[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6100 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]

        H.R.6100

                     One Hundred Sixteenth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America


                          AT THE SECOND SESSION

           Begun and held at the City of Washington on Friday,
            the third day of January, two thousand and twenty


                                 An Act


 
To amend title 18, United States Code, to clarify the criminalization of 
           female genital mutilation, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ``Strengthening the Opposition to 
Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2020'' or the ``STOP FGM Act of 
2020''.
SEC. 2. CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.
    The Congress finds the following:
        (1) Female genital mutilation is recognized internationally as 
    a human rights violation and a form of child abuse, gender 
    discrimination, and violence against women and girls. Female 
    genital mutilation is a global problem whose eradication requires 
    international cooperation and enforcement at the national level. 
    The United States should demonstrate its commitment to the rights 
    of women and girls by leading the way in the international 
    community in banning this abhorrent practice.
        (2) Congress has previously prohibited the commission of female 
    genital mutilation on minors. Female genital mutilation is a 
    heinous practice that often inflicts excruciating pain on its 
    victims and causes them to suffer grave physical and psychological 
    harm.
        (3) Congress has the power under article I, section 8 of the 
    Constitution to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper 
    for carrying into execution treaties entered into by the United 
    States.
        (4) Congress also has the power under the Commerce Clause to 
    prohibit female genital mutilation. An international market for the 
    practice exists, and persons who perform female genital mutilation 
    in other countries typically earn a living from doing so.
        (5) Those who perform this conduct often rely on a connection 
    to interstate or foreign commerce, such as interstate or foreign 
    travel, the transmission or receipt of communications in interstate 
    or foreign commerce, the use of instruments traded in interstate or 
    foreign commerce, or payments of any kind in furtherance of this 
    conduct.
        (6) Amending the statute to specify a link to interstate or 
    foreign commerce would confirm that Congress has the affirmative 
    power to prohibit this conduct.
SEC. 3. AMENDMENTS TO CURRENT LAW ON FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION.
    Section 116 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
        (1) by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:
    ``(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever, in any 
circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly--
        ``(1) performs, attempts to perform, or conspires to perform 
    female genital mutilation on another person who has not attained 
    the age of 18 years;
        ``(2) being the parent, guardian, or caretaker of a person who 
    has not attained the age of 18 years facilitates or consents to the 
    female genital mutilation of such person; or
        ``(3) transports a person who has not attained the age of 18 
    years for the purpose of the performance of female genital 
    mutilation on such person,
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or 
both.'';
        (2) by amending subsection (c) to read as follows:
    ``(c) It shall not be a defense to a prosecution under this section 
that female genital mutilation is required as a matter of religion, 
custom, tradition, ritual, or standard practice.'';
        (3) by striking subsection (d); and
        (4) by adding at the end the following:
    ``(d) For the purposes of subsection (a), the circumstances 
described in this subsection are that--
        ``(1) the defendant or victim traveled in interstate or foreign 
    commerce, or traveled using a means, channel, facility, or 
    instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce, in furtherance 
    of or in connection with the conduct described in subsection (a);
        ``(2) the defendant used a means, channel, facility, or 
    instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce in furtherance of 
    or in connection with the conduct described in subsection (a);
        ``(3) any payment of any kind was made, directly or indirectly, 
    in furtherance of or in connection with the conduct described in 
    subsection (a) using any means, channel, facility, or 
    instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce or in or 
    affecting interstate or foreign commerce;
        ``(4) the defendant transmitted in interstate or foreign 
    commerce any communication relating to or in furtherance of the 
    conduct described in subsection (a) using any means, channel, 
    facility, or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce or 
    in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce by any means or in 
    manner, including by computer, mail, wire, or electromagnetic 
    transmission;
        ``(5) any instrument, item, substance, or other object that has 
    traveled in interstate or foreign commerce was used to perform the 
    conduct described in subsection (a);
        ``(6) the conduct described in subsection (a) occurred within 
    the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United 
    States, or any territory or possession of the United States; or
        ``(7) the conduct described in subsection (a) otherwise 
    occurred in or affected interstate or foreign commerce.
    ``(e) For purposes of this section, the term `female genital 
mutilation' means any procedure performed for non-medical reasons that 
involves partial or total removal of, or other injury to, the external 
female genitalia, and includes--
        ``(1) a clitoridectomy or the partial or total removal of the 
    clitoris or the prepuce or clitoral hood;
        ``(2) excision or the partial or total removal (with or without 
    excision of the clitoris) of the labia minora or the labia majora, 
    or both;
        ``(3) infibulation or the narrowing of the vaginal opening 
    (with or without excision of the clitoris); or
        ``(4) other procedures that are harmful to the external female 
    genitalia, including pricking, incising, scraping, or cauterizing 
    the genital area.''.
SEC. 4. REPORT.
    Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this 
Act, and annually thereafter, the Attorney General, in consultation 
with the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Secretary of State, the 
Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the Secretary of Education, 
shall submit to Congress a report that includes--
        (1) an estimate of the number of women and girls in the United 
    States at risk of or who have been subjected to female genital 
    mutilation;
        (2) the protections available and actions taken, if any, by 
    Federal, State, and local agencies to protect such women and girls; 
    and
        (3) the actions taken by Federal agencies to educate and assist 
    communities and key stakeholders about female genital mutilation.
SEC. 5. SENSE OF THE CONGRESS.
    It is the sense of the Congress that the United States District 
Court for the Eastern District of Michigan erred in invalidating the 
prior version of such section 116 (See United States v. Nagarwala, 350 
F. Supp. 3d 613, 631 (E.D. Mich. 2018)). The commercial nature of 
female genital mutilation (hereinafter in this section referred to as 
``FGM'') is ``self-evident,'' meaning that the ``absence of 
particularized findings'' about the commercial nature of FGM in the 
predecessor statute did not ``call into question Congress's authority 
to legislate'' (Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 21 (2005)). 
Nevertheless, the Congress has elected to amend the FGM statute to 
clarify the commercial nature of the conduct that this statute 
regulates. But, by doing so, Congress does not hereby ratify the 
district court's erroneous interpretation in Nagarwala.
SEC. 6. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS.
    The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of complying 
with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall be determined by 
reference to the latest statement titled ``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO 
Legislation'' for this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional 
Record by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, provided that 
such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.