Kidnapped and Raped in Cleveland; Other Victims Ignored in Colorado City

The 24 hour a day cable news channels are currently offering wall-to-wall coverage of the case of three young girls, missing for about 9 years who were rescued earlier this week in Cleveland.  The girls, abducted as teenagers, are believed to have endured unspeakable horrors at the hands of their kidnapper, a school bus driver.  How could such a person do such things to young innocent girls?  The whole country is properly aghast.  Who is not asking whether there was some way we could have stopped the horror sooner?

But exactly why are we asking this question of ourselves when we actually know of similar though not identical crimes being committed against young girls on a regular basis in our own country while we are doing so little about it?

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) (www.flds.com) is a church with about 10,000 member families that encourages plural marriage.  One of  the larger communities is located in Colorado City, TX.  They routinely indoctrinate young girls and boys into the belief system that then completely dictates the future course of their lives.  This is the community that is headed by the now imprisoned Warren Jeffs.  He is  currently serving a life sentence for aggravated sexual assault and rape.  However, he remains the church leader, and the practices of the church continue despite his physical absence from the community.

According to a report by the Attorney General of the State of Utah, "In this community, the “law of placement” purportedly permits the leader to “reassign”  a man’s wives and children to other “more worthy” men in the community. Women may be re-married because they are sealed “to the priesthood” and not to the priesthood-holder. In the case of an excommunication, a polygamous man and his family may be told that he no longer holds the priesthood and that he, therefore, cannot exalt them in heaven. His family is often given the choice to remarry or stay with the husband and father, which may entail excommunication of all family members...  

Of all fundamentalist groups, this community is seen as embracing the most restrictive and isolated lifestyle.  Women dress modestly with their entire body covered. They wear long dresses with opaque stockings underneath, and their hair is worn long but not free-flowing. Men wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts with collars.  Those who have left the community have reported that popular music, radios and television are considered “worldly” and are thus inappropriate and forbidden in this community. Children are usually home-schooled or attend a church school until junior high, after which time they are assigned “work missions” or they get married. Former members state that they did not receive sex education, they were taught the Holocaust never occurred and that the government fabricated the story of man’s landing on the moon. It is alleged that some girls are married in their early teens, since they have been taught that their loftiest goal in life is to become a wife and bear children. 

Young men are reportedly taught not to date or become interested in girls of similar age, since dating or courting is forbidden. Parents are expected to govern their teenagers appropriately, even if this might require the removal of rebellious or “worldly” teens from the community."  Go to http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/cmsdocuments/The_Primer.pdf .

Here is the difference between the isolated Cleveland case and the alleged rampant sexual abuse in Colorado City; the poor young girls in Cleveland were abducted by their rapist; the poor young girls in Colorado City were born into a community and church that will indoctrinate them into believing that their only route to eternal salvation is to marry have sex with the person that their church leader says they must marry have sex with. In Cleveland, the young girls feared for their lives if they rebelled; in  Colorado City, the young girls feared for their eternal souls they if rebelled.

Although there are indeed many who are trying to take on the FLDS, such as various attorney generals, CNN, etc., the fact remains that many young girls, in fear, continue to have sex with much older men for no reason other than they were ordered to do so.   In America.