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.
If we are going to tear down the government entity who we've entrusted this responsibility, we need to ask ourselves a troubling question. Who will look out for the welfare of those kids if not for them?
“Only 12”? Is that not enough for you?
That’s one in four of the girls in those families. How many babies did the report say these girls have had - 7?
Now, you’ve got 19 kids. When do you reach your threshhold?
The “fathers” all got together every so often and traded their 12 and 13 years around. That’s not really very healthy for their siblings. Add in our knowledge that the entire community practiced deception as to who was parent to whom, last names varied, and “fathers” and brothers occasionally got kicked out, and “families” were reassigned to new “fathers.”