Jakarta's Haunting Living Dolls

Photo Credit: Perttu Saksa

Living dolls  (or just dolls in general) are the stuff of nightmares to many, and dolls such as Chucky and, more recently, Annabelle, have been used in films to terrify movie-lovers for decades.

But in Indonesia, living dolls were very real. Well. Sort of. And like dolls in general, they were not meant to terrify but to entertain. But that doesn't make them any less unsettling. In Jakarta's slums, Finnish photographer Perttu Saksa came across macaque monkey trained street performers and documented them in a photography series titled 'A Kind of You'. The monkeys could most often could be found wearing children's clothing and a doll's head as a mask, in the hopes by their handlers that visitors would pay for the privilege of spectating these haunting creatures.

Though haunting these images are, in person (in monkey?) the chained creatures behind the masks reportedly appeared playful, which could be even worse, considering how scary playful clowns can be.

Photo Credit: Perttu Saksa

Animal rights activists were enraged by the chained monkeys, not just due to how unsettling the appearance of a human child in chains looks, but due to inhumane treatment of the monkeys for profit.

There was hope to be had, though. According to Time.com:

In early 2013, Jakarta tightened its oversight of the city’s “monkey masters,” making the ownership of monkeys a violation of a criminal code on animal abuse. And [by the middle of that year], Jakarta’s governor announced a cash incentive for handlers whose monkeys are seized and released from captivity.

Photo Credit: Perttu Saksa

Now, the Jakarta living dolls are just a part of history, nothing more than a sad, haunting memory.

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