Posted by Howard Richman on April 24 2008 at 08:13:40:
The above photo shows the children of a polygamist sect being put aboard buses as they are split up and placed in foster homes. A Texas judge in conjunction with a TX child welfare agency is taking the children away from their parents to keep the girls from being married off at young ages and to prevent the boys from being abandoned to the outside world.
Here is a selection from the latest Associated Press story by Michelle Roberts:
SAN ANGELO, Texas The hundreds of children from a polygamist compound taken into state custody are on their way to group homes, shelters and residences, but experts and lawyers fear their transition may be much harder than it is for other foster children.We have had earlier stories on this message about this sect:The 437 children taken from the compound in West Texas will be plunged into a culture radically different from the community where they and their families shunned the outside world as a hostile, contaminating influence on their godly way of life.
Many of the children have seen little or no television. They have been essentially home-schooled all their lives. Most were raised on garden-grown vegetables and twice-daily prayers with family. They frolic in long dresses and buttoned-up shirts from another century.
"There´s going to be problems," said Susan Hays, who represents a toddler in the custody case. "They are a throwback to the 19th century in how they dress and how they behave."
Buses have already shipped 138 children to group homes or boys´ and girls´ ranches, but most of the remaining children will be separated from their mothers for the first time when they are sent out of San Angelo in the coming days.
The state Child Protective Services program said it chose foster homes where the youngsters can be kept apart from other children for now...
Pulliam said the children will continue to be home-schooled by the temporary foster-care providers instead of being thrown into big public schools, where they could be bullied because of their differences.