Polygamy needs federal probe
 
Opinion
The Spectrum
 
I escaped polygamy 20 years ago and now help others who want to escape and have been working with the states of Utah and Arizona for seven years trying to obtain services for victims of polygamy.

Utah and Arizona were brought kicking and screaming into this issue by activists determined to protect children. State and local officials have for 50 years shown a pattern and practice of indifference, incompetence and outright collusion with polygamist criminal leadership. It is the victims whose complaints were ignored for decades.

Since 1953 the states consistently returned young girls running from rape - euphemistically called celestial marriage - to their abusers. Only recently activists succeeded in gathering enough pressure to shine a spotlight on the corruption between polygamist leaders resulting in a lackluster effort by law enforcement.

State officials are trying to reason why 58 unmarked child graves and a death rate of more than 50 percent of children is not obscene inside Jeffs' compound ... Given the honed criminal practices in this cult, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is absolutely correct in his assessment: "For too long, this outrageous activity has been masked in the guise of religious freedom. But child abuse and human servitude have nothing to do with religious freedom and must not be tolerated."

It is the victim/survivors who have spent "years of painstaking perseverance and unprecedented patience" with the states of Utah and Arizona documenting and reporting crime after crime to no avail. Still the children remain unprotected.

The reason it is "extremely difficult to protect victims or pursue perpetrators" is law enforcement has not been willing to prosecute, and the few cases tried result in perpetrators taking a walk. It is endemic to polygamy that children are taught there is no escape. When a victim does find the courage to come forward with the crimes committed against them, they are treated as the criminal, blamed for the misdeeds of the patriarchy. Then the perpetrator is sent back home to continue the abuse - just like yesterday.

"A lack of resources kept prosecutors' hands tied and mouths shut?" If someone comes forward with allegations of abuse and crimes outside polygamy, it is not a problem to prosecute. Only when it is a victim inside polygamy those resources are lacking.

There have been dozens of reports made to Utah and Arizona by polygamy victim/survivors who were brushed off because there was no will to prosecute. It only takes one investigator to take a victim's statement, find necessary evidence and prosecute the perpetrators. Now we find the Attorney General's of Utah and Arizona have created something much more "misdirected and unproductive" by their creation of the so-called "Safety Net Committee."

Activists were led to believe this group was to offer aid and assistance to polygamy survivors who wanted out of abuse but again found questionable practices between authorities and polygamist cult members.

This "Safety Net" has done nothing but sabotage victims of polygamy and provide a platform for polygamists to discuss decriminalization of polygamy. The only thing Utah/Arizona AGs have done is tell us what a good job they are doing and endorse a committee that gathers all criminal polygamous cults together to plan for legalizing polygamy all under the guise of freeing the trapped and oppressed.

To claim no need for federal oversight and to believe this is a state rights issue is to copy what the original slavers claimed and side with modern-day slavers, the polygamist white brotherhood, masquerading as a "church." Possibly you've forgotten this so-called church is a noted white supremacy hate organization?

I say we need not only federal intervention but international help as well.

Flora Jessop is a child victim advocate and executive director of the Child Protection Project. She resides in Phoenix.
 
TheSpectrum.com
Originally published October 4, 2006
 
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