| Bountiful residents helped cover up marriages: lawyer | |
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The Canadian Press CTV News | |
VANCOUVER — A lawyer for the B.C. government says it's impossible that the residents of the polygamous commune of Bountiful weren't aware that girls as young as 12 were being taken to the U.S. to be married off to middle-aged men. Instead, Craig Jones tells a B.C. judge examining Canada's polygamy laws that community leaders take steps to keep cross-border marriages and other abuses secret. Evidence in the case has been focusing heavily on Bountiful, a fundamentalist Mormon sect that, unlike the mainstream church, still practises polygamy. The B.C. government has already filed evidence that 13 girls aged 12 to 18 were married in the U.S. between 2004 and 2006, and lawyers for the province want to introduce new evidence that identifies more than a dozen additional cases. Jones says these marriages would be common knowledge in the community, where he says girls are encouraged to enter professions such as nursing, education and midwifery in order to keep outsiders out and community secrets in. The government has argued polygamy inherently leads to a long list of abuses, such as human trafficking, physical and sexual abuse, and child brides. | |
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CTV.ca Originally published Tuesday Mar. 29, 2011 | |
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