The abuse was prepping the next generation for a new crop of child brides in 10 years or so.
God help them, I hope He’s more merciful than I feel toward the daughter swaps perpetrated by the mothers and fathers of “only a dozen” little girls.
And I agree that having sex with children constitutes child abuse. Those who engaged in it, and the parents who permitted it, deserve to be punished.
But the agency only alleges 12 instances of actual child abuse. The remaining instances of what it terms "neglect" involves allegations that other children were around and aware of the actual abuse. That's very different than the commonly-used meaning of "child neglect".
Instead of conflating "abuse" and "neglect" into one common issue, when less than 5% of the 280 cases consisted of sexual abuse, the agency could have easily separated out the charges and clarified that the "neglect" portion was not physical but rather "bad parenting". The agency's failure to do so makes its ulterior motive (trying to justify its actions which a court struck down) pretty obvious.