s
trading victims across the borders to reduce inbreeding.
This is just insane and i wish it would stop.
theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ … ional/home
The Texas Rangers raid of the secluded ranch in early April led to sensational allegations of grooming underage girls for marriage and sexual abuse. And the discovery of a 17-year-old girl at the ranch from an FLDS community in British Columbia could expose a part of the church’s life that governments on both sides of the border have long ignored.
Her parents say she had been visiting her grandmother who was living at the Texas ranch. But a weeklong Globe and Mail investigation indicates the trip may have been a ride on a little-known underground railway that takes young girls across the Canada-U.S. border – in both directions – for one purpose: to be assigned as a so-called celestial bride to FLDS men.
A member the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stands outside the Tom Green County Courthouse during a short break from the second day of a custody hearing in San Angelo, Tex., on April 18.
A member the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stands outside the Tom Green County Courthouse during a short break from the second day of a custody hearing in San Angelo, Tex., on April 18. (Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press)
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The Globe and Mail
Flora Jessop, a former FLDS member who fled at age 16 after she was forced to marry a cousin, said the practice of “trading” young women across the border was akin to international trafficking of young women for sexual purposes.
“It happens all the time,” she said in an interview. “They are not concerned about citizenship… They just walk across on a dirt road,” she said, adding that no one ever tries to stop the border crossings.
Brenda Jensen, who was born into a polygamist FLDS family in B.C., said the insular communities require new blood “so they will not be so badly inbred.” The FLDS communities have problems from too many children marrying their close relatives, including vulnerability to a rare genetic disorder called fumarase deficiency, which causes mental retardation and possibly early death.
The girls are taken across the border quietly at night and never return, Ms. Jensen said, adding, “The handsome ones go to the leaders.”
This is just sick. Can we round all of these people up and send them to Thailand now?