Andrea Moore-Emmett is an award-winning journalist and the author of God’s Brothel, a book detailing the history and current practice of polygamy in the United States.  She was also the researcher for Inside Polygamy, a documentary broadcast by A&E and the BBC.

We spoke by phone and discussed the abuses she uncovered in organized polygamy, the FLDs, and the raid on the YFZ ranch.

Andrea Moore-Emmett has been writing about polygamy for over 12 years.

“I was the first one to write about abuses in polygamy,” she says, “and I kept writing about it until my editors at the paper told me they were tired of it.”

Her investigative work eventually resulted in a book, God’s Brothel, published in 2004.  Polygamy, she says, is a problem the authorities would rather ignore.

“They [law enforcement] know of men who are doing the same thing that Warren Jeffs has been doing- and some even worse- and they’re not doing anything about it simply because there’s no media spotlight on these men.  They only do something when they have to but they would rather not ever do anything.”

Moore-Emmett says the problem extends beyond the boundaries of Texas and Utah- “I know of 32 states where Mormon and Christian polygamy is being lived-” and includes communities in Nevada, Missouri, Colorado and South Dakota.

An ex-Mormon raised in the mainstream church, Moore-Emmett is critical of the LDS leadership for ducking the issue of polygamy.

“They do not want to look like they are culpable in any way because that would mean that they would have to take responsibility and they want to distance themselves from this issue as much as possible.  They don’t want to look like they have anything to do with it.”

One result of this look-the-other-way policy is a lack of hard data on polygamous groups.  The number of polygamists in the United States has been estimated at 30,000 to 100,000.

“It’s an educated guess,” say Moore-Emmett.  “There’s no census of any type.”

No one knows how many women and children flee polygamy each year.

Lack of official scrutiny means lack of support for those women and children; they are forced to rely on non-polygamous relatives, a smattering of non-profit groups, or simply their own initiative.

Limited resources makes such escapes “very rare,” according to Moore-Emmett.

“They don’t have any idea that there are programs for them.  They don’t have any idea that there are choices for them.  They don’t have skills or education when they do leave and so that makes them very fearful to make that kind of a step.”

Those who do manage to escape often take refuge in anonymity.

“In a lot of cases these women don’t want to talk about it.  They don’t want to come forward and tell their stories.  It’s very difficult for them to revisit the painful past.  They’re often really afraid that they’re going to be sought after by the polygamists if they come out.”

At times Moore-Emmett found herself caught between religious fanaticism and skittish law enforcement.  By day she watched judges return children to situations she was convinced were dangerous.  At night polygamous wives appeared on her doorstep, pleading for her to stop her investigations. Polygamous men called her at 2 a.m. to rant and scream.

Overwhelmed with frustration and disgust, she eventually left Utah.

She believes polygamy should remain a felony.  Although sympathetic to the desires of individual, rational adults, she points out that,

“Polygamy practiced within these cults is coercive by nature.  And abusive by nature.  And I think it should remain against the law simply because of the nature of it.”

We discuss some of the abuses she has documented in FLDs communities.  I tell her that Carolyn Jessop has publicly described the technique used by her ex-husband, Merril Jessop to “break” babies: slap the infant until it screams.  Hold it, face up, under a running tap so that it can’t breathe.  Repeat, until the child is too exhausted to cry.

The technique is familiar to Moore-Emmett.

“They start in the cradle breaking babies,” she says.  “It’s essential for control.  They start them at infancy.”

She describes other methods: some children are submerged in a bathtub when they cry.  Some parents simply slap the children until they faint.

I point out that investigators at the YFZ ranch have said that they saw no evidence of risk to infants and toddlers.

“They are definitely at risk,” she says.  “It alarms me that anybody even considers putting those kids back in that compound.  They are all at serious risk.”

I tell her that at least one expert has testified in court that he is unsure if the boys are being harmed by the FLDs lifestyle.

She says the boys are “groomed to be predators.”

“What is not talked about very often is that the boys live through horrible, horrible beatings.  And they’re taught to fight each other- hand-to-hand combat…’till they’re bloody.”

For boys, Moore-Emmett says, violence is seen as a strength, “because you need violence to control.”

Survival skills like violence and control seem to take the place of formal education.  Most FLDs children are church- or homeschooled.

“No state is monitoring the non-education of these children,” says Moore-Emmett.  She describes a weak curriculum of basic math and spelling.  Literature other than holy scripture is forbidden.  History is restricted to the genealogy of the Mormon prophets.  Science is regarded as heresy, and other cultures are not  worth knowing about.  Teaching health would only encourage immodest discussions of the human body.

Knowledge of the human body could pose problems. FLDs children are seldom vaccinated; there are outbreaks of diseases like whooping cough.  The genetic consequences of incest are explained away by doctrine:

“The FLDs believe that if you marry a close relative- or any relative- God automatically changes your blood so you’re not related.”

I tell her that investigators have reported that only half the families living at the YFZ ranch are polygamous.

She laughs out loud.

“Well, if they’re talking about children under the age of 14, which is a huge part of the population, that could be true.  If they’re talking about the adult population, that’s absolutely not true.”

CPS investigators have reported difficulty in determining which children belong to which parents.  In FLDs culture, whole families are frequently “reassigned” to new males by the prophet.  After reassignment the new head of household frequently marries several of his new stepdaughters as well.

I ask Moore-Emmett if she thinks the children have been told to lie or are genuinely confused.

“These children are genuinely confused,” she says.  “Absolutely genuinely confused.  They can have a daddy one day and if they’re reassigned they have a new daddy the next day.”

She says that the reassignment of children is not limited to fathers.

“In some cases even the children are rotated between mothers on purpose so there’s no bonding.”

Her knowledge of FLDs childrearing practices makes her suspicious of news footage showing weeping mothers.

“These women are really not in touch with their feelings and they don’t know how to have any feelings.  They have been trained from the cradle not to feel.  Feeling is a bad thing for them.  They don’t want to have any of the negative feelings so they drum out all the feelings.”

Still, she is not surprised to see mostly FLDs women interviewed by the media.

“They do it on purpose [sending women to meet the press].  They believe women are more sympathetic and they know that they are using women, so if they can get women to say ‘I’m perfectly happy,’ then somehow that is proof enough.”

She believes that the FLDS leadership has been “love-bombing” the press- blitzing the media with positive spin.  Negative stories are being suppressed.

The FLDs, she says, has ways of dealing with dissent.

“People disappear within the FLDs- boys disappear, girls disappear.  The kids call them “poofers”- they disappear in a poof.”

The threat of Blood Atonement can also guarantee silence.  Blood Atonement is the execution of church members in “atonement” for grievous sins.

“It’s an absolute fear…women are terrified to leave because of that threat.”

Moore-Emmett has heard the criticisms of the raid on the YFZ ranch.  Some critics have called it a sweeping violation of the groups’ constitutional rights.  She admits she is “not a constitutional attorney” but maintains,

“I don’t have a problem with what Texas authorities did.  I think that it was difficult circumstances and difficult circumstances call for extreme measures sometimes.”

“What I come back to is the rights of these children.  Where are the rights of these children to have the kind of life that we as American citizens expect of the most vulnerable of our citizens?  And if we do not protect the most vulnerable of our citizens, then shame on us.

“Where are the rights of these children not to be molested?  Where are the rights of these children to have an education?  Where are the rights of these children to get medical attention when they need it?  Where are the rights of these children to have a safe home where they’re not thrown out on the streets at the age of 14 or they’re not forced into a marriage?  Where are the rights of these children not to be abused to the point of near death in many cases or death in some cases?

She points out that the FLDs has used 30 million dollars of public funds to support their lifestyle in a single year.

“Do we want to fund this kind of abuse- this institutionalized abuse?  What we’re talking about is a pedophile club.  Are we going to say, ‘Oh, these adults have rights to this pedophile club,’ and forget the kids?”

Cross-posted at Deafening Silence .