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Law enforcement officials assist members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints onto a school bus in Eldorado, Texas, Sunday, April 6, 2008. (AP / Tony Gutierrez) |
Updated Mon. Apr. 7 2008 9:41 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
More than 400 children removed from a polygamist compound in Texas have been taken into state custody after a judge ordered every child living there to be taken from their parents.
Police say they continue to discover more children as they search from house to house at the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a secretive religious compound built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. They allege the children, mainly girls, have been abused or neglected.
The raid began Sunday after a tense standoff between residents of the compound -- members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints -- and police. It was prompted by a 16-year-old girl's phone call to police, in which she claimed she had been forced to marry a 50-year-old man.
She also said girls as young as 14 or 15 were being forced into marriages with much older men and that she gave birth to a child at 15 years old. Girls younger than 16 are not permitted by Texas law to get married.
Police haven't found the girl and don't know if she is one of those who have already been relocated. They say 133 women, many who have never seen the world outside the compound, went willingly with the children. They are being housed at Fort Concho, a nearby historic site.
Many of the women and girls removed from the compound wore handmade, pioneer-style dresses. Their hair, which they weren't allowed to cut, was worn in braids. They were not allowed to wear red because Jeffs preached that the colour belongs to Jesus.
They spent their days looking after the children, gardening and doing other chores.
Authorities say many of the women and children may have a difficult time adapting to life in the outside world.
An undisclosed number of men are still at the sect's complex, being held by state troopers until the search of the seven-square-kilometre property is finished. The compound includes a medical station, residential units and a massive white limestone temple.
Jeffs, the leader who built the compound, is currently in jail for being an accomplice to rape. He has followers scattered in enclaves throughout Arizona, Utah and Texas. The sect also has a settlement in Bountiful, B.C.
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church, which renounced polygamy in 1890. Many living on the compound believed they were waiting for an imminent rapture.
Authorities searching the compound were looking for documents or photos that prove the girl who called police was married to Dale Barlow, 50. Barlow is currently in Arizona, his lawyer told The Salt Lake Tribune.
According to Tela Mange, a spokesperson for the state's Department of Public Safety, troopers charged one man with interfering with the duties of a public servant during the search warrant, but it was not Barlow.
With files from the Associated Press
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