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In mid‑2025, Labubu, a Chinese‑produced “ugly‑cute” designer doll, had become a highly visible trend in Erbil’s toy and gift shops, promoted through social media and reselling networks. The dolls were marketed to children and young adults as collectible lifestyle objects, part of a wider global wave of character‑based merchandise flowing into Iraqi Kurdistan’s urban markets.

Labubu’s commercial appeal in Erbil rested on its blind‑box sales model: buyers paid for sealed boxes without knowing which character they would receive, encouraging repeat purchases and set‑building. Local traders capitalised on scarcity and hype, with some reportedly steering customers toward more expensive items and exploiting information asymmetries around limited editions.

Consumer protection and blind‑box sales
The official ban, announced by Erbil’s Directorate of Commercial Monitoring in July 2025, foregrounded consumer protection concerns. Authorities accused traders of misleading buyers through the blind‑box mechanism, alleging that families were pressured into repeated purchases and that certain advertised variants were effectively unavailable. Enforcement included raids on retailers, confiscation of thousands of dolls and initiation of legal action against shop owners and importers. Officials also signalled that future imports would be blocked at checkpoints, underscoring the intention to remove Labubu from formal circulation rather than merely issuing a warning.

Children’s welfare and moral anxiety
Alongside commercial arguments, authorities framed Labubu as a risk to children’s psychological well‑being, highlighting its sharp‑toothed, monster‑like appearance beneath a cute design language. Some officials and commentators claimed the dolls could confuse children’s sense of comfort and beauty or normalise frightening imagery, despite the lack of publicly cited empirical evidence. These concerns interfaced with broader moral discourses: Labubu was portrayed in some Iraqi media as associated with demonic or harmful forces, echoing earlier regional controversies around imported pop‑culture phenomena accused of undermining religious and social values. Such narratives amplified anxiety about external cultural influences reaching children through commercial channels.

Cultural norms and state authority
Officials also justified the ban by arguing that Labubu’s aesthetic and popularity conflicted with local traditions and social norms in the Kurdistan Region. In this framing, regulation of toys became part of a wider mandate to preserve cultural identity and moral order in a context where imported consumer goods increasingly shape everyday life. Critics, including some local commentators and social media voices, questioned whether the state should decide which global cultural products are acceptable, warning that such interventions risk selective or politically inflected enforcement against certain trends while leaving others untouched. For artistic freedom and expression advocates, the case illustrates how cultural regulation can extend into the commercial sphere, affecting not only media and art but also the objects children play with.

Implications for artistic freedom
While the Erbil ban formally targeted consumer protection and child welfare, it also underscores how aesthetic choices and character design can become regulatory issues in conservative settings. Designer toys like Labubu occupy a grey zone between art, fashion and mass‑market product, meaning restrictions justified on commercial grounds may indirectly shape access to certain artistic styles and narratives.

In July 2025, authorities in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, banned Labubu collectible dolls from the market, citing deceptive blind‑box sales, concerns about children’s welfare and conflicts with local cultural norms.

This case shows how consumer protection language, moral anxiety around children and efforts to defend cultural identity can converge in a single regulatory decision. For those working on artistic freedom, it highlights how state intervention increasingly targets not only media and performances, but also designer toys and other hybrid cultural‑commercial artefacts.

Read the full Mimeta Memos piece to explore what the Labubu ban reveals about the politics of culture and commerce in Iraqi Kurdistan.

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