Friday, May 2, 2008

More about boys from Zion Ranch

If you aren't from Texas, you may not be keeping track of what is going on with the Zion Ranch children. The newspapers in the area have been reporting that there are now over 460 children who have been moved into various facilities around Texas. Over 100 are in the Houston area now. The State is trying to keep all the children in the different families together, so they have moved them into group homes where they can be schooled privately, at least until they begin to assimilate.

There was more disturbing news yesterday released about the young boys. Many of the young boys have signs of broken bones. The State is investigating the cause(s). It is not clear yet if these are normal broken bones from kids playing and falling down, or if some sort of abuse is the reason.

This morning the Houston Chronicle reported that most of the parents have left the Zion Ranch now. Some of the women are living in women's shelters. Other parents are moving into the cities where their children are living in order to be able to visit them regularly.

3 comments:

August said...

From David Friedman:

I think it is clear that the CPS has been routinely misrepresenting the facts in order to justify its actions. The most recent example was an announcement about how many of the FLDS "minors" in their custody had evidence of having at some time broken a bone, offered as evidence of child abuse. As one newspaper pointed out, citing a medical text, the rate--about ten percent--was below what one would expect for a random set of children.

http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-views-on-flds-v-texas-interim.html

When attempting to eject the monster from your closet, please make sure you don't employ a larger monster who doesn't mind being monstrous in the light of day.

April DeConick said...

David,

As I said in my post, it is unclear why the young boys have broken bones. So there is an investigation into it. I am sure that we will know soon whether this is normal or not.

BTW it is not at all clear that CPS has been routinely misrepresenting the facts in order to justify its actions. So far there hasn't been anything misrepresented that I know of. The investigation of broken bones in children that have been identified at risk is common procedure.

Brian R. said...

This is a situation where we know that children are being abused systematically and regularly. It is clear from the history of FLDS, from similar cases, and from testimony that girls beginning at age 11-12 are regularly raped or otherwise sexually abused; that they are mentally boxed into forced marriages immediately after puberty; that the boys tend to be cast off as you or I would discard a holey sock. There is no question of widespread patterns of abuse; that these new bits of evidence fit in with the larger pattern is obvious, regardless of regular rates of bone-breaking or anything else.