Polygamist sect in US married girls at puberty
Eldorado: A polygamist compound with hundreds of children was rife with sexual abuse, child welfare officials allege in court documents, with girls spiritually married to much older men as soon as they reached puberty and boys groomed to perpetuate the cycle.
The documents released on Tuesday also gave details about the hushed phone calls that triggered the raid, by a 16-year-old girl at the West Texas ranch who said her 50-year-old husband beat and raped her. Days after raiding the compound, officials still aren`t sure where the girl is.
Officials have completed removing all 416 children from the ranch and have won custody of all of them, Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner told reporters in San Angelo, about 40 miles from the compound in Eldorado.
Images and text: AP Image Caption: Residential structures are seen along a road that leads to the main temple, top rear, on the grounds of the "Yearning For Zion" Ranch, home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Eldorado, Texas on Tuesday, April 8, 2008. State troopers and child welfare officials have been searching the compound since Thursday, after a 16-year-old girl called a family violence shelter to report her 50-year-old husband was beating and raping her.
