Sara Hammon




Sara Hammon

Sara Hammon was born in Hildale, Utah in 1974 and raised in Colorado City, Arizona. With more than 90 people in her immediate family - 19 mothers, 74 siblings and one father - she comes from one of the largest families in the United States. Growing up in an isolated polygamous culture, that teaches women are highly inferior to men, proved to be unbearable for Sara. She watched her mother emotionally disintegrate under the pressure of being a polygamous wife, unable to grasp her own self-worth, and being a polygamous mother unable to protect her children from rampant abuse. Her mother suffered nearly two dozen nervous breakdowns during the course of Sara's childhood. Due to age and his vast number of children, Sara's father could never remember her name or which wife had given birth to her. She became terrified that staying in this group would lead to a fate identical to that of her mother. Through limited television and time spent in a nearby town, Sara saw there was a different way of life. At age 12, she began babysitting for a monogamous family - outside of the community - whom she had met through her sister. More than anything, she wanted the normalcy she felt was contained within this type of family. Two years later - one year after her father died - Sara asked the family if they would take her in as a foster child. In 1989 - at the age of 14 (and already engaged to be married) - Sara left the only life she had ever known and moved to St. George, Utah with her new family, to begin a new life. Today, after years of recovery and re-education, Sara volunteers with The HOPE Organization to raise awareness about the polygamous cult she was raised in. She also works to help people who have left this group to integrate into mainstream society. Below are some articles on Sara's work to make things better for women and children living in polygamy.


Plenty of Parents but No Protectors
By David Kelly and Gary Cohn The Los Angeles Times Originally published May 12, 2006
COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — In a place where outside authorities ignored sexual abuse and local police acted as church enforcers, a girl couldn't even count on her parents for help. Sara Hammon said she made that discovery early. Her father, the late J.M. Hammon, was a respected church figure in a community dominated by his religious sect. He was a contender for prophet, the highest post in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was also a child molester. Hammon said her father began abusing her when she was about 5. This was the same father who would deliver stern Sunday sermons on purity, propriety and, above all, unquestioning obedience of wives to husbands, children to parents and everyone to the prophet. "I knew it was wrong," she said. "... But they were all doing it." One former FLDS member, a woman who asked not to be identified because she still lived nearby, said she knew of such child abuse but did nothing. "One of my girls had an experience with my husband, and I got angry and was making a fuss, and one of the sister wives said he was confused and thought my daughter was his wife," she said. "I told myself: As long as God upholds him, I will." Read more


ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR CNN Originally broadcast September 7, 2007
Webmaster's note: the first part of this show has been omitted because it discussed Osama bin Laden. Just ahead tonight, another gripping family story. One woman's struggle to leave a life of polygamy. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) KAYE (voice-over): She was born into a life of inferiority and abuse. SARA HAMMON, THE HOPE ORGANIZATION: It was like marching to the guillotine. KAYE: Inferiority, abuse and the polygamist prophet, Warren Jeffs. WARREN JEFFS, SELF-PROCLAIMED PROPHET: Dear wives, realizing happiness is only in being a part and a strength to your husband. KAYE: See how she escaped, but also how it haunts her to this day. Read more


Girl, 14, fled abuse, 'mind control' of polygamy
From Amanda Townsend and Agnes Pawlowski CNN Originally published September 11, 2007
(CNN) -- Sara Hammon saw some of her sisters pulled out of school to be married to men they didn't know. She dreaded a similar fate. And so, she ran away from home before she was old enough to drive legally. She left behind 19 mothers, 74 siblings, and a father she says could never remember her name, even though he repeatedly molested her. And, she left behind a culture she says was oppressive for young women. Hammon recently gave CNN a deeply disturbing account of her life inside the polygamous sect whose leader, Warren Jeffs, goes on trial this week in Utah. Jeffs is accused of being an accomplice to rape. The charge stems from his alleged practice of arranging polygamous marriages between child brides and older male followers. Hammon is not directly involved in the charges against Jeffs, which concern an arranged marriage between a girl, 14 and her 19-year-old cousin. She left the sect before she could be placed in an arranged marriage. But she is one of its most outspoken former members. "Probably the worst part of the whole theology," she said, "is the treatment of women and teaching women that they are not equal to men." "They have to have a husband in order to get to the highest degree of heaven, and not only a husband but they have to allow the husband to have two other wives," she added. Hammon was born in Hilldale, Utah, and raised in Colorado City, Arizona, towns where followers of Jeffs -- the President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) -- freely practice polygamy. Read more


IN DEPTH: Mesquite woman fled polygamist sect at 14
Volunteer helps others adjust after leaving
By Brian Haynes and Glenn Puit Las Vegas Review Journal Originally published September 16, 2007
MESQUITE - Sara Hammon was just 14 when faced with the most important decision of her life. She could remain in an isolated polygamist community or defy her religious teachings to escape to the outside world. She chose the latter, and several years later, the 31-year-old Mesquite resident said she has no regrets about fleeing a childhood scarred by chronic incest and molestation. "My dad had 75 children and 19 wives, so we were one of the larger families," she said. "They had to segregate us (by gender) because there is an incest problem in Colorado City. It's difficult to keep an eye on that many children." Hammon's father, Marion Hammon, in the 1970s was a prominent leader in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. He was considered a possible prophet who one day might lead the sect, but when infighting broke out, he and a group of friends split off in the mid-'80s. Leaving their families in Colorado City, the men moved a few miles down the highway to form the Centennial Park community. Their families continued the polygamous lifestyle but swore allegiance to the new leaders. Read more


Warren Jeffs' Trial Highlights Polygamy Troubles
Sara Hammon Escaped From a Polygamous Sect at 14
Good Morning America Originally published September 17, 2007
In a Utah courtroom today a defense team will cross examine a 21-year-old woman known only as "Jane Doe the fourth" about how accused polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs allegedly forced her to marry her 19-year-old cousin and have sex with him. The showdown is one of the most anticipated in Jeffs' trial on charges of rape by accomplice. Doe initially took the stand to begin her testimony Friday. At the time of the marriage, Doe merely was 14 years old and said after a month of unconsummated marriage her husband told her to "be a wife and do your duty." "He completely overlooked the fact that this was something I did not want to do nor was willing to do," she said in the courtroom last week. "I said, 'Please don't do this,' and he just ignored me." She recalled how her first cousin and husband allegedly raped her. "He came over and pulled me over to the bed and I said, 'I can't do this. Please just don't,'" Doe recalled. "I was sobbing, and my whole entire body was just shaking because I was so scared and he didn't say anything. He just laid me on the bed." Doe said she pleaded for Jeffs to let her divorce her husband. "He paused for a moment and then told me that I needed to go and repent, that I was not living up to my vows," Doe said. "I was not being obedient. I was not being submissive to my priestly head and that was what my problem was." Doe said the trauma of the situation led her to attempt suicide by downing two bottles of over-the-counter painkillers in a bathroom. "The only thing I wanted to do was to die. I just wanted to die," Doe said. Read more


Hammon to Speak on Abuse in Polygamous Communities
Campus Life Medaille College - Buffalo, New York Originally published October 17, 2008
Sara Hammon, an outspoken critic of abuse in polygamous Mormon communities, will speak at Medaille College on October 22 at 12:30 p.m. in the Lecture Hall, Main Campus. According to Dr. Ross Runfola, professor of social sciences, Hammon "is a genuine heroine, who has provided testimony before the U.S. Senate and appeared on Larry King Live, ABC News and Anderson Cooper 360."


Victim of abuse spreads her message
By Lisa Flynn WIVB TV News 4 - Buffalo, New York Originally broadcast October 22, 2008
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) - Allegations of abuse at a Polygamist compound made headlines earlier of 2008. Now a victim of abuse is spreading her message at a local college. Sara Hammon grew up in a polygamist community in Arizona. Her father, J.M. Hammon was a religious leader who had more than a dozen wives and fathered dozens of children. Sara broke away from the community and now lectures on the widespread abuse that exists behind the walls. Sara spoke to social sciences students at Medaille College Wednesday afternoon. She appeared at the request of Doctor Ross Runfola. Sara spoke candidly about growing up in a life of isolation at a Colorado City Compound. She said she endured years of sexual abuse beginning as an infant. She spoke about her teenaged engagement and about how she broke away from her father's cult. Sara said by the time she was fourteen, she had been physically, sexually, and psychologically abused by no less than 12 male members of her family. Read more


Former member of polygamist sect recounts horrific abuse
Says abuse started at infancy and led to "organized rape"
By Barbara O'Brien The Buffalo News - Buffalo, New York Originally published October 23, 2008
The soft-spoken woman from Nevada asked everyone in the Medaille College lecture hall to stand up. That’s about how many people are in her family, Sara Hammon said Wednesday afternoon. "There are 95 people in my family. Seventy-five children and 19 mothers and my father," said the woman who ran away from a polygamist sect when she was 14. "We were nothing like the normal, average family." Not at all. In this family, girls were abused from the time they were infants and forced into arranged marriages, sometimes with men 50 years older, and some boys were forced to leave when they were teenagers so they would not compete for the women and girls with the older men who ran the community. Her father, a respected elder, was a known pedophile, she said. When he was dying at age 82, all his children were forced to go to his room individually to say goodbye to him. She took his hand in hers, and he moved his hand down her leg to reach under her skirt. "On his deathbed, my dad tried to sexually abuse me," she said. Now 33, Hammon said she speaks out to publicize the abuse that is rampant in polygamy, leaving hundreds of victims while the government seems to look the other way. Her school, for example, which taught religious tenets, was supported by tax dollars, she said. Read more





Read the Testimony of Sara Hammon submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on "Crimes Associated with Polygamy: The Need for a Coordinated State and Federal Response" held July 24, 2008



Watch the video of ABC News Law & Justice interview of Sara Hammon recorded April 17, 2008



Watch Sara in the Damned to Heaven documentary trailer

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"Religion" is no excuse for committing child abuse

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