Iran creates a Muslim doll to stop Barbie's harmful influences

news.com.au/dailytelegraph

MANY children worldwide have played with barbie dolls, but Iran is so concerned about their "harmful" influence they have made an Islamic version.

An Iranian government agency has developed Sara and Dara to promote traditional Muslim values in the country.

Iran's Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults has stated the creation of Sara and Dara is to promote traditional Muslim values in the country.

Unlike their American counterparts, the toys come dressed in modest clothing. They also have pro-family backgrounds and each of the four models of Sara comes with a white headscarf.

They cost a third of the price of a Barbie doll.

Toy seller Masoumeh Rahimi told The Daily Telegraph newspaper in the United Kingdom, that the image of Barbie as buxom, blonde and wearing revealing clothing was "more harmful than an American missile."

She said that the danger was that if young girls played with Barbie dolls, they could grow into women who rejected Iranian values.

Another toy seller, Mehdi Hedayat, said: "Dara and Sara are strategic products to preserve our national identity.

"And, of course, it is an answer to Barbie and Ken, which have dominated Iran's toy market."

Dara and Sara started out as characters in school books and their lives have also grown into stories that are being sold on cassette along with the dolls.

Last April, Iran's judiciary said the most dangerous items in a Tehran toy shop are not the lifelike pistols and sub-machine guns in the display case, but the hot-pink boxes showcasing Barbie dolls as the real portents of a Western "cultural invasion."

Illegally imported Barbie dolls are "destructive culturally and a social danger," Iranian prosecutor Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi warned.\

Barbie, Batman, Spiderman, and Harry Potter toys, he wrote, are a "danger that needs to be stopped." He added: "Undoubtedly, the personality and identity of the new generation and our children, as a result of unrestricted importation of toys, has been put at risk and caused irreparable damage."