WATCH: Assemblywoman Michele Fiore ruffled feathers when she suggested only a castration bill would take on the seriousness of the issue of sex trafficking. Terri Hendry reports.
TORONTO – “Come with the castration bill. Come with a bill that will stop people in their tracks,” said Nevada Assembly Michele Fiore to her fellow Assemblywoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson.
Benitez-Thompson was at an Assembly Committee meeting on Friday advocating for a bill that would require establishments such as truck stops and fast food restaurants to post a helpline number for trafficked women in their restrooms.
“These women are carefully watched,” Benitez-Thompson told KRNV. “So when they get a moment by themselves, it’s sometimes only when they get to go to the restroom. In that moment, they could have a chance to potentially memorize this number and then call when they have the opportunity to call for help.”
During the meeting, Fiore said she would be asking a tough question that had to be asked. That’s when she accused Benitez-Thompson’s bill for not being serious enough about the issue of sex trafficking.
“Instead of warm and fuzzy stickers and extended jail sentences, why aren’t you serious about the sex offenders, these pimps?” said Fiore.
That’s when she suggested a castration bill.
Appearing on a local political show on Monday, Fiore repeated her sentiments about the punishment for convicted sex traffickers.
“When we have these heinous crimes of rape and murder and sex trafficking children, I have zero tolerance for it,” she told the show’s host. “I think the solution would be castration.”
She continued to say that she would be in support of either chemical or surgical castration.
This would not be the first time that castration of sex offenders made headlines in the U.S.
Louisiana passed a bill in 2008 that would impose mandatory chemical castration on second time sex offenders. Several other states such as California and Florida have also passed similar bills.
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