A South Dakota judge’s ruling has confirmed that children were born on a remote Black Hills compound run by a secretive religious sect, offering new insight into life within the polygamous FLDS.
The ruling in September by Seventh Circuit Judge Jeff W. Davis revealed that births occurred on the compound near Pringle and were not recorded with the state as required by law.
After hanging up from the conference call with the judge, Sarah Allred turned to her 9- and 6-year-old daughters.The judge granted birth certificates to two girls who, according to their mother, were born a decade ago on the Custer County compound operated by the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a radical offshoot of Mormonism.
Until the ruling by Davis, no birth certificate had ever been issued to a resident of the compound that is secured by barbed-wire fences and guarded by a watch tower, despite widespread suspicion that children had been born there.
The failure to obtain birth certificates for children of FLDS members follows a directive given in 2002 by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs and religious elder Sam Barlow. In an audiotape of a speech by Jeffs and Barlow, the two leaders tell other FLDS elders to not register births because doing so provides information about the age of the child’s mother and the identity of the father, which they said could implicate church members for having sexual relations with minors.
“Congratulations, ladies,” Allred said. “You’re finally my kids.”
“I was always your kid,” the 9-year-old replied.
Yes, but without birth certificates,
it was difficult to prove that. The two girls were born in secrecy on
the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints compound near Pringle, S.D.
Judge orders birth certificates issued to children born secretly on polygamous compound in South Dakota - The Salt Lake Tribune
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