Young wives' ages come under scrutiny
 States' officials are investigating possible fraud in Mormon group
 
By Jane Zhang
The Spectrum
 
COLORADO CITY, Ariz. -- As the populations of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, continue to grow -- fueled largely by a high birth rate among families who are members of a breakaway Mormon group that believes in polygamy -- the two towns are coming under more scrutiny from state officials.

Utah and Arizona prosecutors are taking a look at the ages of some of the younger wives and are investigating what they say is tax and welfare fraud in the two towns. In Hildale, 66 percent of residents are on Medicaid. In Colorado City, it's nearly 100 percent. But the actual use of services -- except for pediatrics and obstetrics -- is unusually low.

Colorado City's mayor said the states spend less money on the two cities in general because none of the children from polygamist families, the bulk of children in the towns, goes to public school.

But the states are concerned about other practices of the breakaway group.

The Utah Legislature in March increased the penalty for polygamists marrying underage girls -- younger than 16 or 17, ages at which a person needs either a parent's or a judge's permission to marry -- from a third-degree felony to second-degree felony. The child bigamy law went into effect earlier this month.

Arizona doesn't have a statute against polygamy, even though the state Constitution has a clause prohibiting the practice. But Dianna Jennings, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Terry Goddard, said Arizona has a zero-tolerance policy toward abuses of women and children in polygamous communities.

Today, 30,000 to 50,000 polygamists live in the Western United States. Besides the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the Utah-Arizona state line, polygamists are scattered in the region stretching from St. George, Utah, to Salt Lake City to British Columbia, Canada.

"They are all over the place," said Washington County, Utah, Sheriff Kirk Smith. "We have them literally in every county in the state of Utah. It's not uncommon in the Western United States."

But without witnesses or a paper trail, Smith asked, how do you prove beyond reasonable doubt that they are polygamists?

"It's not just us," he said. "This is anywhere because it's a difficult case to prosecute."

Many parents living in polygamous societies don't have "the free agency" to protect their underage children when religious leaders summon them for plural marriages, said Jay Beswick, a child protection advocate who has helped women flee polygamous marriages.

A lot of young brides don't know their rights, either.

"These young women that are brainwashed from birth ... deserve a public education that presents resources and options for them that are not available in a closed and isolated society," Beswick said.
 
TheSpectrum.com
Originally published May 29, 2003
 
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