Child-bigamy law explained
Goddard outlines strategy
 
The Arizona Republic
 
A state law banning child bigamy was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Janet Napolitano this month.

The law makes religious marriages or cohabitation between a married adult and a minor a felony. It also gives the state the ability to charge church pastors who perform the ceremonies and the minors' parents with felony crimes. Modeled after a Utah law, the statute grew out of reports of teenage girls being forced into marriages in Colorado City, a remote community near the Arizona-Utah line dominated by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

It goes into effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns. Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard advocated the law and discussed it recently with Arizona Republic reporter Amanda J. Crawford.

QUESTION: Why did you feel this law was important?

ANSWER: There seemed to be a pretty major hole in the Arizona statutes as regarded plural marriages. They only affected a second marriage that was licensed by the state. The kind of situation we were running into with the polygamous communities was that the subsequent marriages were all performed in the church only and there were no licenses being issued. The second problem was that Arizona law was silent as to any kind of bigamist relationship with a child. We thought it was necessary to make it absolutely clear, as they did in Utah, that taking a woman under 18 as a second wife or third or fourth was not to be allowed.

Q: Were you able to prosecute men who took young women as wives before?

A: Only for what used to be called statutory rape, for child abuse. And that was based upon a very, very difficult factual determination that, in fact, there had been abuse. The evidence of that was the birth of a child before the woman reached the age of 18. Only in very rare cases were there complaining witnesses. You really don't have a case unless the young woman decides to complain.

Q: These communities are very closed to investigators. What is your strategy to enforce the law?

A: It involves, first and foremost, having the victims of these crimes feel safe in reporting them. Unfortunately, the situation has been that young women who are in trouble in a very, very isolated and tightly controlled community don't feel there is any place to turn and the last place they trust is the state of Arizona.

I think we have a very, very serious obligation to make sure that people know that there are confidential and secure areas to turn to for help and that their confidence will be respected and they will not just be turned into the authorities who have repressed them in the past. And that, in fact, if they are being abused, they will have a good chance to get out of that community and be able to live their lives somewhere else in safety.

Q: How do you plan to reach these young women?

A: What we are planning is modest, but I think it will be effective: a major advertising campaign to make sure that a secure 800 number is known by young women in the community and that they have every reason to trust it and to use it.

That number will be manned 24 hours a day by experts in child abuse and experts in what kind of assistance people can get if, in fact, they felt they were being forced into marriages against their wills.

Second, Mohave County is working to set up a justice center in Colorado City/Hilldale (Utah), which should open in June or July . . . It will be a presence of the outside world, if you will, which will be there if somebody needs their help. . . . This is not an effort to affect religion or even choice of living arrangements.

It is purely and simply an effort to make sure that if young people are being abused or coerced that they have a place to turn to find help.
 
azcentral.com
Originally published May 21, 2004
 
Back