In 2015 Thai Smile Airways announced that
Luk Thep (angel child-dolls or haunted child-dolls) could fly as passengers, and require they wear lap belts.
Few days later aviation officials announced that the decision to qualify
Luk Thep dolls as passengers was against international standards, which dictate a passenger can only be a human being. “Passengers can buy an extra seat to place a
Luk Thep, but it needs to be kept properly,” said the Civil Aviation Authority’s “But if passengers don’t buy an extra seat ticket, it must be kept inside the overhead baggage container or under the seat during takeoff and landing.” They warned passengers they risk a year in prison or a 40,000 baht fine under 2015’s new air safety laws for failing to stow their haunted child doll.
After a doll-cum-drug mule was discovered at Chiang Mai Airport, crackdown-happy police launched a crackdown on Luk Thep, going after tax-dodgers who smuggled them in illegally. At least 150 dolls were seized in coordinated raids.
Religious authorities were fed up too. The National Office of Buddhism warned monks that performing the ritual to invite a child’s soul to possess the dolls for money ran counter to religious teachings.
The No. 2 monk at Bangkok’s Wat Saket said he’s concerned about what will happen when the fad is over. Given the dolls’ sacred association, he worries people will dump them all at temples, just like all the unwanted cats and dogs they accumulate.
Pic above: Dolls line on the floor of the Sawang Ar-rom Temple in Bangkok. They've been left there by former owners who once treated them like real children
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35416537
https://coconuts.co/bangkok/features/world-haunted-dolls-talk-child-god-doll-creator/
https://www.featureshoot.com/2017/11/daily-life-of-a-luk-thep-doll-in-thailand/