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Sect moms feel betrayed by state
15/04/2008 10:26 - (SA)
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| Marie, a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, talks about her experience in a shelter in Texas. (Tony Gutierrez, AP) |
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San Angelo, Texas - Texas officials who took 416 children from a polygamist retreat into state custody sent many of their mothers away, as a judge and lawyers struggled with a legal and logistical morass in one of the biggest child-custody cases in US history.
Of the 139 women who voluntarily left the compound with their children since an April 3 raid, only those with children aged 4 or younger were allowed to continue staying with them on Monday, said Marissa Gonzales, spokesperson for the state Children's Protective Services agency. She did not know how many women stayed.
"It is not the normal practice to allow parents to accompany the child when an abuse allegation is made," she said.
The women were given a choice: Return to the Eldorado ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect, or go to another safe location. Some women chose the latter, Gonzales said.
Not allowed to say goodbye
On Monday night, about three dozen women, many of them mothers, sobbed and held onto each other outside a log cabin on the sect's ranch, recounting the way police officers encircled them in a room and told them that they could not stay.
One woman, Marie, said the women weren't allowed to say goodbye to their crying children.
"They said, 'your children are ours'," said the sobbing 32-year-old whose three sons are aged 9, 7 and 5 and who would not give her last name. "We could not even ask a question."
She said the children at the ranch have not been abused, but she feels like "they are being abused from this experience". She said the children have been "so protected and loved".
The women believe the abuse complaint that led to the raid came from a bitter person outside their community.
The state is accusing the sect of physically and sexually abusing the youngsters and wants to strip their parents of custody and place the children in foster care or put them up for adoption. The sheer size of the case was an obstacle.
Court hearing
"Quite frankly, I'm not sure what we're going to do," Texas District Judge Barbara Walther said after a conference that included three to four dozen attorneys either representing or hoping to represent youngsters.
The mothers were taken away on Monday after they and the children were taken by bus under heavy security out of historic Fort Concho, where they had been staying, to the San Angelo Coliseum, which holds nearly 5 000 people and is used for hockey games, rodeos and concerts. The polygamist retreat is about 72km south of San Angelo.
Some of the youngsters' mothers complained to Governor Rick Perry that the children were getting sick in the crowded fort. About 20 children had a mild case of chickenpox, said Dr Sandra Guerra-Cantu with the state Health Department.
Perry spokesman Robert Black said the governor did not believe the children were being housed in poor conditions at the West Texas fort. "Let's be honest here, this is not the Ritz," Black said, but he called the accommodations "clean and neat".
Monday's courtroom conference was held to work out the ground rules for a court hearing beginning on Thursday on the fate of the children.
The judge made no immediate decisions on how the hearing will be carried out. Among the questions left unanswered: Would a courtroom big enough to hold everyone be available at the Tom Green County Courthouse, or would some kind of video link be employed?
Texas bar officials said more than 350 lawyers from across the state have volunteered to represent the children free of charge. Moreover, the 139 mothers who voluntarily left the sect to be with their children will need lawyers, too, to help them fight for custody.
- AP
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