Provided by 7DAYS.ae
Texas state authorities have taken more than 400 children from the secluded, sprawling compound of a polygamist sect, amid allegations of widespread sexual and physical abuse. The tally could rise as authorities search the 688-hectare ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, led by jailed Warren Jeffs, who is considered the sect's prophet.
A judge has ordered every child to be removed from the ranch because they are deemed at imminent risk of harm. Around 133 women dressed in ankle-length dresses voluntarily left the compound with the children. Most were mothers. "I can't speculate on what those women are feeling," said Marleigh Meisner, spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services (CPS), which is conducting the probe.
More than 200 CPS workers were brought into the small town of Eldorardo to conduct one-on-one interviews. "You can imagine this is a whole new world for them and we're trying to be sensitive to that," Meisner said. Meisner would not describe what type of abuse allegedly took place on the ranch but said a judge determined there was sufficient evidence to order all 401 children into temporary state custody.
Court hearings will be held in the next two weeks to determine whether the children should be permanently taken from their parents. "There were allegations of physical abuse, allegations that these children were at risk of harm," she said. In court filings on Monday lawyers for the religious sect asked for a restraining order against the state, called the raid unconstitutional and an "irreparable" desecration of the group's way of life.
Jeffs was arrested near Las Vegas in 2006 and jailed for life for being an accomplice to rape. He also faces federal charges in Arizona and Utah. The mainstream Mormon church renounced polygamy more than a century ago as a price of Utah's admission to the United States.
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