I received a response to my last column printed in The Spectrum & Daily News, Sept. 18, which I found intriguing. Particularly because the woman responding is a former victim and child bride from the FLDS Church in Hildale, Utah. I spoke to her on the phone and received permission to post this on the blog for readers to chime in. While she and I disagree about federal intervention in the polygamous sects of Utah and Arizona, we do both agree that more intensive investigation, protective services and other resources need to be conducted to protect abused women and children of both sexes. The main point is that it is the 21st Century and no child, whether in a polygamous, monogamous or other familial arrangement, should be left in a household of abuse and degradation. Please read the following and give your point of view. Keep your eyes open for a print op-ed from Flora Jessop, too.
Dear Ms. Weaver:
My name is Flora Jessop and I am a former victim/member of the FLDS. I ESCAPED twenty years ago and now help others who want to escape and have been working with the states of Utah and Arizona for seven long years in trying to obtain services for the victims of polygamy. As a result I can assure you that you are very wrong in your assessment of the polygamy issue. I am asking that you publish my response as an op ed piece. Here are a few facts for future reference.
"While it is admirable that Reid has recognized the problem and brought national attention to the issue, Utah and Arizona law enforcement and legal teams have been doing exactly what he’s proposed for decades - and with federal support." — The Spectrum
First, I would ask where you found your facts for such an irresponsible editorial? Utah and Arizona were brought KICKING and SCREAMING into this issue by activists determined to protect children. The media, state and local officials have for fifty years shown a pattern and practice of indifference, incompetence, and outright collusion with the polygamist criminal leadership, which denied those trapped within their civil and human rights, and now we see the Spectrum continue with this sad commentary against United States Senator Harry Reid's sound proposals. It is the adult and child victims whose complaints were ignored for decades. Since 1953 the state consistently returned young girls running from rape, euphemistically called celestial marriage, to their abusers. Only quite recently when activists succeeded in gathering enough media pressure to shine a spotlight on the corruption between polygamist leaders in local and state positions of power has a lackluster effort been pursued by law enforcement. In the long interim, scores of people seeking their civil rights and human rights were harmed, many irreparably.
No charges have been lodged in the many trafficking cases of young girls across state and international borders and all reported to state authorities by activists and concerned family members. The many missing and dead are of course silent. Victim/survivors continue to cry out for the same freedoms you enjoy. But none of this bothers you.
State officials are falling all over themselves to reason why 58 unmarked child graves and a death rate of over 50% children is not obscene inside this isolated Jeffs compound. The facts regarding the cheap value child life holds inside polygamy are still unknown. A few days before this editorial the Spectrum ran an incredibly biased news article claiming the high numbers of dead children is nothing to be concerned about, completely irresponsible. Given the honed criminal practices in this cult, including human slavery, Reid is absolutely correct in his assessment:
"For too long, this outrageous activity has been masked in the guise of religious freedom. But child abuse and human servitude have nothing to do with religious freedom and must not be tolerated," Reid wrote. "Individuals who force minors into adult relationships and marriage must be brought to justice."
"Neither state, nor the U.S. for that matter, will benefit from an added governmental layer of oversight into what has taken years of painstaking perseverance and unprecedented patience with the insulated communities, which has made it extremely difficult to protect victims or pursue perpetrators." — The Spectrum
News Flash! It is the victim/survivors who have spent "years of painstaking perseverance and unprecedented patience with" the States of Utah and Arizona documenting and reporting crime after crime to no avail. Still the children remain unprotected.
The only reason it is "extremely difficult to protect victims or pursue perpetrators" is that law enforcement has not been willing to PROSECUTE fully and the few cases tried result in perpetrators taking a WALK. It is endemic to polygamy that the captive children are taught there is no escape. When a former captive does find the courage to come forward with the crimes committed against them, they are often treated as the criminal, blamed for the misdeeds of the patriarchy. Then the priesthood perpetrator is sent directly back home to continue the abuse, just like every other day.
"A lack of resources kept prosecutors' hands tied and mouths shut. They only were able to do so much with the reports, which admittedly was minimal in Utah, since the state Legislature only allocated enough funding for one investigator." — The Spectrum
"A lack of resources kept prosecutors' hands tied and mouths shut?" Did you intentionally set out to insult the victim/survivors of this abuse? If someone comes forward with allegations of abuse and crimes outside of polygamy, it is not a problem to prosecute. Only when it is a victim inside polygamy those resources are lacking.
There have been dozens of reports made to Utah and Arizona authorities by polygamy victim/survivors who were brushed off because there was no will to prosecute. And it should only take ONE investigator to take victims statement, find the necessary evidence, and move forward with prosecuting the perpetrators. And now we find the AG's of Utah and Arizona have created something much more "misdirected and unproductive" than anything Senator Reid concocted by their creation of the so-called 'Safety Net Committee’. Activists were led to believe this group was to offer aid and assistance to polygamy survivors who wanted OUT of the abuses but once again we found a boatload of questionable practices between authorities and polygamist cult members.
This so-called Safety Net has done nothing but sabotage the escaped victims of polygamy. Then they provided a platform for polygamists to discuss the decriminalization of polygamy. The ONLY thing the Utah and Arizona AG's have done to date is TELL US what a good job they are doing when in reality they endorsed a committee which gathers all the criminal polygamous cults together to plan for legalizing polygamy and all of this under the guise of freeing the trapped and oppressed. Decriminalizing polygamy would deny every survivor his or her basic human and civil rights.
You claim we do not need federal oversight and seem to believe this is a state rights issue and the federal government should stay in Washington DC. That's what the original slavers claimed as well and now you side with the modern day slavers, the polygamist white brotherhood, masquerading as a 'church'. Possibly you've forgotten this so called church is a noted white supremacy hate organization?
I say we desperately need not only federal intervention into why the separation of church and state failed so miserably in Utah and Arizona but international help as well. Who supported and protected these criminal white brotherhoods, if not the governments of the two states bowing to the powerful influence of the LDS Church mandate to do nothing: maintain the status quo. The polygamists live in an LDS protectorate, barren areas in the West first settled by LDS polygamists escaping the federal law. These LDS members then became the judicial, legislative, and legal authority who then ran these isolated city and county governments where they allowed any crime against a child to go unnoticed and unprotected, even death.
Consider Orrin Hatch and Mike Leavitt, two powerful LDS men who have both stated support for polygamists. I have been to Salt Lake City and met with LDS Quorum member Jeffery R Holland to ask the LDS Priesthood to support services for the women and children fleeing polygamist oppression. Brother Holland then sent me a nice letter informing me that the LDS Church does not get involved in private ventures. Utah and Arizona are the only states I know of where abuse and human slavery are considered a ‘Private Venture’.
Since you see nothing wrong with these practices, send your daughter, sister, cousin or Mother into polygamist servitude. Only then will you have the right to voice an opinion of the wonders of being enslaved and abused in the name of eternal salvation (for the abusers) and eternal damnation (for the victims).
Sincerely,
Flora Jessop
Child Victim Advocate
Contact Editorial Page Editor Jennifer Weaver at 435-674-6202 or e-mail jeweaver@thespectrum.com. For more commentary on this issue visit www.southernutahblog.com.
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