LANSING (WKZO AM/FM) — Among the items that made it through the legislative gauntlet this week in Lansing, before they adjourned for the summer, was a package of bills to outlaw the practice of Female Genital Mutilation in Michigan, making the sanctions for performing the quasi-religious procedure tougher than federal penalties.
The Governor will have the bills waiting on his desk when he returns from Europe this weekend.
State Senator Margaret O’Brien was among the lawmakers leading the charge, saying FGM is barbaric and dangerous for the young girls who are forced to undergo the procedures.
Senator Tonya Schuitmaker and Rep. Beth Griffin from Mattawan also contributed bills to the package.
The bills not only make it a 15-year felony to do the surgery, three times the federal maximum, but it also makes it a crime to transport children here to have the procedure done, and makes it much easier for the victims of the procedure to sue those responsible, and for much greater sums.
