Texas assesses whether sect 'girls' are adults
SAN ANTONIO -- When Texas child welfare authorities released statistics showing nearly 60 percent of the teen girls taken from a polygamist sect's ranch were pregnant or had children, they seemed to prove what was alleged all along: The sect commonly pushed girls into marriage and sex.
But in the past week, the state has twice been forced to admit "girls" who gave birth while in state custody are actually adults. One was 22 and claims she showed state officials a Utah birth certificate shortly after she and more than 400 minors were seized from the west Texas ranch in an April raid. ....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051603258.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...MN2C10O0LT.DTL
Judges to Begin Separate Polygamist Sect Cases
SAN ANTONIO -- The more than 400 children, from newborns to teens, forced from a polygamist sect's sprawling ranch during a raid six weeks ago and into foster care have been treated as a single group of abused and at-risk kids.
Starting Monday, judges will filter the unruly, chaotic custody dispute into hundreds of individual cases to determine what the parents must do to get their children back or whether their parental rights will be permanently severed.
This is standard operating procedure for family court, but these are hardly standard cases. ....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051801273.html
http://www.theledger.com/article/200...KING/314820332
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/5788608.html
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