Pressure being applied to break FLDS silence
 
By Mike Weland
Kootenai Valley Press News
 
Teachers in Creston have called upon their federation to request a full investigation of the community of Bountiful, British Columbia, and a judge in the United States has ordered that notices be published in newspapers in Creston, St. George, Utah, Eldorado, Texas, and Cortez, Colorado in an effort to bring Warren Jeffs, the leader and "prophet" of the Fundamental Latter Day Saints, to court to face sexual abuse charges leveled by his nephew.

In late October, Jinny Sims, Vancouver, B.C., president of the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation, Vancouver, sent a letter to British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell urging a full investigation by multiple agencies over concerns regarding the education of FLDS children at two private, church run schools near Creston.

Under Canadian law, even private schools receive public funds, but they are expected to provide a complete education under Canada’s Independent School Act.

Only one of the two schools receives funding, the other operates illegally on a tract of farmland, and the church is reported to be working toward education ministry approval for funding.

"Government grants have not been terminated, nor has the school be ordered to shut down," Sims wrote.

The Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School has benefited from nearly $5.5-million in public funds in the two decades its been in existence, last year receiving $460,826 from the Ministry of Education.

In the letter, Sims writes, "Serious allegations regarding this community have been raised on several occasions, yet your government has not taken any definitive action."

The letter goes on outline the nature of those allegations; that female students are encouraged to leave school before the age of sixteen, that male students are turned out of the community and from school because they are not adhering to the faith, allegations of standard curriculum not being followed, and the teaching of racial and ethnic superiority and religious intolerance.

"The low completion rates for the students who enroll in Bountiful’s independent schools are such that if they occurred in a public school, there would be intense scrutiny by the Ministry of Education," Sims wrote.

In addition to concerns over educational issues, Sims also cited allegations of human rights abuses and sexual abuse.

"The members of the British Columbia Teacher’s Federation are incredulous that your government has done nothing to pursue allegations of sexual abuse and trafficking of girls and women in the community," Sims wrote. "Last summer, the attorney general said the government was going to do a full investigation into allegations of sexual exploitation of your girls and discriminatory teachings at the school, yet to date no such investigation has been initiated, much less conducted. The reports of the exploitation of girls and women go well beyond religious freedom rights and it is incumbent upon the attorney general to ensure that all citizens of British Columbia are protected from abuses."

The letter goes on to cite a report written over ten years ago by the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services that outlined a number of serious concerns.

"The provincial government has not addressed or pursued any of these calls for investigations," Sims wrote. "An all-encompassing investigation in the schools and community of Bountiful must be initiated immediately. The children and women of Bountiful need this government’s protection."

Back in the United States, Third District Judge Stepehn Henriod, Salt Lake City, Utah, found cause to believe that church leader Warren Jeffs, who has been in hiding for several months, is hiding to avoid being served a summons for a sexual abuse case filed July 29 by his nephew, Brent Jeffs, 21, who alleges that Warren and two other of his uncles, Blaine Jeffs and Leslie Jeffs, sexually assaulted him when he was a child. In the complaint, Brent said that all three told him "the actions were a way to make him a man."

Based on the conclusion, Henriod ordered that notices be published in the Creston Advance, the Cortez Journal, Cortez, Colorado, the Eldorado Success in Eldorado, Texas, and in the Washington County, Utah, Spectrum.

The main group of the estimated 12,000 FLDS adherents are based in the twin cities of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. After succeeding to the status of "prophet" following his father’s death in 1998, Warren ordered a three-yard thick wall be built around the compound at Hildale.

There are also compounds in Bountiful, in Eldorado, Texas, and a new one that sprang up earlier this year in Mancos, Colorado. It is believed Jeffs, who owns a private airplane, is shuttling between the compounds in an effort to avoid being served.

Once those notices have been confirmed to have been published, Jeffs will have 20 days to respond to answer to the charges.

In his complaint, Brent says that the incidents of sexual abuse took place in the 1980s, when he was five and six years old, at the church’s now-defunct private Alta Academy in Salt Lake City. The suit names his three uncles and the FLDS Church as church leaders, he said, knew of the acts but did nothing to stop them.

He is seeking unspecified damages and is also seeking reimbursement of money he and his parents paid into the United Effort Plan, a church trust established decades ago to provide for FLDS families, and to stop current church leaders from disposing of any trust assets.

Reports indicate that since taking over the church, Warren Jeffs has re-written the trust by-laws to give himself total control of the fund, and that he’s using it as his personal treasure chest. Those who’ve protested his actions, including Boundary County’s Winston Blackmore, have been excommunicated from the fold, and their "wives" and children taken and given to other men deemed faithful by Jeffs.

Rather than lose his wives to Jeffs, it is reported that Blackmore’s excommunication caused a rift in the church, and a number of adherents have broken away from Jeffs, who is viewed as a radical fanatic, to follow Blackmore, who is considered more moderate.

There are also reports that young women, some as young as 13 years old, are being moved between compounds and given to much older men as "celestial brides," who have no legal rights or right of property ownership, making them, in effect, concubines. According to those who’ve studied the group, these young women are encouraged to have numerous children and to seek state support as single mothers to help feed them.

These children, it is said, grow up knowing little else but the teachings of the FLDS Church. The boys, it is said, are raised from birth to serve the church by working for church-owned businesses, wherein most of what they earn goes into the United Effort Plan, while the girls are raised to be "brides" and to have more children.
 
kvpress.com
Originally published December 7, 2004
 
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