Insider's View Of Polygamist Sect

Women In Them Are "Breeding Machines," Woman Who Escaped One Tells The Early Show

(CBS)  The still-unfolding drama at the polygamist compound in Eldorado, Texas is focusing renewed attention on the world of polygamy.

Some 200 women and children were removed Friday and Saturday from a compound built by polygamist leader Warren Jeffs after a 16-year-old girl complained of abuse. State troopers were looking for evidence of a marriage of the girl, who is said to have had a baby at 15, and 50-year-old Dale Barlow. Girls younger than 16 cannot marry under Texas law, even with parental approval.

On The Early Show Monday, co-anchor Julie Chen spoke with Laurie Allen, who was born into polygamy and escaped at age 30.

Her documentary, "Banking on Heaven," exposes the struggles women and children face in a polygamist sect.

"(Polygamy is) a life where, as a female, you really don't think for yourself, you're basically told what to do. You really are just a breeding machine to further the agenda of the male patriarchy," Allen told Chen. "This is what I experienced.

"And it's just a very oppressive environment -- or repressive. You know, you don't get education. I never finished the fourth grade growing up. So, when you do finally get the wherewithal to get out, it takes about 20 years to really transition into the outside world and to discover your own identity, because you've been taught all your life to just do what you're told."

At what age do women start thinking there's something very wrong about that type of life?

"You really don't," Allen replied. "There aren't that many women -- and unfortunately, women are the most difficult to transition out because of the Stockholm syndrome (in which) we tend to sympathize with our perpetrators.

"And it's much more difficult to transition a female out than it is a male. The males have more independence. They really are the kings. So, women have a much tougher time with that. It does take an average of 20 years. It is very, very difficult."

The women and children removed from the compound in Eldorado are almost certainly terrified, Allen says, "because they are taught from birth, especially in the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), that outsiders or the agents of Satan, they're evil. They're not even supposed to have any contact with outsiders.

"So, I just hope that they've got trained people in Texas, psychologists, therapists who know how to deal with this type of mind control, because these kids have got to be terrified. I'm very concerned that they're getting put into -- are they getting put in the right homes, where they're getting the right counseling, and do we have people who are trained to specialize in mind control? I know they have them in the military. But I don't know what they're doing (in Texas). I'm hoping for the best."

Allen added that most of the people taken from the compound "will want to go back. And this is what's so amazing about it. They're so abused. They're literally slaves, yet they just can't wait to get back. I know many cases where they were -- the children have been on the outside, the females for several years, and the day they turn 18, they go right back to the cult."

Allen says it took her almost 20 years to overcome what she was taught and went through in a polygamist sect, she says, including "going ... back and forth. I escaped when I was 16, then I just kept going back. I just couldn't find myself in the outside world. Then I went back, I was married. I was a third wife. Then finally, I got out and went to college, and it just clicked one day."

[cranberry60]

yea for Texas!!! It''s the best state not the prettiest but still the best

[wolfchef]

will the US next be extending welfare benefits to polygamists, eg:Canada (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08021207.html) We already provide $$$$$$$ benefits to people who are here illegaly, so what''s the next step? Is sodomy still illegal? we now legitimize same-*** unions so what''s next? bestiallity? S&M? have you seen ''gay pride'' parades lately? this is liberalism at its'' ''finest hour''!

[delfmast]

editorialstaff net notes: Comments here have dealt neatly with the current few hundred potential victims, and local aspects of the case. Please expand the scope of your comments, and shared viewpoints, in contrasting this ongoing abuse case with others extant, in America, and worldwide. Male religious fundamentalists may have continued a pattern of unlawful *** with children, and lifelong slavery in the form of forced and unlawful marriages of multiple minor children, to co-religionists, for a century and a half, whilst American local, state, and federal authorities appeared to fail, for the period from the war of Northern Oppression, until today, where in Texas, at least, authorities are acting, far too late, to ensure the victims equal treatment under the US Constitution. Now, here''s the question: Should social workers also look into other religious sects, to sort out any potential for abuse there? Remember the world''s Catholic clergy and their uncounted victims, over uncounted centuries. Consider Islamic fundamentalist immigrants, there are several (Continued)

[delfmast]

editorialstaff net notes, continued: American sect''s enclaves, perhaps intent on continuing their own brand of zealous control of their wives and daughters, as has been reported to occur in ghettos in France and UK, where it is reportedly including genital butchery, forced marriage and honor killings.Is review required here, for fundamentalist Jewish neighborhoods often nearly sealed off from American taxpayer traffic, where my own travel has been curtailed, by incredibly complex no return one way streets, and barricades that convince the stranger to use another route. How about religious sects in Pa, where there appear to be few realtor''s sign''s in hours of driving, and perhaps, Englishers are not welcome to observe the sect''s actions, within the community. What will be found there, by social workers empowered by the federal government to ensure equal treatment under the law, for all. I have seen no child abuse, in driving through Pa, but I watched a loaded buggy pass my Excursion, at high speed, with a terribly lean, highly stressed horse running, frantically, lathered to a degree that I have never seen before. I cannot swear that the red tinge I saw in that horse''s lather of sweat was blood, and not the sun glinting off red horse hair, but I would like a federal government vet''s opinion about that horse''s situation. In light of that horse''s plight, do we need to review, perhaps, the treatment of women and children in all America''s closed societies, religious, or otherwise.

[Travis212]

taylpatr -

You obviously haven''t followed this story. The group fled to Texas because Utah began prosecuting.

[rhondafaye1]

It''s about time. Next they need to focus on the Kingston Clan in Salt lake City

[wattermelann]

50 year old men having *** with 13 year old girls? This is pedophilism covered up by religion. Breeding is just a biproduct of the main objective of old men having *** with young pubescent girls-who are not educated and too afraid to question the male dominance of these so called elders. A bunch of serial pedophiles masquerading as ministers-sick. And to think the United States of America allows this to go on and on unchecked until now. Wonder what is going to happen now? Will the pedophiles win?

[wattermelann]

50 year old men having *** with 13 year old girls? This is pedophilism covered up by religion. Breeding is just a biproduct of the main objective of old men having *** with young pubescent girls-who are not educated and too afraid to question the male dominance of these so called elders. A bunch of serial pedophiles masquerading as ministers-sick. And to think the United States of America allows this to go on and on unchecked until now. Wonder what is going to happen now? Will the pedophiles win?

[jehovahwtnss]

Hey Pierson98, stop being such a nitpicker, this is one of the best series of blogs I''ve read since I started coming to this site.

[krisd999-2009]

This "complaint" by a 16 yold girl is probably made up as an excuse to disrupt the lives of these people. The state is abusing them. Wouldn''t she have come up to the police by now and said "I am the abused, get me out"? In a few days, they will return to their lives and all this would have been for naught.