This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Growing up is hard no matter where you do it, but it's looking exceedingly difficult within the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
In the latest episode, a mother in Colorado City, Ariz., tried to take custody of her four children after receiving a court order to do so. According to a press release issued by Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson, when the mother, identified only as Sabrina, went to get the children — ages 10 to 13 — members of the FLDS surrounded the home and her car. Sheriff's deputies from Arizona and Utah and the FBI had to arrive to escort the children and the mother away.
There has been a long list of problems involving children in the FLDS — not the least of which includes FLDS President Warren Jeffs and other men convicted of crimes associated with taking underage brides.
Here's some of the recent occurrences with FLDS and children:
• In 2014, Idaho authorities found nine boys living in a house outside Pocatello, Idaho. Their caretaker, Nathan Jessop, pleaded guilty to three counts of injury to a child.
• After living alone for months in a Hildale, Utah, trailer, 17-year-old Sherilyn Rohbock was whisked from a parking lot just days after reuniting with her father.
• The U.S. Department of Labor is still pursuing the facts of a pecan harvest where women and children may have been used as unpaid laborers.
Children may be one of the few commodities that the FLDS have. Another reason the FLDS tries to prevent children from joining people out of the FLDS is that the group tends to believe outsiders are evil.
If there's good news, it's that more children in Hildale and Colorado City are getting educated.
Twitter: @natecarlisle