US sect girls were pregnant at 13, court hears

FEMALE abuse victims as young as 13 may have given birth at the Texas headquarters of a religious sect, a court has heard.

A social worker told the custody hearing, which will decide if 416 children from the group are taken into care, that at least five of them aged less than 18 were pregnant or have children.

Child welfare officials claim the youngsters were abused because the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade, polygamous, Mormon splinter group, encourages young girls to marry and have children.

Investigator Angie Voss said identifying children and parents taken from the sect’s sprawling complex near San Angelo has been difficult.

The case presented an extraordinary spectacle. Lawyers in suits and mothers in 19th century, pioneer-style dresses, packed into the courtroom.

The state wants to keep the children in its custody, and probably move them to foster homes while officials continue investigating abuse allegations. The state must provide evidence the children were physically or sexually abused, or are in imminent danger of abuse.

The children, most of whom are being kept in a domed coliseum in San Angelo, range in age from six months to 17 years. About 130 are less than four years old, Ms Voss said.

She said she was concerned about how the children and women followed the orders of the church’s prophet, identified as jailed leader Warren Jeffs.

“The children reported if the prophet heard from the Heavenly Father they were to marry at any age, they were to do that. If the prophet said they were to lie, they were to do that,” Ms Voss said.

Jeffs is awaiting trial in an Arizona jail on charges related to the promotion of underage marriages. He previously was convicted of being an accomplice to the rape of a 14-year-old married to her cousin in a Utah case.

The sect came to Texas in 2003, relocating some members from the church’s traditional home along the Utah-Arizona state line.

Ms Voss said the ranch was considered the sect’s Zion. It traces its religious roots to the early theology of the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Authorities raided the 1,700-acre site on April 3 and began removing children while seeking evidence of underage girls being married to adults.

The raid was prompted by a call from someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl with the sect who had been beaten and raped by her 50-year-old husband.