Barbie Meets Her Arab-World Counterpart -- Leila Doll An Alternative To Blond Figure

CAIRO - She will have an olive complexion, long black hair and big, dark eyes - and her extensive wardrobe won't include a single miniskirt or bikini. She's Leila, the Arab world's response to Barbie.

Leila, expected to be in stores next year, is meant to give parents an alternative to the famously proportioned blond American doll. And she's meant to give Arab girls something Abla Ibrahim of the Arab League says they've been asking for: dolls that look like themselves and their families.

Ibrahim, director of the Arab League's Child Department, said Leila is not a declaration of war on Barbie, whose glamorous gowns, tiny tennis skirts and snug tops are scattered in girls' bedrooms around the world.

"Barbie is an American doll that shows us the American way of living," Ibrahim said. "We want to join the group of national dolls that has begun to invade the world."

In 1996, Iran released its answer to Barbie: Sara, who wears her country's head-to-toe Islamic cloak, the chador, atop other chaste costumes. The Slavic Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina also have introduced their own doll, Amina.

Many Arab parents, including Ibrahim, say they worry about the values their children are absorbing when more than 90 percent of toys available in the Arab world are imported, mainly from the West and China.

"I remember when my daughter was young, she told me she wanted to go to the hairdresser to dye her hair blond," Ibrahim said. "As a mother and as an educator, I say that rejecting the self is very dangerous . . . when the girl thinks it's ideal to be blond, wear bikinis and dress immodestly."

Fatima Amin, mother of a 6-year-old girl, said Barbie is "imposing, directly or indirectly, a model for the girls to imitate."

"The idea of an Arab doll is as good as the idea of having dolls of different colors that reflect the diversity of humankind," Amin said.

Leila will be only 10 or 12 years old, still in little girl's underclothes and too young for a boyfriend. The plan is for her to eventually have a brother and parents.

She will wear clothing representative of all Arab countries so girls "will know that there is an Arab nation that includes several countries with different subcultures . . . such as the Gulf Arab, Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian, Sudanese and the Palestinian," Ibrahim said.

Magdi Anwar Hasan, a father of two girls, said, "This Arab doll is good because it will take the children's attention away from European and American habits and make them cling to their traditions, which include modest dress and good morals."

Ibrahim first considered marketing an Arab doll in 1995, but the idea didn't really move forward until a conference of Arab children last October at the Cairo headquarters of the Arab League, which comprises 21 Arab nations plus the Palestinians.

Children from all over the Arab world said during the conference that "they want to have an Arab doll," Ibrahim said.

The youngsters suggested many names, and the adults settled on Leila - a common girl's name that signifies no religion or social class.

"We can have a Muslim, Christian or Jewish Leila, and we can find a rich or a poor Leila," she said.

Leila is expected to cost about $10, about a third of Barbie's price in this part of the world.

The Arab world's market for toys is huge, because nearly half its 280 million people are children. But Ibrahim hopes Leila will be marketed all over the world, not only in Arab countries.

"It is the right of every child, anywhere in the world, to know the Japanese, American, French, Arab, Bosnian or the Iranian dolls," she said.