Film documenting plight of teen boys abandoned and shunned by Mormon polygamists raises money for their recovery

Houston Chronicle - Texas March 31, 2011

Documentary follows teens exiled from polygamous sect

By KATE SHELLNUTT

There's something about coming-of-age films, with their familiar sense of newfound independence balanced with a yearning for family connection, a desire to grow up but not too much, that American audiences love.

In many ways, this archetype is at the center of Sons of Perdition, an independent film showing in Houston for the first time next week.

But the teenage boys featured in this documentary have a darker, more painful background as exiles from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

They're called the "lost boys." Some fled on their own. But others had their coming-of-age moment thrust upon them by a prophet who forced them to leave their families and religious community to live completely separate from the polygamist compound where they grew up.

That prophet was Warren Jeffs, the now-imprisoned leader of the 10,000-member FLDS sect, which split from mainstream Mormonism more than 120 years ago to continue the disavowed practice of plural marriage.

Over his nearly decade-long reign as head of the FLDS church, he rid the Colorado City, Ariz. , settlement of hundreds of young men while older leaders continued to take young women as wives. Jeffs is currently in a Texas prison, awaiting trial for sexual assault and bigamy.

"It's related to Jeffs. Sociologists would say it's an inevitable demographic shift that has to occur for that marriage pattern to continue," said Martha Bradley, an expert in Mormon history and dean at the University of Utah. "It's really an extreme test of loyalty for Jeffs to order one of their followers to get rid of their teenage son."

The boys who leave are, in their families' minds and their own, "sons of perdition," destined for damnation for rejecting God's teachings.

"What do you do when you're 16, and you're told that you're evil and you're going to hell?" asked Tyler Measom, who directed and produced the film with Jennilyn Merten. They followed exiled teenagers through their initial culture shock and desperate homesickness for their families.

The FLDS Church has not issued a response to the film, said Rod Parker, their Utah-based attorney.

"It's made me really angry to watch their families fall apart over religion," Merten said. "Sam (one of the boys in the film) said, 'I don't think religion should ever come between family. Family should be your religion.' "

The film debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last year and will be screened Wednesday at Houston's 14 Pews. It will also air on the Oprah Winfrey Network this summer.

As former Mormons who made the difficult decision to leave the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Measom and Merten knew what it felt like to take that disappointing turn from such a tight religious group.

"It was a difficult, difficult process," said Measom. "You're disappointing family and community and everything you've come to believe."

The boys they met — Joe Broadbent, Bruce Barlow and Sam Zitting - had it much harder and may always struggle with living apart from their relatives.

"Getting involved helped expel some of that sympathy," Merten said. Their documentary has raised $100,000 to support ex-FLDS youth making the transition to living on their own.

She still follows Jeffs' trial and the state of the community, which appears to be in turmoil.

Though Jeffs hasn't formally resigned his presidency, church elder William E. Jessop became president of the corporation that is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after filing papers with the Utah Department of Commerce on Monday, in what Jessop calls "an attempt to restore the church."

"It's really going to be interesting now to see, No. 1, Warren Jeffs' reaction, and No. 2, what the people's reaction will be," said Anne Wilde, co-founder of the polygamy advocacy group Principle Voices. Jeffs already ceded authority of the church once to Jessop in 2007, although Jessop didn't act on the directive at the time.

President of the church since 2002, Jeffs has spent most of the past four years behind bars. He was arrested in 2006 and convicted the next year on Utah charges of rape as an accomplice. The conviction was later overturned, and Jeffs was extradited to Texas. Trial is set for July in San Angelo.

Accusations against Jeffs date back to 2004, when his nephew Brent filed a sexual abuse suit against him. In Brent's book, Lost Boy, he writes that the leader abused him and his two brothers.

Even a guilty ruling for Jeffs may not shake the faith of his followers, who believe that persecution from outsiders is a sign that they are following the will of God.

"The idea of being a persecuted people means this plays into the thinking that, 'We're right. We're a special people,' " said Merten, who researched Jeffs for the film.

The allegations of sexual assault against children - raised by evidence found in the raid of their ranch in 2008 - may have discouraged members from taking younger wives.

"That's one very positive thing to come out of this; they've already started to be more cautious (about marriage ages)," said Bradley, the historian.

Measom and Merten said they're hopeful the FLDS community will become more open, allowing children to attend public schools and letting the lost boys reunite with their families.

Before coming to Houston, Sons of Perdition screened in Austin, San Antonio and Dallas.

"We're hoping for San Angelo next," Merten half-joked.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

This article was found at:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/7500916.html

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Escapee from Scientology sues cult and parents for child labor, wage exploitation, educational and medical neglect

St. Petersburg Times - March 5, 2011

Lawsuit claims Church of Scientology violated child labor and wage laws

By Thomas C. Tobin and Joe Childs | Times Staff Writers


A runaway from the Church of Scientology's restrictive religious order, the Sea Org, alleges in two lawsuits filed Friday that the church violated California laws regulating child labor, wages and school attendance.

Daniel Montalvo, who turns 20 today, also contends his parents, who remain in the Sea Org, neglected him and breached their duty to protect him from harm by ceding his care to the church.

Church spokesman Tommy Davis said Friday night the church had not been served with the suits and could not comment on them. He noted Montalvo took Church of Scientology property — computer hard drives — when he left valued at tens of thousands of dollars. Then, with the help of church defectors Montalvo moved them across state lines.

Born in Ecuador, Montalvo moved with his parents to the church's spiritual headquarters in Clearwater when he was 5. He stayed there until age 15, when he was transferred to Los Angeles, where he worked at church facilities until leaving last September.

The lawsuits filed in state court in L.A. include allegations that Montalvo:

• Was permitted to attend school about one day a week because working for Sea Org took priority.

• Spent his childhood working at least 40 hours a week, and often more than 100 hours a week for pay that ranged from $35 to $50 a week.

• Had no work permits required of minors.

• Was made to work back-to-back 12-hour days in the fall of 2007, when the church was pushing its staff to produce and sell a new book release.

• From 2008 to 2010, was punished along with other workers for lack of production. He was made to run laps wearing a jacket and tie, clean grease traps and do push ups.

• Worked past midnight for two months in 2009 after rising at 6 a.m. each day, and was made to do push ups and dig ditches for lack of production.

• Suffered an accident at age 16 while cleaning a "notching" machine at the church's printing unit, Bridge Publications. Half of his right index finger was cut off and no ambulance was called, the lawsuit asserts. It says Montalvo was taken to the hospital but told by the Sea Org to tell doctors he was a volunteer. He was not to mention Scientology.

According to one of the two lawsuits, Montalvo's parents "effectively abandoned" him, and his caretakers in the church failed to adequately educate him or provide sufficient care, including medical treatment.

"Intentionally deprived of the basic skills needed to permit him to become a functioning adult member of society, Daniel now comes before the court a 19-year-old man with an eighth grade education, without assets, without a resume despite having labored for hundreds of hours per week over the last five years," the lawsuit states. "Every adult in Daniel's childhood failed him.''

Montalvo also has filed a wage and hour claim with the state's Division of Labor Standards seeking more than $150,000 in back wages for the three years — 2007 to 2010 — he worked for Bridge Publications. Davis called the claim "absurd.''

Other Sea Org members have taken the church to court in recent years, making similar claims. But Montalvo's case differs in that it invokes laws protecting children, said his lawyer, S. Christopher "Kit" Winter.

In one notable case, Claire and Marc Headley of California sued in federal court, contending they were victims of forced labor. Claire Headley's suit also alleged she was pressured to have two abortions to remain in good standing.

The church denied all claims and said Headley's abortions were her decision.

A federal judge dismissed the Headleys' suits last year, citing in part a "ministerial exception" that generally prevents courts from prying into the affairs of any church.

But Winter argued that Montalvo would not be considered a church minister because he never conducted Scientology's core religious practice of "auditing" and had little formal religious training in the church.

Even if he were to be deemed a minister, that "does not excuse you from having to attend school," Winter said. "There is nothing in the case law that says the ministerial exception overrides child labor laws and compulsory school attendance laws."

He also addressed remarks by the judge in the Headley case, who stated that the Headleys knew what they were getting into when they joined the Sea Org and could have left at any time.

Winter noted Montalvo was 5 when his parents entered the Sea Org with him in tow and he could not have been expected to leave the group on his own. The lawsuits seek unspecified damages.

The Headleys are appealing.

Their allegations and those of Montalvo echo the claims of former church members who recently disclosed that they have been interviewed at length by FBI agents specializing in human trafficking. The FBI has said it will not confirm or deny whether an investigation is taking place. Asked Friday whether Montalvo had been interviewed by the FBI, Winter would not comment.

Montalvo ran away from the Sea Org on Sept. 24, 2010, aided by former executives of the church whose accounts of abuse in the Sea Org were published by the St. Petersburg Times in 2009.

Two defectors picked him up in a car near a church headquarters building on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. He flew to Florida and moved in to the Palm Harbor home of former Sea Org executive Tom DeVocht, whom Montalvo had known as a child when his father worked for DeVocht at church facilities in Clearwater.

The plan was for Montalvo to work for DeVocht. But Montalvo's parents intervened by phone from California, DeVocht said, as did an aunt, who lives in Clearwater and also is a Scientologist.

After conversations with church lawyer Kendrick Moxson, Montalvo agreed to return to L.A. A church staffer met Montalvo at the airport, his suit says, and took him to church attorneys who questioned him about five missing church hard drives. He then was taken to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Montalvo was arrested on grand theft charges in connection with the hard drives, which Winter says were returned within days, and briefly jailed until bailed out by former church members. He has not been charged. One of the lawsuits filed Friday accuses Moxon of false imprisonment for luring Montalvo back to L.A. with deceptive statements.

Montalvo has been living since then on a secluded, 12-acre estate in Malibu owned by actor Jason Beghe, a former Scientologist who told the Times on Friday: "I thought that he would need to have a little space and have a safe environment.''


This article was found at:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/lawsuit-claims-church-of-scientology-violated-child-labor-and-wage-laws/1155473

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Daily Herald - Utah February 17, 2011

Utah filmmakers shine documentary spotlight on polygamy problems


What is it like, at age 15 or 16, to defy the community that raised you and start your life over in a dramatically different world? The new documentary "Sons of Perdition" (www.sonsofperditionthemovie.com) attempts to answer that question by telling the story of teenage boys who leave or are expelled from polygamous communities in the Beehive State, but don't know how to integrate themselves into mainstream society.

The film opens Friday in Salt Lake City and will begin a limited engagement at Provo's Carmike Wynnsong theater on Feb. 25.

Co-directors Tyler Measom and Jennilyn Merten decided to make "Sons" after sensing that there was a deeper story behind occasional news reports about Utah teens who had fled from or been kicked out of Utah polygamist clans. Measom said that such kids are often deeply conflicted, both frightened of their parents and lonely without them, relieved to have escaped, but confused about their new surroundings and fearful for loved ones left behind.

There's also the small matter hinted at by the film's title -- many polygamist sects consider leaving to be the ultimate betrayal, with the ultimate cost. "Being told that you're going to Hell is a tough thing for a 15- or 16-year-old," Measom said.

The film focuses on three teenage boys, and Measom said that he and Merten filmed them for more than two years after gradually winning their trust. The kids wanted nothing to do with the filmmakers at first, but Measom said that he wouldn't give up on them. "They lived in my house, we bailed them out of jail, we bought them meals," he said. "We talked to them. We listened to them."

The MPAA gave the movie a rating of R for the profane language used in some of its emotionally raw interviews. Measom said that the filmmakers appealed the rating, but that changing the movie's content would be unfair to its subjects. "When these kids swear, they're angry," he said.

"Sons of Perdition" has a distribution agreement with the recently debuted Oprah Winfrey Network -- after its theatrical run, it will be featured on a new documentary showcase program that will air on OWN later this year. Measom said that because OWN is a new and unproven media venture, the filmmakers don't know how much Winfrey's endorsement will help, but they're hopeful.

"What we hope is that Oprah will do the same thing for documentaries that she did for books," he said.

-- Cody Clark

This article was found at:

http://www.heraldextra.com/entertainment/movies/article_8d76c0b3-ec36-5a6b-80df-68efb9d9e46b.html

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The Daily Utah Chronicle - student newspaper of the University of Utah   February 18, 2011

Local film highlights FLDS ‘lost boys’

By Devin Richey


Born into a society that de-emphasizes education, individuality and monogamous relationships, groups of refugee apostates sometimes flee the oppressive, dictatorial world of the modern Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The people in these groups, known as the Sons of Perdition, are rarely given coverage of their hardships out of local news circuits. Local filmmakers Tyler Measom and U graduate Jennilyn Merten decided to document the lives of several people following their liberation from the sect in the new feature documentary, "Sons of Perdition."

The group is separate from the exiled "lost boys" who were banished from "the Crick"—the name for the FLDS communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.—for breaking the community's strict rules regarding dating and popular culture or because of a shortage of marriageable women. They enter the outside world with no understanding of outside society and its culture. Merten asks a boy at one point if he has ever read a comic book, to which he replies, "What's that?"

"There is no competition allowed in the Crick, either," Merten said. "The kids can play basketball, but they aren't allowed to keep score. The leaders consider competition to be a tool of the devil."

Under the leadership of Warren Jeffs, the proclaimed prophet of the FLDS and a captured fugitive from the FBI's Most Wanted list, male members of the church were assigned marriage partners that could be as young as 12 to 14 years old, even if the polygamous husband was pushing 60 years old. As revealed in the documentary, these girls are given no form of sexual education prior to their vows and their marriages are consummated on beds located within the compound's temple.

Jeffs' recorded sermons can be heard throughout the film, condemning the outcasts and exiles from their ranks and demonizing the outside world to which those groups are headed as sick and evil. He considers certain otherwise normal occurrences such as spousal nagging to be tools of the devil aimed at damaging patriarchal rule. Jeffs is shown in the documentary to have a number of wives himself, many of them younger than the legal age of marriage or sexual consent, nearing 80 years old before his arrest in 2006.

The struggle of the film's subjects becomes especially engrossing and emotional when they begin their efforts to help family members escape. The mother of one of the boys struggles with her decision to leave when her husband, the boy's father, arrived at her new shelter to verbally harass and manipulate her into returning.

The people highlighted in the film have been thoroughly indoctrinated to the point that the church can hold the barrier of ignorance between them and a more fulfilling future. This puts into perspective the astounding hardship overcome by those who actually manage their flee for independence.

Merten and Measom have crafted a powerful documentary around the story of these determined teens and their struggle for a sense of normality and individuality. Although it is clear that the path won't be easy, a sense of hope lingers through the end credits that with perseverance and help from good Samaritans, these people can reform their perspectives and lead fulfilling, prosperous lives.

The filmmakers have associated themselves with the nonprofit group "Holding Out Help," an organization created to aid in the escape and transition of fundamentalist victims from their compounds and into everyday life.


This article was found at:

http://www.dailyutahchronicle.com/arts/local-film-highlights-flds-lost-boys-1.2473917



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"Sons of Perdition", premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, tells stories of escapees from Mormon fundamentalist cult

NBC New York - April 23, 2010

The Sons of Perdition in Person

By ROSEANNE COLLETTI


Most people don't get to see their life stories on the big screen -- but not everyone has escaped from a polygamist cult.

We met some folks who have now done both.

"My father tried to marry me off when I was 14," explained teenager Hillary Broadbent, who appears in "Sons of Perdition", premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The documentary presents the personal narratives of several individuals who fled a fundamentalist Mormon compound in southern Utah. The enclave was under the rule of infamous polygamist "prophet" Warren Jeffs. He is now serving time for two charges of accomplice to rape.

"I just wanted people to know there was support out there for women and children who leave," said Hillary's mom Jorgina, who left the cult with six children. Her son Joe, Hillary's brother, is also in the film.

Don't look for laughs in this one. It's not "Shrek."

Directors Jennilyn Merten and Tyler Measom are lapsed Mormons themselves and say they identify with the stories told. The documentary is 89-minutes long and is one of 12 documentaries in competition at the festival.


This article was found at:

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/The-Sons-of-Perdition-in-Person-91941129.html


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Polygamy trial: A many-ringed circus

The Toronto Star - February 21, 2009

Winston Blackmore admits to having a few wives, and since polygamy is illegal you'd think the B.C. man's coming day in court would be brief. But the case is loaded with passion on all sides and a dowry of technicalities and legal and philosophical fine points – and the big idea of freedom of religion

by Tracey Tyler | LEGAL AFFAIRS REPORTER

Feminists and civil libertarians might cringe at the comparison, but Winston Blackmore, the man with many wives, may have much in common with Dr. Henry Morgentaler.

Blackmore, the former leader of a fundamentalist Mormon colony in Bountiful, B.C., made an initial appearance in court this week, along with a lawyer for co-accused James Oler, the current bishop, in what promises to be a contentious battle over freedom of religion.

But in the end, the case against the polygamists, like Morgentaler's fight to make abortion a woman's choice, may hinge on poorly drafted legislation.

More than 20 years ago, in Morgentaler's case, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Criminal Code prohibitions on abortion in part because the rules governing hospital therapeutic abortion committees were so deficient they violated principles of fundamental justice.

In the Bountiful case, it would be no stretch for a court to find fundamental justice similarly lacking in the loosely-constructed ban on polygamy, captured in sec. 293 of the Criminal Code, said Bruce Ryder, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.

The legislation is broadly drafted to apply to anyone who enters into "any kind of conjugal union" with more than one person simultaneously, whether or not it's a recognized marriage. Proof of sexual intercourse is unnecessary.

"It's impossible to read the text of sec. 293 and not laugh, because we'll all be worried about friends and loved onesvulnerable to prosecution," he said. "Of course, that's not going to happen in practical terms, but the issue becomes, from a Charter perspective, is that (wording) okay?"

Even if the law withstands a Charter challenge on grounds of religious freedom – it's expected the main legal battleground will be religion – Ryder believes there's virtually no chance it would survive an attack on its vague language, which potentially makes criminals out of a wide swath of Canadians.

"It's ludicrously broad," he said.

While the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in a 1937 case the provision does not apply to adultery, what constitutes a "conjugal relationship" under the law today is quite vague, and it shouldn't be left to prosecutors and judges to define a "polygamous" union, Ryder contends.

Especially, he argues, when the punishment is imprisonment up to five years, as was ever thus.

A ban on polygamy has been part of the Criminal Code since it was created in 1892.

Back then, the provision was sandwiched between prohibitions on abducting an heiress and having "intoxicating liquor" aboard Her Majesty's ships.

Besides making it illegal to enter into any conjugal union with more than one person at the same time, the section specifically banned "what among persons commonly called Mormons is known as spiritual or plural marriage." Mormons aren't mentioned in today's text.

Long before being targeted by the Criminal Code, however, polygamy bedeviled common law countries. In England in 1866, Lord Penzance, a British judge, had to consider whether to recognize a polygamous marriage performed under the then-polygamy-friendly laws of Utah for the purposes of granting the husband, who had returned to his native England, a divorce.

In deciding against it, he declared marriage "the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman," which became the definition of marriage throughout the common law world, including Canada (where it has since been superseded by changes to the Civil Marriage Act, which defines it as the "lawful union of two persons").

Polygamy's latest legal chapter is also part of Canada's long-running struggle over accommodating religious minorities.

That struggle began, arguably, with the 1867 Constitutional compromise that gave Catholic and Protestant minorities the right to separate school systems in Ontario and Quebec. In later decades, it included issues of discrimination against Jehovah's Witnesses, Sunday shopping, kirpans in schools, turbans versus hardhats and whether teachers trained at evangelical colleges can work in public schools.

In 1985, the Supreme Court ruled the freedom to hold, worship and practise religious beliefs was protected under the Charter. By then, courts could strike down unconstitutional laws and did so with the Lord's Day Act, which prevented Sunday shopping.

Five years ago, the court took things even further by ruling that anyone asserting a freedom of religion claim need only show their beliefs are sincerely held. They are not required to offer proof that a particular belief or practice is required by their religion. Given that low legal threshold now in place, many experts believe Blackmore's case for claiming the anti-polygamy provisions violate his freedom of religion is a slam dunk.

The federal government can argue the ban is justified on other grounds, but it's going to be in the unenviable position of defending a law originally designed – at least in part – to target Mormons, and that will be hard to sell, some legal experts contend.

But judges of the Supreme Court have also spoken quite powerfully about how freedom of religion doesn't encompass the right to inflict harm on others, said Lorraine Weinrib, a University of Toronto law professor.

The court was dealing with the case of parents, both Jehovah's Witnesses, who objected to a blood transfusion for their daughter, known as Sheena B., on religious grounds. Several judges said freedom of religion does not include the right to impose practices that threaten the safety or well-being of a child. The majority said temporary wardship, which allowed the girl to receive a transfusion, was justified.

Weinrib believes the anti-polygamy provisions could be quite easily defended on the basis of harm caused not only to women and children, but also to boys in such a community.

"The polygamous marriage is not only an arranged marriage, it's usually a marriage of a very young woman to a much older man. And there's all sorts of evidence as to how there can't be equality between a man and woman when there are multiple women," she said.

With most young women already matched to a husband, teenage boys are also known to be expelled from polygamous colonies to fend on their own, without much formal education, before they reach marriagable age, Weinrib says.

"This (polygamy) is not just harmful to women. I think it's harmful in a modern, liberal democratic sense to everyone in the community," she said. "Young men are not treated in a way individuals in a modern society are supposed to be treated, and it restrains people in a religious community in a way that they will not have full lives."

But Queen's University law professor Beverley Baines said monogamy can be harmful to women too. "Crimes involving abuse, kidnapping and spousal abuse have all been enacted in a monogamous regime.

"We don't do a very good job saving women in monogamous relationships, so why are we so fixated on saving women in polygamous ones?" she asked.

Evidence of harm is far from conclusive, Baines added. A 2005 federal report by McGill University law professor Angela Campbell found it hard to draw conclusions about whether polygamy is bad for women; while some studies report intolerable jealousy among wives, others suggest women thrive.

Criminalizing a marital state "makes no sense," particularly when many new Canadians come from countries where polygamy is accepted, said Baines, who worked on a research paper about polygamy in 2005 for Status of Women Canada.

"If Canada wants to claim to be a multi-cultural country, we have to reassess laws that have no other justification except Christian morality."

But repealing Canada's polygamy law would run counter to "clear trend," said Baines' colleague Nicholas Bala, a Queen's law professor who, with three colleagues, also wrote a paper for the federal agency.

Over the past century, more countries have moved to enact laws banning polygamy, based on concerns about harm. Polygamous marriages are now criminal or invalid in at least nine European, nine Asian and seven African countries, their paper said. Many have predominantly Muslim populations.

Courts in the U.S., India, Mauritius and the European Human Rights Court have also rejected freedom of religion arguments, many raised by Muslims challenging polygamy bans, said Bala and colleagues in their paper.

"The decriminalization or legalization of polygamy" in Canada, they wrote, "would send a very disappointing signal to human rights activists around the world who have been struggling to end the unequal treatment of women."

This article was found at:

http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/590948

Ignore the spin: State raid on polygamists the right thing to do

Dallas Morning News - December 30, 2008

by Jacquielynn Floyed | DMN Columnist

The state's raid on the West Texas polygamist compound has become a sacred touchstone, and not just for the peculiar sect that lived there.

It has mushroomed into a celebrated cause for those who mistrust "the government" in general and the state's child-welfare system in particular.

State-sponsored child snatchers seized shrieking babies from their desperate mothers' arms, they furiously recount in endless retellings via the Internet.

Families were torn apart by scheming, doctrinaire bureaucrats. Traumatized children remain unable to forget the nightmare of being "kidnapped" and bused away from home. And so on.

Well, people will believe what they want, often without regard to what facts and good sense should tell them. No amount of remedial analysis, at this late date, will remove the April 3 raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch from the sacramental calendar of government-martyr holy days.

We can live with it. We can live with the implied insistence that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints were somehow victims of state-sponsored persecution; that subsequent court rulings that Child Protective Services exceeded legal guidelines somehow vindicate the cultlike sect.

They do not, because the ugly-but-essential truth remains: Underage girls were routinely being "married" – and sexually violated – by middle-aged men, and nobody was doing a darn thing to stop it until the state of Texas showed up.

No angry anecdotes about CPS witch hunts can change that reality. No amount of black-helicopter paranoia alters that bald truth.

Still, critics are already dismissing a CPS report, issued last week, as a fabrication, a frame-up job. That report detailed the findings of the months-long investigation, including "spiritual" marriages between a dozen underage girls and adult men. It also cited the harm done by the constant exposure of young children to these "marriages."

I can only wonder at sect members, irate at state welfare workers for "traumatizing" children, who don't seem to think it's "traumatic" for a child to see his or her 13-year-old sister bundled off into sexual servitude to a man four times her age.

Those who complain over being "uprooted" from the Eldorado compound do not mention any discontent at being uprooted earlier, when loony FLDS "prophet" Warren Jeffs "invited" them to abandon their own old lives to colonize paradise-in-West Texas.

Those who weep angry tears over families torn apart might consider opening their homes to the so-called "lost boys," teenagers who have been forcibly cast out of FLDS communities to maintain a favorable ratio of adult men to potential plural wives.

The fact is that it was virtually impossible to carry out a surgical removal of only the most-victimized kids from the FLDS compound.

Given the sect's reclusive nature and the extraordinary indoctrination of its members from infancy onward, the state had two choices: Remove all the kids up front and sort it out later, or do nothing.

The state took the former route, which has cost it no end of hindsight harping over "Gestapo tactics" and extralegal "barbarianism."

The latter choice, the road that would have avoided all these public-relations problems, would have been to do nothing.

That would have been easy. No legal backlash, no religious-rights hysteria, no fresh round of fury against Texas' overloaded and often inefficient child-welfare system.

It would have been easy, but it would have been morally reprehensible.

That, we could not have lived with.

This article was found at:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jfloyd/stories/DN-floyd_30met.ART0.State.Edition2.
4a3c1b7.html

Saving Child Witches: A Nigerian Perspective

by Leo Igwe, executive secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement

Some months ago, a British film-maker drew my attention to the plight of children in Akwa Ibom State who had been accused of being witches and wizards and thrown out of their homes by their families and relatives. In August, I travelled to the city of Eket to meet with these kids and the individuals helping to look after them, to find out how my organization could offer help and support.

First of all, I met with Luckyimoh Inyang of Stepping Stones Nigeria. The UK branch of his organization is raising money to support these children. Mr. Inyang told me how they had been rescuing children who had been beaten, burnt and brutalized by their own parents, and he took me to a school block and a football field which some of these children had taken as their home. They sleep there at night and roam the streets during the day in search of food. We also met some of the kids on the streets, who were carrying plastic bags filled with rice, garri and soup. Mr. Inyang told me that was how the children were trying to survive: donations were not enough, so some of them try to support themselves by taking left over food items from ceremonies, even though they are sometimes physically attacked when they do this. The children looked sick, malnourished and unkempt.

After meeting with Inyang, I went to see Mr. Sam Ikpe-Ituama of the Child’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network. Sam and his wife manage a camp where some of the kids live. Sam had been taking care of these children in his house, but eventually he had to set up the camp, with a school and a dormitory, to accommodate the increasing number of child victims. Right now the camp has over 130 children; most of them are less than ten years old. I interviewed some of them and they told me about their horrible and traumatic ordeals. Two girls described how they had been chained to a window for days, before being starved, beaten and thrown into the bush to die by parents and relations who accused them of causing diseases and death in the family by bewitchment. Other kids explained how they had been taken to churches and subjected by pastors to various forms of torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment, all in the name exorcism and deliverance. Most of the children had scars on their bodies. Some were still nursing wounds which they sustained in the course of this terrible experience. I was totally shocked and dumbfounded by what I saw. Particularly, I was stunned to hear that many of the kids had been in the camp for over three years. It was obvious that the local authorities had neglected and completely ignored this tragic situation. I was told that some officials of the Akwa Ibom State Government had visited the camp, but that nothing had been heard afterwards. So the camp and children were surviving on the limited donations they were receiving from overseas.

So I was delighted to hear that on November 4, the documentary Saving Africa’s Witch Children was broadcast in the UK, on Channel 4. This documentary has brought to the attention of the world the pain, agony, abuse and trauma which these children have suffered and endured over the years. It has exposed to the world the intellectual anomie, cultural darkness, social stagnation, moral decadence and primitive mentality that prevail in Nigeria as a result of ignorance, poverty, superstition and religious fanaticism. It has also demonstrated graphically the greed, thievery, mischief and charlatanism of pastors and other men and women, who deceive, debase, defraud and degrade human beings in the name of God. Witch-hunting is history in the western world, but in Nigeria and in Africa it is an ongoing experience.

Now, the question is: How do we save these children?

First of all we need to raise money to support them and provide them with basic necessities of life: food, shelter, clothing and education. The children need medical care, counselling and rehabilitation programs. The government of Akwa Ibom State must wake up to its duties and responsibilities. The police should investigate and ensure that parents and the persons who perpetrated these atrocities – including the pastors who aided and abetted these criminal acts – are adequately punished.

More importantly long-term, we need to launch a nationwide campaign against superstition and belief in witchcraft. Nigerians should be told that witches are not real, and that witches and spirits are imaginary entities created by primitive minds during the infancy of human race to explain situations and issues they could not understand or resolve commonsensically. This campaign should be taken to all Nigerian schools, colleges and universities. It should be publicized over the radios and television, in the newspapers, in market places, in churches and mosques.

In particular, we need to check the activities of our so called pastors and other self styled men and women of God who use the Bible or Holy books to perpetrate and justify atrocious acts and human right abuses. These religious charlatans continue to act and preach in ways that reinforce the belief in witches and provoke acts of witch accusation, persecution and killing. This has been the driving force in Akwa Ibom State, and until Nigerians learn to reject superstition and irrationalism such tragedies will continue to occur.

In most cases pastors invoke the Biblical verse Exodus 22:8, which says “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live”, to justify their position, so we also need combat this wave of Pentecostalism that promotes literal interpretation and blind faith in the “word of God”. To save the witch-children in Nigeria and rescue this nation from witch-believing forces, we need to get all Nigerians to exercise their common sense, reason and critical intelligence when practicing or professing their religion or belief. This is especially important when they are reading, preaching and interpreting messages and doctrines contained in their holy books.

(c) Leo Igwe 2008. Permission granted for non-profit re-publication, although please acknowledge authorship. The author asserts his moral rights.

This article was found at:

http://barthsnotes.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/saving-child-witches-a-nigerian-perspective/

Persecuting the African child

Nigerian Tribune - December 2, 2008

It was easy for the notion of child witches or kindoki to gain a firm foothold in Angola as in many other African nations, as one of the key African beliefs is that of the potency of witchcraft.

Opinion | by Olusegun Fakoya

Africa abounds with various forms of child abuses, arising mostly from prevalent poverty and ignorance. This notwithstanding, the paramount role of the child in the African setting has never been in question. However, the traditional African belief and attitude to children has been successfully fractured by those who have deliberately perverted traditional belief and infused it with a distorted dose of Christianity.

The near constant strife and the desperate civil war in the Congo DR which has killed over four million people since the late 1990s, orphaned many children, leaving other families intact but too destitute to feed themselves. This has created a festering opportunity for shirking family responsibilities and the transference of frustration on innocent children. In the Congo Republic, a surprising number of children are accused of being witches, and thereafter, beaten, abused or abandoned. Child advocates estimate that thousands of children living in the streets of Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, have been accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families, often as a rationale for not having to feed or care for them. There are over 50,000 homeless children on the streets of that lawless city, stealing, begging, and selling anything they can find, including themselves. The true number is incalculable but this estimate is certainly conservative.

Many of these abandoned kids are AIDS orphans. Others are the children of Congo’s desperate civil war, but a shockingly high proportion of these children are on the streets because of the mushrooming influence of the new revivalist churches who have comfortably carved a commercial niche for themselves in the business of “child kindoki”. Prof Hoskins stated that still more children are not on the streets but are held virtual prisoners in church compounds, apparently awaiting exorcism. In 2006, Congo’s Social Affairs minister, Bernard Ndjunga, estimated that as much as 50,000 children might just be illegally detained by churches specialising in the removal of kindoki.

It is perhaps natural to state that the situation in the Congo Republic would only be reflected in Angola, what with the country’s 27 years of civil war and social disharmony. The influx of Congolese pastors did not in any way help Angolans to peacefully come to terms with the effects of war and its consequential widespread poverty and hardship. Congolese pastors invaded Angola, bringing with them the message of kindoki and further destabilization of an already fractured society. In 2006, it was officially estimated that one northern Angolan town had over 400 abandoned and abused children stigmatised as witches. Same year, the United Nations Children Fund described the number of child witches in Angola as being massive. It was easy for the notion of child witches or kindoki to gain a firm foothold in Angola as in many other African nations, as one of the key African beliefs is that of the potency of witchcraft. It is commonly believed that witches can communicate with the world of the dead or other such supernatural plane, and usurp or “eat” the life force of others, bringing their victims misfortune, illness and death. Adult witches are said to bewitch children by giving them food and then using them to achieve their nefarious goals by bringing misfortunes to their families, causing illness, bad luck and death. In retaliation, gory tales abound of the atrocities committed against children in the fight back against child witches. Two cases were particularly significant. A mother blinded her 14-year- old daughter with bleach in an attempt to rid her of evil visions, while a father injected battery acid into his 12-year- old son’s stomach because he feared the boy was a wizard.

One of the notable propagators of kindoki in Congo DR is Prophet Onokoko who as at 1999, had over 230 children on his book, all accused of witchcraft. He employed what he termed “vomit up the devil system” to exorcise children of kindoki. This is the regurgitation of strange objects after these kids have been forcefully made to drink bizarre concoctions. There are other sects involved in these unwholesome practices in Congo, chief amongst which is the Combat Spirituel Church with its headquarters in Kinshasa and numerous branches all over the country and outside, United Kingdom inclusive.

Nigeria, being a land of opportunities and brimming with opportunists, , did not lag behind in wholeheartedly adopting the concept of child witches. It is instructive to note however that the end of the civil war in Nigeria, despite its resultant hardship with social disruptions, did not lead to an upsurge of this phenomenon.
But the current situation in Akwa Ibom State and other parts of the Niger Delta remains a shame. For as long as it is allowed to continue, it remains a stigma on Nigeria. For as long as it flourishes without restraint, for so long will it remain a blur on the conscience of the Christian Association of Nigeria and all those who at daggers drawn in defence of the impeccability of modern-day Pentecostalism. For as long as this unchecked instances of child abuse reign in Nigeria, for so long will men and women of good will and clear conscience the world over, continue to confront the problems created by a nation that has allowed its territory to become a nightmare for innocent children and mediocrity.

Children ostracised by being labelled as witches, pay a heavy price. Gone is the innocence associated with childhood, the care and embrace of loving parents. Such children become social outcasts, rejected by parents and communities, faced with insurmountable obstacles and subjected to indescribable tortures. The beneficiaries of these gory spectacles are the churches who engage in exorcism. Dubious exorcism at prohibitive costs. There is no point going into the details of this any longer, Mag Gavan film explains it in details and this film can be accessed online. The Nigerian phenomenon of child witches started attracting international attention as far back as 2005. Tracy McVeigh visited Esit Eket in 2007 in the course of investigating it and produced a film to document her findings. What Mag Gavan recently did was to add flavour to a simmering problem that refused to abate.

It is to be expected that Nigerians in the diaspora would not be left behind in manifesting the paranoia associated with the child witches phenomenon. The United Kingdom abounds with Nigerian-oriented churches practising the Nigerian version of Pentecostalism with its prejudices and notable flaws. This is said with reference to the unwholesome impact of non-Nigerian sects like that of Pastor Gilbert Deya and so many others from the African continent. In essence, Britain remains like a microcosm of Africa with our blemishes and impurities fully represented. The practice of kindoki is strongly rooted in the Congolese communities in the United Kingdom. Cases abound where parents have attributed ill luck in the UK to kindoki in their children. Often times, such children have been returned to the Congo for exorcism, some not to be seen again. Not too long ago, in Bradford, a Nigerian pastor was convicted of charges of child abuse. The abuse was directed to none other than his kids, whom he accused of possessing witchcraft.

Witchcraft apart, Nigerian kids face sundry abuses in the United Kingdom. Nigerians, pastors and non-pastors, bring children to the United Kingdom to work as housemaids, shop-helps and so on. Such kids are denied basic education which does not cost a dime in this clime. Education officials have lamented specifically about the abuses Nigerian kids are being subjected to. Kids are forced to participate in various demanding church activities, including being subjected to night vigils and prolonged fasting. The result is that sleeping during school hours remains the norm with associated poor performances.

Nigeria has actively continued to neglect the welfare of its citizens, adults and children alike. The concept of governance in Nigeria remains mired in corruption and political insensitivity. Manifestations of trappings of power and insensitivity of government to the citizenry are the order of the day.

Governments of the world need to come together in action and in deeds to tackle the menace posed by the phenomenon of kindoki or child witches. Africa as a continent can only become further impoverished by the sustenance of this retrogressive practice. In this age and time, what Africa needs is not the concept of child witches but technological advancement, economic, social and political emancipation. Africa needs enlightenment and not the concept of child witches. Africa needs prosperity and not further marginalisation by a hybrid religion that has done little to shake off the shackles of superstition and ignorance.

Dr Fakoya lives in London.

This article was found at:

http://www.tribune.com.ng/02122008/opinion.html

'Child-witches' of Nigeria seek refuge

The Telegraph - UK
November 9, 2008

Mary is a pretty five-year-old girl with big brown eyes and a father who kicked her out onto the streets in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Her crime: the local priest had denounced her as a witch and blamed her "evil powers" for causing her mother's death.

by David Harrison

Children from Crarn accused of being witches and wizards, protesting outside the Governor's headquarters. Photo: Mags Gavan, Redrebel Films

Ostracised, vulnerable and frightened, she wandered the streets in south-eastern Nigeria, sleeping rough, struggling to stay alive.
Mary was found by a British charity worker and today lives at a refuge in Akwa Ibom province with 150 other children who have been branded witches, blamed for all their family's woes, and abandoned. Before being pushed out of their homes many were beaten or slashed with knives, thrown onto fires, or had acid poured over them as a punishment or in an attempt to make them "confess" to being possessed. In one horrific case, a young girl called Uma had a three-inch nail driven into her skull.
Yet Mary and the others at the shelter are the lucky ones for they, at least, are alive. Many of those branded "child-witches" are murdered - hacked to death with machetes, poisoned, drowned, or buried alive in an attempt to drive Satan out of their soul.
The devil's children are "identified" by powerful religious leaders at extremist churches where Christianity and traditional beliefs have combined to produce a deep-rooted belief in, and fear of, witchcraft. The priests spread the message that child-witches bring destruction, disease and death to their families. And they say that, once possessed, children can cast spells and contaminate others.
The religious leaders offer help to the families whose children are named as witches, but at a price. The churches run exorcism, or "deliverance", evenings where the pastors attempt to drive out the evil spirits. Only they have the power to cleanse the child of evil spirits, they say. The exorcism costs the families up to a year's income.
During the "deliverance" ceremonies, the children are shaken violently, dragged around the room and have potions poured into their eyes. The children look terrified. The parents look on, praying that the child will be cleansed. If the ritual fails, they know their children will have to be sent away, or killed. Many are held in churches, often on chains, and deprived of food until they "confess" to being a witch.
The ceremonies are highly lucrative for the spiritual leaders many of whom enjoy a lifestyle of large homes, expensive cars and designer clothes.
Ten years ago there were few cases of children stigmatised by witchcraft. But since then the numbers have grown at an alarming rate and have reached an estimated 15,000 in Akwa Ibom state alone.
Some Nigerians blame the increase on one of the country's wealthiest and most influential evangelical preachers. Helen Ukpabio, a self-styled prophetess of the 150-branch Liberty Gospel Church, made a film, widely distributed, called End of the Wicked. It tells, in graphic detail, how children become possessed and shows them being inducted into covens, eating human flesh and bringing chaos and death to their families and communities.
Mrs Ukpabio, a mother of three, also wrote a popular book which tells parents how to identify a witch. For children under two years old, she says, the key signs of a servant of Satan are crying and screaming in the night, high fever and worsening health - symptoms that can be found among many children in an impoverished region with poor health care.
The preacher says that her work is true to the Bible and is a means of spreading God's word. "Witchcraft is a problem all over Nigeria and someone with a gift like me can never hurt anybody," she says. "Every Nigerian wants to watch my movies." She denies that her teachings and films could encourage child abuse.
One British charity worker is fighting to help the children stigmatised as witches. Gary Foxcroft, 29, programme director for the UK charity Stepping Stones, Nigeria, first came to the country in 2003 to research the oil industry for his masters degree. But he was so shocked when he learned about the children's plight that he decided to help raise money for the refuge - the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (Crarn) - and try to persuade the parents to take their children back. He has also helped to build a school for the children who are refused places at local schools.
"Any Christian would look at the situation that is going on here and just be absolutely outraged that they were using the teachings of Jesus Christ to exploit and abuse innocent children," says Mr Foxcroft whose expose of what he describes as "an absolute scandal" will be screened in a Channel 4 documentary on Wednesday.
The Niger Delta is an oil-rich region but the wealth does not reach the people who live there. The locals blame their hardship on the Devil but international analysts point to the oil industry's large-scale contamination of air, land and sea.
In the documentary, the charity worker visits one of the pastors, a man who calls himself "the Bishop" and who claims to be able to drive evil spirits out of "possessed" children. At his church in Ibaka, the Bishop pours a homemade substance called African mercury, a potion of pure alcohol and his own blood, into the eyes of a young boy lying on a table. "I want this poison destroyer to destroy the witch right now, in Jesus' name," he says.
The priest charges £170 - in a country where millions of people are forced to live on less than £1 a day - for "treating" a child every night for two weeks, and holds them captive until the bill is paid.
He has recently refined his techniques for dealing with child witches. "I killed up to 110 people who were identified as being a witch," he says. He claims there are 2.3million "witches and wizards" in Akwa Ibom province alone.
The children's shelter was started five years ago when Sam Itauma, a Nigerian, opened his house to four youngsters accused of witchcraft. Today, he and his five staff are caring for 150 youngsters. "Every day, five or six children are branded as witches," he says "Once a child has been stigmatised as a witch, it is very difficult for someone to accept that child back. If they go out from this community... there is a lot of attacks, assault and abuses on the children." Children often arrive at the shelter with severe wounds, but few clinics or hospitals will treat a child believed to be a witch.
"Christianity in the Niger Delta is seriously questionable, putting a traditional religion together with Christian religion - and it makes nonsense out of it," he says. "If you are not rich and don't have anything to eat, you look to blame someone. And if you don't get anything, you blame it on the witches."
Christians have been in Nigeria since the 19th century and the Niger Delta area claims to have more churches per square mile than any other place on Earth. The vast majority of the country's 60 million Christians are moderate, but an influx of Pentecostals over the past 50 years has led some churches to be dominated by extremist views. Five years ago, the Nigerian government passed a Child Rights Act, which made abuse illegal, but not every state has adopted it.
At the refuge, a baby girl called Utibe and her five-year-old sister, Utitofong, are dumped at the gate by their mother because a "prophet" told her that Utitofong was a witch and had passed the spell to her sister. The mother, who spent four months' salary on an unsuccessful exorcism, left them at the centre because she feared they would be killed. The police are called but locals offer them no help.
Mr Itauma goes to the village to try and convince the locals to accept the daughters' return, but the older girl is threatened by a man with a machete. "Get away from our food - I'll kill you," he shouts. Utibe is allowed to stay, but the older girl has to go back to the refuge.
At the end of the film, Mr Foxcroft and all the "child-witches" stage a demonstration at the Governor's residence in the state capital, Uyo, and urge him to adopt the Child Rights Act." After four hours the Governor comes out and says the Act will be adopted. It has since been adopted, but so far not a single pastor has been convicted of any offence. And the rescue centre still takes in up to 10 children a week.
Mr Foxcroft took Mary back to her village where he was told that her father left a year ago to find work in Cameroon. A cousin says: "She is a witch, we don't want her here." Mary is now back at the refuge.

• Dispatches Special: Saving Africa's Witch Children will be shown on Channel 4 on Wednesday, 12 November, at 9pm

This article was found at:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeria/3407882/Child-witches-of-Nigeria-
seek-refuge.html