The raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in El Dorado, Texas brought further attention to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and other smaller polygamist Mormon groups that dot the American west in and around Utah. Smiles for Diversity helps the Lost Boys achieve an education, but the Child Protection Project works to help end institutional abuse. The group, led by a former Mormon, Linda Walker, and former FLDS member, Flora Jessop, seeks to raise public awareness of institutional child abuse, especially abuse of children by religious institutions.
The agency that she runs, the Child Protection Project, helps women who have escaped polygamist communities locate social services and find counseling in situations where it is needed. Jessop started her crusade against the abuses of polygamist groups, the largest of which is the FLDS, when her sister Ruby called her and told her the details of a rape and an arranged marriage.
Conditions of Living in Abusive Polygamist Groups
The Yearning for Zion Raid lawsuits ended when the Texas Supreme Court overturned the decision of the earlier court, which had charged sect members with statutory rape and child abuse. Flora Jessop, who grew up in the FLDS sect, said that all marriages in this sect are arranged by the elders. Disobedience can carry severe consequences. The Child Protection Project seeks to raise awareness of instituational child abuse in all religious sects.
What the Child Protection Project Does
The mission statement for the Child Protection Project, which can be found on the group's web site is:
- The Child Protection Project is dedicated to raising awareness about issues of child abuse within polygamy and other religious organizations. We are particularly interested in how institutions, especially churches, ignore child abuse reporting requirements; and thus cause unnecessary suffering and pain to children and families. Our religious institutions must be good corporate citizens because their mandate as tax-exempt beneficial, charitable organizations requires that children entrusted to their care be safe.
The group also works to help people who have left the polygamous communities to locate resources -- medical, psychological, and legal -- that may be required by the people it serves. Flora Jessop stated that people who are raised in polygamous communities often do not know how to navigate the social systems that exist to help people in their society. Most polygamous communities, according to Jessop, teach their members to view the outside world as evil and shun its ways.
Many of the people coming from polygamist sects suffer from substandard education, although a few are able to fake it for a short time. Helping these people often involves finding resources to enhance their education.
The Child Protection Project continues to help women who have escaped polygamist communities find psychological counseling for the people that they serve. The efforts to raise awareness of institutional religious abuse have become the focus of the Child Protection Project, and the group intends to start a project called “No More Amnesty.” No More Amnesty is a campaign designed to get public officials to stop granting immunity to people practicing polygamy if they agree to simply abide by the laws of the land.
Resources:
The Child Protection Project
