The dolls are being placed where there are no people in a city with a shrinking population.

A Japanese village suffering from low population has created life-size dolls to simulate the feel of a bustling society.

The village of Ichinono, which has fewer than 60 residents and only one child, is trying to fill the void with stuffed mannequins, which they dress up and place around the area – and even pose on swings and bicycles.

“There are probably more of us than puppets,” said 88-year-old resident Hisayo Yamazaki. told AFP.

Yamazaki explained that while older residents there have children, they encourage them to attend college away from the tiny community about an hour northwest of Kyoto.

“We were afraid that they wouldn’t be able to get married if they stayed in such a remote place,” she told the publication.

“They left and never returned, finding work elsewhere. Now we are paying for it.”

“If the village is left as it is now, the only thing that awaits us is extinction,” said Ichiro Sawayama, 74, the head of its governing body. told Japan Today.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who was elected October 1promised to help develop rural areas because Ichinono is just one of more than 20,000 communities in Japan where the majority of residents are 65 years of age or older.

The country, which does not allow many immigrants, has the second-oldest population in the world after Monaco.