Escaping Polygamy. Family in need!
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As Canadians, we may often take for granted our liberties, our freedom, our right to personal choice, and in our own humble way, take pride in even having these. In fact, as human beings these simple truths are at the core of what we know to be the essentials to life.
This is the story of a mother, and her four children who fled the polygamous cult in Utah of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS). This religious organization exists in Canada, the United States and Mexico, with almost 10,000 members.
Those who are members are born into it and know no other way of life. They are isolated and forbidden from interacting with the outside world, be it by speaking to the media, going onto the internet or speaking to ‘apostates’, or those who do not follow FLDS beliefs and practices. Doing so means you are considered a non-member. Your children are taken away, you are abandoned by all members and you are exiled into a ‘non-member community’. The expectation is that you will atone for your sins in an attempt to be welcomed back.
As extreme as this seems, it is a very real thing. This mother, (a fourth wife) as have many other sister-wives has had to fight to get her children back. Few are able. That she was, with the help of former members was a rarity.
A Family in Flight
Fearing for her safety, and for that of her four children ages six to 17, this single mother, who for obvious reasons must remain anonymous fled to Canada to seek out help from her new friends.
They are able, due to their refugee status to apply for immigration and are receiving counselling in order to recover from the emotional, mental and physical abuse they were subjected to.
Every dollar raised through this campaign will go directly to this family who is currently residing in a women’s shelter. It will help them with basic shelter needs, food, vehicle maintenance, winter clothing, school supplies, as well assist the children to reintegrate into a proper education system.
This campaign is an appeal to our common decency, our kindness, our empathy and generosity of spirit as Canadians; qualities which we all possess. The hope is that upon reading this, you will be compelled to act, stirred into action.And to change the lives in a most real and valuable way of one family in need.
FLDS: The Appalling Truth
On August 9th, 2011, this church’s leader, Warren Jeffs (formerly on the FBI’s ten most wanted list) was sentenced to life in prison for sexual assault of a child under age 14 and 20 years for sexual assault of a child under age 17. This spiritual leader of the FLDS church is considered a prophet of God has taught those born into this cult. It is told to FLDS members that he is still their prophet, regardless of his incarceration.
FLDS: The Frightful Fact
The FLDS believes that some sins require blood atonement, meaning you could shed your own blood for forgiveness. However, that practice has been extended beyond personal sacrifice. Before Warren Jeffs' incarceration, it was reported that he often preached a type of blood atonement that said you could kill a sinner in order to gain access to heaven. Choosing to depart from one's religion and its principles is called apostasy. Apostasy, based on Warren Jeffs’ teachings is considered a sinful offence that requires blood atonement.
Basic FLDS Practices:
1. Plural marriage: Current estimates state that Warren Jeffs may have upwards of 60 wives.As the type of polygamy practiced is polygyny, critics of this lifestyle claim that its practice inevitably leads to bride shortages and likely to child marriages, incest, and child abuse.
2. Forced marriage: The church has been suspected of trafficking underage women across state lines, as well as across the US–Canadaand US–Mexico borders, for the purpose of sometimes involuntary plural marriage and sexual abuse.The FLDS is suspected by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of having trafficked more than 30 under-age girls from Canada to the United States between the late 1990s and 2006 to be entered into polygamous marriages.
3. Welfare fraud: Church leaders have encouraged their flock to take advantage of government assistance in the form of welfare and the food stamps. Since the government recognizes only one woman as the legal wife of a man, the rest of his wives are considered single mothers and are eligible to receive government assistance. The more wives and children one has, the more welfare checks and food stamps one can receive. The funds and stamps are turned over to the husbands and church leaders who then distribute funds and food based on their own discretion and shop for their own food at box stores. The majority of wives and children are fed from a shared ‘storehouse’, where they are provided generally wheat to make bread and rice. Potatoes are seen as a luxury. Members are forbidden from having any animals or livestock from which they could supplement their dietary needs.
4. Lost boys: It has been reported by former members that the FLDS Church has excommunicated more than 400 teenage boys for offenses such as dating or listening to rock music. Some former members claim that the real reason for these excommunications is that there are not enough women for each male to receive three or more wives.
5. Racism: In its Spring 2005 Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center added the FLDS Church to its hate group listing because of the church's racist doctrines, which include a fierce condemnation of interracial relationships. Warren Jeffs has said, "The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth."
6. Birth defects: The Colorado City/Hildale area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic condition. Geneticists attribute this to the prevalence of cousin marriage between descendants of two of the town's founders, Joseph Smith Jessop and John Yeates Barlow. It causes encephalopathy, severe intellectual disability, unusual facial features, brain malformation, and epileptic seizures.
7. Alleged child labor abuses: On April 20, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor assessed fines totaling $1.96 million against a group of FLDS church members, including Lyle Jeffs, a brother of the church's controversial leader, Warren Jeffs, for alleged child labor violations during the church's 2012 pecan harvest at an orchard near Hurricane, Utah.
8. Physical contact such as hugging among family members such as mothers and their children is prohibited. Physical contact between husbands and wives prohibits hugging, kissing or any other intimate act, other than for basic procreation purposes.
9. In order to prevent any outside influence affecting the community, public school attendance has been prohibited, and any teachings, music, literature are subject to church approval, and limited to only those produced by the church.
10. Husbands have the authority to send away wives who do not obey either their personal wishes, or the churches, as well as to remove and reassign any of their children to what they see as a more agreeable or cooperative wife. Miscarriages are seen as murder and women are held accountable if it is deemed they did not do everything possible to prevent it. The punishment for miscarriage is to be sent away.
This is the life this family has led, and, thankfully left. They are applying for refugee protection in Canada based on interviews with Immigration Canada, which offers protection to those who would be in danger should they have to leave to return to the country where they normally live: including risk to their life, or risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.
We sincerely thank you for your help with this campaign and hope this one family find a better life in Canada.
This is the story of a mother, and her four children who fled the polygamous cult in Utah of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS). This religious organization exists in Canada, the United States and Mexico, with almost 10,000 members.
Those who are members are born into it and know no other way of life. They are isolated and forbidden from interacting with the outside world, be it by speaking to the media, going onto the internet or speaking to ‘apostates’, or those who do not follow FLDS beliefs and practices. Doing so means you are considered a non-member. Your children are taken away, you are abandoned by all members and you are exiled into a ‘non-member community’. The expectation is that you will atone for your sins in an attempt to be welcomed back.
As extreme as this seems, it is a very real thing. This mother, (a fourth wife) as have many other sister-wives has had to fight to get her children back. Few are able. That she was, with the help of former members was a rarity.
A Family in Flight
Fearing for her safety, and for that of her four children ages six to 17, this single mother, who for obvious reasons must remain anonymous fled to Canada to seek out help from her new friends.
They are able, due to their refugee status to apply for immigration and are receiving counselling in order to recover from the emotional, mental and physical abuse they were subjected to.
Every dollar raised through this campaign will go directly to this family who is currently residing in a women’s shelter. It will help them with basic shelter needs, food, vehicle maintenance, winter clothing, school supplies, as well assist the children to reintegrate into a proper education system.
This campaign is an appeal to our common decency, our kindness, our empathy and generosity of spirit as Canadians; qualities which we all possess. The hope is that upon reading this, you will be compelled to act, stirred into action.And to change the lives in a most real and valuable way of one family in need.
FLDS: The Appalling Truth
On August 9th, 2011, this church’s leader, Warren Jeffs (formerly on the FBI’s ten most wanted list) was sentenced to life in prison for sexual assault of a child under age 14 and 20 years for sexual assault of a child under age 17. This spiritual leader of the FLDS church is considered a prophet of God has taught those born into this cult. It is told to FLDS members that he is still their prophet, regardless of his incarceration.
FLDS: The Frightful Fact
The FLDS believes that some sins require blood atonement, meaning you could shed your own blood for forgiveness. However, that practice has been extended beyond personal sacrifice. Before Warren Jeffs' incarceration, it was reported that he often preached a type of blood atonement that said you could kill a sinner in order to gain access to heaven. Choosing to depart from one's religion and its principles is called apostasy. Apostasy, based on Warren Jeffs’ teachings is considered a sinful offence that requires blood atonement.
Basic FLDS Practices:
1. Plural marriage: Current estimates state that Warren Jeffs may have upwards of 60 wives.As the type of polygamy practiced is polygyny, critics of this lifestyle claim that its practice inevitably leads to bride shortages and likely to child marriages, incest, and child abuse.
2. Forced marriage: The church has been suspected of trafficking underage women across state lines, as well as across the US–Canadaand US–Mexico borders, for the purpose of sometimes involuntary plural marriage and sexual abuse.The FLDS is suspected by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of having trafficked more than 30 under-age girls from Canada to the United States between the late 1990s and 2006 to be entered into polygamous marriages.
3. Welfare fraud: Church leaders have encouraged their flock to take advantage of government assistance in the form of welfare and the food stamps. Since the government recognizes only one woman as the legal wife of a man, the rest of his wives are considered single mothers and are eligible to receive government assistance. The more wives and children one has, the more welfare checks and food stamps one can receive. The funds and stamps are turned over to the husbands and church leaders who then distribute funds and food based on their own discretion and shop for their own food at box stores. The majority of wives and children are fed from a shared ‘storehouse’, where they are provided generally wheat to make bread and rice. Potatoes are seen as a luxury. Members are forbidden from having any animals or livestock from which they could supplement their dietary needs.
4. Lost boys: It has been reported by former members that the FLDS Church has excommunicated more than 400 teenage boys for offenses such as dating or listening to rock music. Some former members claim that the real reason for these excommunications is that there are not enough women for each male to receive three or more wives.
5. Racism: In its Spring 2005 Intelligence Report, the Southern Poverty Law Center added the FLDS Church to its hate group listing because of the church's racist doctrines, which include a fierce condemnation of interracial relationships. Warren Jeffs has said, "The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth."
6. Birth defects: The Colorado City/Hildale area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic condition. Geneticists attribute this to the prevalence of cousin marriage between descendants of two of the town's founders, Joseph Smith Jessop and John Yeates Barlow. It causes encephalopathy, severe intellectual disability, unusual facial features, brain malformation, and epileptic seizures.
7. Alleged child labor abuses: On April 20, 2015, the U.S. Department of Labor assessed fines totaling $1.96 million against a group of FLDS church members, including Lyle Jeffs, a brother of the church's controversial leader, Warren Jeffs, for alleged child labor violations during the church's 2012 pecan harvest at an orchard near Hurricane, Utah.
8. Physical contact such as hugging among family members such as mothers and their children is prohibited. Physical contact between husbands and wives prohibits hugging, kissing or any other intimate act, other than for basic procreation purposes.
9. In order to prevent any outside influence affecting the community, public school attendance has been prohibited, and any teachings, music, literature are subject to church approval, and limited to only those produced by the church.
10. Husbands have the authority to send away wives who do not obey either their personal wishes, or the churches, as well as to remove and reassign any of their children to what they see as a more agreeable or cooperative wife. Miscarriages are seen as murder and women are held accountable if it is deemed they did not do everything possible to prevent it. The punishment for miscarriage is to be sent away.
This is the life this family has led, and, thankfully left. They are applying for refugee protection in Canada based on interviews with Immigration Canada, which offers protection to those who would be in danger should they have to leave to return to the country where they normally live: including risk to their life, or risk of cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.
We sincerely thank you for your help with this campaign and hope this one family find a better life in Canada.
Organizer
Anthony Costello
Organizer
North Bay, ON