BATON ROUGE — Child sex dolls would be banned in Louisiana under a bill introduced Tuesday.

Nine other states already have such laws.

Sen. Beth Mizell's bill, SB107, would make the possession, creation, distribution or importation of a sex doll in the image of a child under the age of 12 a crime. Violation of the proposed law would be met with up to two years in prison and up to $20,000 in fines.

"The concern is the sexualization of children, the growth of another way people could be groomed for sexual exploitation by the use of these dolls," Mizell said.

She said a homeland security agent first told her about the dolls after seeing one being shipped to Metairie from outside the U.S.

Ecoee Rooney, a forensic nurse that Mizell asked to testify on the bill, recalled a similar incident where a Florida woman allegedly found a doll that closely resembled her daughter selling on Amazon for $559. Rooney said the proposed law would help curb such listings.

Mizell, R-Franklinton, said she modeled the bill after the nine states—Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Massachusetts and South Carolina—with similar laws, borrowing language specifically from Mississippi's law. A similar bill called the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots Act was introduced to Congress last year.

Rooney also testified on behalf of another Mizell bill, SB17, which would add the unapproved antidepressant tianeptine to the list of Schedule I drugs.

Both bills passed out of committee and will be heard on the Senate floor.