Posts in category: Women

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas, ruled today that the grounds for seizing over 400 children and putting them in temporary custody with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services were “legally and factually insufficient” under Texas law. The higher court found that the Department had not, contrary to the requirements of the Code, presented enough evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of the children; especially not to any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty. This ruling only addresses the immediate custody of the children.

What will this mean? Likely, it will occasion the immediate return of the children to their parents. The State of Texas may, nevertheless, continue to pursue the sect for creating unsafe conditions for children, or, for that matter, for polygamy. They may also petition the highest court in Texas to review the decision of the Appellate Court.

As the media continues to carry news on this topic, I hope that both sides of the case will be fairly presented. Willie Jessop, a church elder, and Rod Parker, attorney for the FLDS, have driven the media with their point of view. I’d like to defend the Texas authorities in one problem they have faced in this situation.

Child Protective Services had to revise down the number of underage pregnant girls and underage mothers, finding far fewer than originally claimed. Contrary to FLDS claims of “lying and cheating” by the Department, it was very difficult for Child Protective Services to get a correct count. Initially, the women refused to identify themselves or their children; the women don’t have driver’s licenses; the children call several women “mother”; and the women look much younger than their actual years, most likely a result of diet. After the DNA testing, the mothers became more forthright about the facts, which allowed the department to determine accurate ages.

We are still left with the question why any parent would willingly keep their child in a household where girls are at risk of a forced marriage to some old codger before the age of 16.

In the long run, perhaps young girls (and boys) will be safer in FLDS compounds everywhere in the U.S. now that it is clear that sexual abuse of young girls won’t be tolerated by the State. At least, as an attorney and sexual abuse expert, I hope so.

From San Angelo, Texas

Five judges, five separate courtrooms, hundreds of hearings. Beginning today, and lasting for the next three weeks,San Angelo, Texas, is host to the largest custody case in history. What’s at stake? The future of 463 children taken by Texas authorities from the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) group ranch and placed in foster care. I flew in late last night on a small 50-seater jet that was more than half-filled by media from every national TV station and news outlet. Hotel rooms are at a premium.

When I pulled up in front of the courthouse this morning, it was 100 degrees outside, frosty cold in the overly air-conditioned courthouse. But the heat was on for the 168 mothers and 69 fathers of these children. The sole purpose of the hearings is to review the “family service plan” from Child Protective Services for each child. Is it specific enough so the parents know what they have to do in order to regain custody?

Six-year-old Samuel Jeffs was the subject of the first hearing I attended. It was being tried in the courtroom of State District Judge Barbara Walther. She’s very bright, engaging, clear speaking, and much to the dismay of some of the attorneys for the parents who attempted to sidetrack the proceedings, she doesn’t put up with any bull.

Little Samuel is the son of 34-year-old Sharon Barlow, a petite, almost child-like looking woman, and sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is currently in jail. Jeffs was convicted in Utah of being an accomplice to rape in the marriage of a 14-year-old to her 19-year-old first cousin (the 14-year-old was Elissa Wall, who has just published a book called Stolen Innocence about growing up in the cult). And little Samuel, one of 10 children in state custody who are believed to be the children of Jeffs, has a birth defect that requires a prosthetic leg. Barlow only has this one child, possibly a result of the FLDS belief that birth defects (as well as all disease) indicate wrongdoing. Samuel is being fitted for a new prosthesis by the state of Texas, and set up with a course in physical therapy.

The attorney for the boy’s mother objected to the CPS plan for her to get the boy back, saying it wasn’t clear enough. According to the plan, Barlow must take parenting classes, find a safe living environment, and undergo a psychological

evaluation.

One mother, Barbara Jessop, whose son Sampson was fathered by Merrill Jessop (the husband of Carolyn Jessop, who left the cult and wrote the book, Escape), wouldn’t speak to the court at all because of a pending criminal investigation.

She didn’t want to acknowledge that she had even read the plan, clearly worried that anything she said could be used as evidence against her. Some parents did not object to the plan they were presented with. Cynthia Joy Jessop,

with an infant she was allowed to keep at home, and Richard Samuel Jessop have six children together, and they are trying to get their three older boys together into one foster home in San Antonio. Unlike the others I saw, these parents made eye contact with each other and with the court. They felt they could do the plan.

It’s true the plans are somewhat similar, for good reason. They all involve training in parenting, psychological evaluation, vocational evaluation of the parents, and housing. From there, the “cookie cutter” aspects disappear. As the weeks go on, the plans will become more and more individualized. As the parents implement the services named in the plans, the experts report back and the plan can change.

Some parents claimed surprise at the proceedings, although they’ve had sufficient notice about the public hearings. How could they be surprised by anything? These are members of a cult known for its capricious and arbitrary events. A man can be told to leave his wife and kids and go to another town to “repent,” while his wife is “reassigned” to marry another man, who has to be seen by her kids as their new father.

If a boy shows any indication of wanting to think for himself, he is dumped outside of town by his parents and becomes a non-person, unable to contact his family. Out of the 463 children, 250 are girls and 213 are boys, but there are only 17 boys aged 14 to 17 compared with the 53 girls in that age range. A young teen girl can be told at any time that she will now be married to a man, possibly many times older, who can be a total stranger. More than half the 53 teen girls between the ages of 14 and 17 have children or are pregnant, state officials said. As a spokesman for Child Protective Services said, “It shows you a pretty distinct pattern, that it was pretty pervasive.”

It’s hard to imagine what will happen with these children. Even freed from the possibility of being dumped on the street or married off too young, how will they be freed from the fear of the “outside” world? Fear of the good people of Texas who are trying their best to help them?

With much time, and much kindness.

The Huffington Post

Posted April 21, 2008 | 07:27 PM (EST)

I’m leaving for San Angelo, TX, in the morning. I’ve got to see for myself the mothers in floor length pioneer dresses buttoned up the neck and down the wrist, all wearing the same pattern, their long-handled underwear peeking out, their uncut hair pulled up in a pompadour. I want to ask these young women what could possibly compel them to stand by and watch while their underage daughters are handed over to men old enough to be their grandfathers—men who already have any number of wives and a passel of children. Men who are often close relatives.

What has been pulled over these women’s eyes that they don’t see this as abuse? And what of the family practice that routinely subjects their male children to the “lost boys” fate? How do they feel when their young teenage sons are abducted in the middle of the night, taken out of the compound and dumped on a faraway roadside to fend for themselves? Do they not see this as barbaric? Does it not turn their stomachs the way it turns mine?

No doubt, these women have been subject to systematic victimization. Beaten down and into submission, they fear the patriarch and give up their own mind. They have a detached, eerie quality and all speak in little girl voices with a false sweetness. The fear of God and the patriarch have permanently shut them up. To a woman, these wives and mothers cannot look squarely at the camera. The truth is not to be told—that is the law of the land. When questioned by Larry King if underage girls are forced to marry older men, all the women gave the same stock response: “not that I’m aware of.”

But these women are also perpetrators; complicity is its own form of abuse. Carolyn Jessup is a former cult member and 6th generation polygamist. Refusing to take the complicit route, she took action instead. When she realized that her eldest daughter would be next in line for statutory rape under the guise of marriage she chose to escape. She gathered up her eight children and fled. Interviewed on TV during the custody hearings, she laid it on the line, saying: “Every mother is born with a protective instinct—these mothers know that it’s an unsafe environment.” Thank you, Carolyn for showing us the courage it takes to speak the truth and keep your children safe.

My father sexually abused me from age two until age twelve. Where was my mother? What caused her protective instinct to go belly up? Did she take any action to protect me? She did not, perhaps for the very same reasons the women in Texas don’t protect their own: expedience. Such inaction is, pure and simple, self-serving. A woman gives up her voice and her instinct to save herself, her position in the family and in the community.

The judge made the correct decision when she ruled that the state had enough evidence to justify taking custody of the children pending further investigation. If a mother’s instinct is not intact, a society must act. The safety of children is sacrosanct and must come first.