Canadian police probe FLDS reports
 Abuse allegations: Media articles tell of trafficking women and girls from southern Utah areas
 
By Mark Thiessen
The Associated Press
 
Authorities are investigating the alleged abuse of women and children in a Canadian outpost of a southern Utah-based polygamous community.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is investigating the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of Bountiful, British Columbia, which believes in plural marriage as a tenet of the faith, spokeswoman Cpl. Catherine Galliford said Thursday.

The Bountiful congregation is affiliated with the FLDS church that has its base in the twin border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where an estimated 10,000 followers live.

"Finally," said Rowenna Erickson, a co-founder of the Salt Lake City-based Tapestry Against Polygamy. "They've been trafficking girls for a long time."

Messages left Thursday by The Associated Press with Rod Parker and R. Scott Barry, lawyers for the church in southern Utah, were not immediately returned.

Police in the RCMP's Vancouver, B.C., division decided last week to launch the investigation after numerous reports surfaced of the alleged abuse, Galliford said.

"There have been more recent allegations made through the media," Galliford said. "We decided as a police force, it's time to clear the air once and for all."

The most recent allegations of sexual abuse and forced marriage were reported Thursday in The Daily Telegraph of London. Women who have fled the community of about 1,000 residents told the newspaper of girls in their early teens forced to marry older men and of the routine trafficking of underage girls between Canada and southern Utah.

"It's white slavery," said Erickson, who claimed similar complaints have been made and ignored by American and Utah officials. Previous investigations by Utah and Canadian officials found no basis for prosecution.

"We've been trying to tell them about these young girls being hauled off," she said. "They weren't really interested."

The RCMP is working with the British Columbian provincial government in the investigation.

"We feel we may have to have some social workers involved in this process with us," Galliford said.

British Columbia Attorney General Geoff Plant supports the police investigation and has offered a lawyer if needed, an aide in his Victoria, B.C., office said.

Polygamy is among the teachings of Mormon church founder Joseph Smith. But the practice was abandoned by the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint more than a century ago as the Utah territory sought statehood.

The Utah Constitution bans polygamy and the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints excommunicates those who advocate it. But it's believed that tens of thousands in Utah and more than 30,000 across the West continue to practice it in small, secretive sects in the West.

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The Salt Lake Tribune contributed to this report.
 
The Associated Press
Originally published August 6, 2004
 
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