the majority of collectors and content creators on online platforms.
