Among the rights guaranteed by Convention on the Rights of the Child are those relating to violence against the girl-child are the right to life and the right not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with her privacy, family, home or correspondence. State Parties are further enjoined to take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation. Under Article 24 which provides for the right to health, State Parties are enjoined to take effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children. Such practices would include female circumcision (FGM), as well as early marriages, (including in a polygamous situation) which predispose the girl-child to early pregnancies and all its attendant dangers.

http://esaconf.un.org/WB/default.asp?action=9&boardid=33&read=2026&fid=325

Federal authorities conducting a child-porn investigation raided the headquarters Saturday of a ministry run by a convicted tax evader once labeled by prosecutors as a polygamist who preys on girls and women.

http://www.4thefamily.us/node/1529

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.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy69.html

Sara Hammon, 31, says she suffered incest and sexual abuse as a child in Colorado City, and left at 14 to avoid marriage.

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/aug/30/nation/na-jeffs30

Pennie Petersen, at age 14, found out she was to be married to a 48-year-old man who she said had previously molested her. She ran from the sect.

http://gosw.about.com/od/southwesthistory/a/polygamy.htm

In March, 2006, the federal government fined one contractor over $10,000 in child labor law violations for using FLDS boys.

http://www.childrenshealthcare.org/polygamous.htm

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.

http://nowscape.com/mormon/polyg.htm

In other words, polygamy rests, inevitably, on child abuse and neglect.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20060323.html

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