In the largest release of evidence to date, hundreds of pages of dictations by Jeffs to his wife Naomie were unsealed last week, painting a picture in Jeffs’ own words of a paranoid leader whose meticulous control over his flock knew no bounds, continuing even after his arrest and imprisonment for arranging a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.
Very little attention is paid to the abuse and neglect of the boys. Some as young as 13, frequently expelled from the compound are forced to fend for themselves without education, friends, or adult guidance.
High levels of incest, child abuse and wife battering. But the crimes are rarely reported because of the secrecy surrounding polygamous communities, law enforcement officials say.
As you probably know, Polygamy was practically invented* by the Mormon Prophet, seer and revelator, Joseph Smith. Though officially illegal, it is still practiced by Mormons in Utah and in Other states. Many LDS men prepare for polygamy by being “sealed” to more than one woman.
Utah schools have one of the lowest ratios of teacher to child.
Utah has the highest per capita sugar consumption in the US.
Utah has the highest incidence of Child abuse in the US.
In some polygamist towns up to one third of the families get welfare from taxpayer money.
In other words, polygamy rests, inevitably, on child abuse and neglect.
Polygamy and under-age marriage are only part of a larger public concern about the psychological and physical harm children may suffer from being raised in what appears to be an insular, authoritarian environment.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/commentary.aspx?id=19969
I believe the way people focus on the polygamy part of the story rather than child abuse and domestic abuse paints a misleading picture.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2008/04/whats_wrong_with_polygamy.cfm
Governor Napolitano went to Utah, and all we got was some lousy ring kissing.
John Dougherty
Published on October 07, 2004
I’ve got a dreadful message for thousands of young men and women trapped in the horrors of fundamentalist Mormon polygamy in a handful of remote and desolate towns north of the Grand Canyon along the Arizona-Utah border.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2004-10-07/news/janet-s-missed-opportunity/
Child neglect and abuse were widespread at a Texas polygamist ranch with at least a dozen girls forced into underage marriages, according to a report released by state authorities.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE4BM53N20081223
Nearly two-thirds of the families living at a polygamist group’s ranch — targeted in a high-profile raid last spring — had children who were abused or neglected, Texas child welfare authorities conclude in a new report.
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