| Speaker opens eyes to suffering of women in polygamist cults | |||
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Written by Linda Leicht The Springfield News-Leader - Springfield, Missouri | |||
Carolyn Jessop is on a mission. The 43-year-old mother of eight "escaped" from a polygamist compound eight years ago and is determined to open the public's eyes to the realities of a way of life that holds women powerless and children in peril. "The crime is still happening, and children are still being hurt," she told a packed house at Missouri State University Tuesday night. Jessop is the author of "Escape," which tells the story of her life in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and her escape from it, and "Triumph: Life After the Cult, a Survivor's Lessons." After the petite, blonde woman with a quiet voice told the harrowing story of being forced at age 18 to become the fourth "wife" of a man of 50 and of ultimately escaping with her children, the crowd rose to their feet to applaud her. "I thought it was phenomenal," said MSU senior Abby Barcomb of Springfield. Although Barcomb had been interested in the topic of polygamy and aware of some of the things Jessop reported, she said, "Everything was shocking." Ethan Couch, a sophomore from Cassville, attended the talk as part of an assignment for his ethics class. He came away impressed. "(Polygamy) is not at all like I thought it would be," he said, admitting that his insights had only been from the television show "Sister Wives," a reality show focusing on one polygamist family. "It sounded horrible." Jessop described a life that surpasses horrible in many ways. She came from six generations of FLDS polygamists, tracing her family back to the founder of the cult that broke away from the Mormon church in 1912. She grew up knowing only a life that offered her no choices but to have children for the man the "prophet" of the group chose for her and face the possibility that those children could be taken from her at any moment. "I was never allowed to experience anything else," she said. "The mind control is very severe." Her own father had three wives and 38 children. She saw her brothers banished from the community when they were still teenagers -- a fate she estimates happens to about 80 percent of the boys born into the cult. Her father was later banished, too. Jessop's decision to leave the cult and take her children with her came after the group made an even more extreme turn. Warren Jeffs, the new prophet, declared that the children would no longer receive an education, he began excommunicating men and reassigning their wives and children to different families, and began arranging marriages between girls as young as 14. In her family, Jessop faced the possibility that her daughter, 14, would become one of Jeffs' wives and that her son, diagnosed with cancer, would not be allowed medical treatment. With the help of a sister still on the compound and two brothers who were living in Salt Lake City, she managed to get all eight of her children into a van and drive out of Colorado City, Ariz., a city completely dominated by FLDS, she said. Although she had no money, a critically ill son, children who were panicked that they were destined to hell for leaving, and little hope of succeeding, she managed to win full custody of her children and child support, something no other woman from the cult had accomplished. Today, she is a successful author. Her son Harrison no longer has cancer but was left seriously disabled, and the other children went through counseling and continued in school. Her oldest daughter,returned to the compound when she turned 18. "I think the day that Betty went back was more terrible than learning my son had cancer," she said. "I couldn't do anything." But Jessop is doing plenty to open the public's eyes to the realities of polygamy and cults like the FLDS. In addition to her best-selling books, Jessop has turned to the media, speaks at campuses, and testifies before courts in the U.S. and Canada. Today, Jeffs sits in jail awaiting trial in Texas, and Canada's high court considers the constitutionality of its polygamy law and the case of two men who brought their 12-year-old daughters to the United States to marry Jeffs, then about 50. Jessop wants the government to do more. She wants states with polygamist communities to quit turning a blind eye to the abuse that comes with polygamy. And she wants laws that will protect women who have no legal rights as a wife because their marriages were never legalized. "Those women have no power," she says. "They are given like a slave." Leaving that slavery meant giving up much more than her marriage. "I was willing to give up my religion, my home ... all I knew," she said. It also meant finding a new power that gives her the strength to speak out for the women and children who continue to live in slavery and danger. "I strongly believe there's a higher power," she said. "I believe in miracles." | |||
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news-leader.com Originally published March 29, 2011 | |||
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