I’ve read that the men at the compound have been told they’re free to leave, but would not be allowed back inside the compound if they did.
The women and children are together, at this point I believe at 2 different locations, though it’s impossible to tell which children belong to which women since they all lie and give multiple names each time they’re interviewed. And infants are routinely put in the care of women other than their biological mothers on orders of the FLDS leaders. And many of the adolescents are the biological children of FLDS members still living the Utah/Arizona community. So there’s no way for all children to be with their own mothers, but they weren’t while they were still in the compound either.
Many of the boys are young children and the men in this group don’t do child care, so since all or most of the mothers left voluntarily with the girls, there was no question that the younger boys needed to go along. There was plenty of evidence that the older boys were being brainwashed into preparing for a future involving the same illegal and brutal activities that the adult men engage in, and also that children of all ages and both sexes are regularly subjected to physical abuse, especially if they dare to question the authority of the men to engage in all these illegal and brutal activities.
A number of the women have cell phones and are speaking regularly with the men still in the compound. I assume that they are therefore in a position to communicate with attorney if they choose, but the attorneys representing the FLDS wouldn’t represent any individual women because the women have no decision-making authority whatsoever under FLDS rules. The phone conversations presumably include the men giving instruction to the women based on advice from the FLDS attorneys.
As I said in another post, I would like to see some explicit official assurance from the Texas authorities that the adult women are free to speak with journalists if they choose to. However, it’s extremely unlikely that the FLDS men would give the women permission to do that, or that the women would do it without such permission. Still, I’d like to hear the official assurance, and ideally some evidence to back it, such as video of journalists being allowed close enough to some of the women to call out and ask them if they’d like to speak.
Cordially,