The State Senate State Affairs Committee has fast tracked a bill that would make even participating in the disturbing practice known as 'Female Genital Mutilation' a felony punishable by serious prison time, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports
.The bill was sponsored by every woman in the Texas Senate.State Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound) says even though the practice itself was prohibited in Texas in 2009, it is still happening at an alarming rate.
"I am told that it could be a number as high as 20,000 to 25,000 or our young girls," Nelson said.
Female genital mutilation is most commonly practiced in Africa and the Middle East, but as people from those places migrate to the U.S., experts say the practice, which Nelson labeled as 'barbaric' has been seen more frequently here. Just earlier this month, a doctor in Michigan was arrested on charges of performing the procedure on a little girl who had been brought from Minnesota for the purpose.
Nelson says the practice itself was outlawed in Texas in 1999, but her bill would make facilitating it, or taking a little girl to a person to undergo the procedure, felony child abuse
."Neither consent not connection to a ritual, custom, or practice can be considered a defense to prosecution," she said.
The practice, which has been known to be carried out by non physicians using pieces of broken glass, involves mutilating the sexual organs of a girl as young as four, although girls who are forced into the procedure are usually between five and fifteen.
The bizarre idea behind it is that if a female cannot experience pleasure in sexual intercourse, she will be a virgin when she marries and will be a docile, subservient, and faithful wife.
Dr. Jeffery Irwin, an Austin OB-GYN, has practiced in the Middle East, and has seen the procedure performed.
"Female mutilation in any form is never medically advised," he said. "It has no health benefits to any female."
He says it frequently leads to urinary incontinence, a lifetime of pain and bleeding, organ failure, and suicide.
The nauseating practice is seen among various sects in the Middle East and North Africa, but is most common among fundamentalist Sharia Muslim communities. But Dr. Irwin says it is not connected to or sanctioned by any religion.
"We are not aware of a religion that requires this procedure," he said.
The bill was unanimously approved by the committee and is expected to be quickly approved by the Legislature.
Nelson says it would criminalize the act of bringing a girl into Texas for purposes of undergoing the procedure, and would criminalize the taking of a girl who lives in Texas out of state.