Texas wants 8 kids from Polygamist Sect back in State Care

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,398324,00.html
"Texas child welfare authorities asked a judge on Tuesday to place eight children from a Texas polygamist sect's ranch back into foster care, saying their mothers refuse to limit their contact with men accused of being involved in underage marriages."

"Child Protective Services filed petitions asking Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to place the six girls and two boys belonging to four different mothers back in foster care. The children, ranging in age from 5 to 17, will be allowed to remain with their mothers until a hearing scheduled for Sept. 25.."

"Two of the girls are daughters of Lloyd Hammon Barlow, a doctor indicted last month on three misdemeanor counts of failing to report child abuse, according to court filings. The other six children are related, by blood or marriage, to men who are not under indictment but are accused by child welfare authorities of participating in or blessing underage marriages."

From that link:

CPS asked mothers of girls ages 10-17 to sign safety plans to protect children from sexual abuse. For children who lived in a home with a man who married underage girls or agreed to an arranged marriage of an underage daughter, the plans included a requirement to keep the children away from the man.

Four mothers have refused. CPS said they are:

— A wife of Barlow, who caseworker Paul Dyer said in an affidavit was married four times, including a marriage to a 16-year-old.

Barlow told an investigator he had delivered children to underage girls at the YFZ Ranch and elsewhere "many times" without reporting the deliveries to authorities, the affidavit said.

— A woman who has a 13-year-old daughter at home but allowed an older daughter to marry at 15 and who herself married an FLDS elder who presided over the marriage of a 12-year-old girl.

— A mother of two boys and a 14-year-old girl questioned by investigators about underage marriages.

The girl twisted her face in disgust when asked whether a 13-year-old who married a 40-year-old man and had a baby would be considered sexually abused.

"The marriages are pure," the girl told caseworker Ruby Gutierrez.

The girl, according to Gutierrez's affidavit, went on to say "that this can't be a crime because Heavenly Father is the one that tells (Jeffs) when a girl is ready to get married and that he is only following the word of Heavenly Father."

— A mother who had sent her 9- and 10-year-old daughters to live at the ranch but hadn't seen them in about three years.

The woman, an accountant who moved to San Antonio after the raid, refused to sign the safety plan, telling a caseworker she felt it was "an insult to common sense."

In addition to filing for custody of the eight children, CPS requested that cases involving 32 other children be dropped after CPS found no evidence of underage marriages or the families agreed to take appropriate actions to protect the children. The remaining 400 cases are still under investigation.

Well, it sounds like CPS is using a more precise approach this times, as per TX supreme court instructions. Will be interesting to see what the judge does. If she does give TX custody, sounds more like a decision the higher courts could uphold.

Side note--It's so irritating that poor Judge Walther even has to deal with this garbage. She's been vilified and smeared just because this mess fell into her court and she tried to do the best she could. If these moms really want a safe haven where they can marry their young teen girls off to old men who may already have multiple wives in exchange for celestial glory, why don't they go out and find a country where that can happen legally? These people put all kinds of rigid restrictions and rules on their own people and kick them out if they don't follow the letter of their laws as they put them forth. Yet they don't have any respect for OUR laws, don't feel they have to follow the rules of our general society. Why can't we kick them out? Why can't we treat them like they treat their own recalcitrant members? When the FLDS doesn't put up with 'lawbreakers' why do they expect us to put up with them? Seems pretty tacky that they dump all this garbage on us, specifically in this case on CPS and on Judge Walther, then they trash and bash people who are just trying to deal with people potentially violating society’s rules and regs and attempting to protect the rights of young sect members, even when those young sect members don't seem to want to be protected. And while they are trashing and bashing others for merely trying to enforce laws, they also trash and bash their ex members for, they say, trashing and bashing them.

Wouldn't it just be simpler and more pleasant for everyone if the FLDS found a different country, one which celebrates the marriage of little girls to old men and thinks bigamy is hunky dory? If they can't play by society's rules, why on earth shouldn't they go play somewhere else?

The reason they don't go somewhere else is because in other countries they wouldn't have the protections available under our constitution. Besides, they were born here, they, and their children are citizens too, despite their unsavory practices. They're descended from people who came to this country long ago in search of political or religious freedom.

The children of this sect deserve the same rights and protections from abuse as other children, and encouraging their sect to go somewhere else would only perpetuate the abuse on those children, and those who come after them, without any recourse or protections in other countries.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy1009.html

One of the children, a 10-year-old girl, told caseworkers how she had been moved from her mother's home in Utah to her uncle Merril Jessop's house. It was at least three years - until after the government raid - before the girl finally saw her mother again. "(The girl) said that she misses her mother very much and when she asked her uncle Merril Jessop about where her mother is living he has told her it was none of her business so she has just gotten to the point that she had stopped asking," a caseworker wrote.

The girl told CPS when she grows up she wants to "be a good mother and have as many children as the Heavenly Father wants her to have." She also told CPS officials that Merril Jessop "would make the decision as to when she would get married, at what age, and who she would marry."

The eight children include two daughters of Dr. Lloyd Hammon Barlow and Alice Faye Barlow, one of the physician's four wives.

Anyone know of the outcome on this??

The last I read, they took custody of Merril Jessops daughter that was married to Jeffs at the age of 12, left her brother with Barbara and gave a list of conditions and were negotiating on the custody of the other 6.

On Tuesday, the other mothers - and two fathers - agreed to negotiated deals that allow the women to keep possession of their children while giving the state temporary managing conservatorship.
The agreements restate in part a June order that returned 440 FLDS children to their parents after nearly two months in state custody: travel restrictions, providing contact information and allowing caseworkers into their homes. But the parents also agreed to specific demands, including pledges to not allow their minor daughters to marry.
One mother, for example, agreed to let her 13-year-old daughter undergo a physical examination that includes a pregnancy test. The agreements cover children of Amy Rose Johnson and Nephi Barlow, Ellen Grace Young, Alice Faye Barlow and Lloyd H. Barlow. The men will be given weekly, two-hour supervised visits with their children.
The judge set a 90-day review in the Barlows' case and will review the others in February.
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10250444