Posted on 04/21/2008 10:38:16 PM PDT by Politicalmom
Forced marriages. Underage sex. Teenaged mothers.
That is the portrait emerging for the hundreds of girls who have been removed by the state from a polygamist sect’s compound in West Texas that is now the center of one of the largest child welfare investigations in American history.
But what about the boys who are among the 416 children taken from the YFZ (Yearn For Zion) Ranch? The numbers of boys among the 416 children is believed to be far exceeded by the number of girls in custody. And the Texas boys are thought to have escaped the hardships felt by other boys — the “Lost Boys” — routinely expelled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) elsewhere in country, primarily in its long-established communities in Utah and Arizona.
On Friday, during a chaotic child custody hearing in San Angelo, a lawyer for the children claimed two dozen boys had been taken from the Eldorado compound owned and occupied by the FLDS.
State child welfare officials disputed that number, saying the population of boys was “substantially higher,” without giving an exact figure.
“We don’t have a solid breakdown on that right now ... I’m sure we have estimates, but I don’t have anything reliable,” said Greg Cunningham, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Observers say the boys at the West Texas compound are believed to be favorites of Warren Jeffs, the so-called prophet of the FLDS even as he serves time in prison for arranging the marriage of a 14-year-old girl to her 19-year-old cousin.
But in the sect’s much older communities near Salt Lake City, Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City,. Ariz., welfare workers have long known about boys separated from their families, put out on the streets and considered “dead” by their loved ones after drawing the ire of church leaders. Or simply making them worry that the younger, better looking boys will garner the attention from girls meant to marry older men.
“Many of these boys come from good families. But their fathers know that if they don’t put their child out on the street, his entire family will be put out on the street,” said Shannon Price , director of the Diversity Foundation in Salt Lake City that helps victims abused by the polygamy faith.
The FLDS has traditionally kept the number of boys in their polygamist communities low. That way the male leaders can have their pick of young “plural wives,” without the worry of younger competition, said Brenda Jensen, a former “polygamy kid” who now works as a volunteer for The Hope Organization. The nonprofit group in St. George, Utah helps abuse victims from polygamist relationships.
The FLDS, which splintered from the mainstream Mormon Church in 1890 when the latter rejected polygamy, has long been headquartered in the twin towns of Colorado City and Hildale.
Members of the sect, estimated to have as many as 10,000 members at one time, began building the sprawling YFZ Ranch near Eldorado in 2004.
FLDS leaders, under the direction of Jeffs, can be ruthless in the ways they kick boys out of their communities in Arizona and Utah, Jensen said, stressing that she was expressing her own feelings, as a child of polygamists, and not those of The Hope Organization.
Boys as young as 13 have been torn from their families and left on the unfamiliar streets of Salt Lake City and Las Vegas for committing such FLDS-sanctioned infractions as talking to a girl, or rolling up their sleeves — a no-no for showing skin in public, Jensen said.
The young boys are ill-equipped to deal with their new world.
“You might as well put them on another planet. No training. No food. No idea on how to get help or what to do,” she said. “Some are so heartsick they can’t do anything.”
There may be as many as 2,000 of the young castaways, known as “Lost Boys” by the people who try to help them integrate into a world they’ve never known, and have been taught to distrust.
Sam Brower, a private investigator in Cedar City, Utah who has tracked the plight of Lost Boys, said many “have just been discarded on the side of the highway ... Many have turned to drugs and alcohol and end up on the streets of Vegas.
“They know absolutely nothing about the outside world. They have little education ... It’s very rough for them,” Brower said.
Jensen, with The Hope Organization, said the boys in the FLDS, after graduating from home school, win favors from “the priesthood” by going on two-year “work missions,” away from their families, working for free for the church, but are still vulnerable for expulsion if they slip up.
With the boys gone, the girls, fresh from graduating, are married off to “these old grizzly men,” she said. “Usually, your graduation dress becomes your wedding dress,” Jensen added. “Those were the lucky ones. Some would just get tapped on the shoulder, pulled into a room and come out married.”
Ping.
Do you realize this mess has almost as many attorneys there and involved as children??? Over 300 lawyers and 416 children.
This will drag on for years...
I had not heard about ‘Lost Boys” until El Dorado. There needs to be a shelter with information out there on how homeless boys from all over the country can get help.
ping
I just found a treasure trove of polygamist articles.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/specialReports/view/212740
I agree with you on that. It is so sad to hear about this. I wish I was younger & had room because I would gladly try to help a Lost Boy if I could.
This is heartbreaking.
It reminds me of that story about the boy and his brother trying to get to boys town.
Polygamy always has the problem of excess boys. Islamists solve that problem by sending the boys on suicide missions.
Oops! Texas officials now discover 21 more FLDS children than they thought they had.
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695272578,00.html
Thanks for the ping, Pandy.
A sad side aspect to the case.
However monstrous it may seem, it is not against the law.
If they would promote sex with minors, in blatant violation of the laws in most any state in the country, what else would they do?
Seems awfully convenient to prevent legal authorities from having any access to birth records, marriage records, legal names of the occupants.
Seems awfully convenient to have an on-site crematorium, where autopsies and death certificates are strictly forbidden.
Or maybe they had the crematorium built, but don’t use it.
Any thing is possible, facts are still hard to come by.
As someone else remarked, this could take a long, long time to resolve.
But we must resolve it, no matter what the outcome.
Are you saying it isn’t against the law to abandon children by the side of the road?
“Are you saying it isn’t against the law to abandon children by the side of the road?”
Technically, I don’t know. Child abandonment comes to mind.
I suppose the difficult part would be proving they abandoned a 12+year old boy, as they could insist that the child simply ran away of his own will.
Someone who is a legal expert could explain what the rules are for determining a case of Child Abandonment are.
Maybe you know?
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I totally agree & I wonder when & if any parents in AZ are going to step forward & claim any of these children. I am sure Warren Jeffs could tell them a lot of information on this ranch but I doubt he ever will sadly.
Another thought.
If you can’t prove who your parents are by legal records, or DNA, how can you prove they abandoned you?
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