Polygamist sect's 'sex bed'

State investigators say they have discovered a bed inside a polygamist compound temple in Texas that was reserved for husbands — often middle-aged men — to have sex for the first time with their underage 'wives'.

Girls as young as 13 were "spiritually married" at the YFZ (Yearn For Zion) Ranch temple in this small Texas town, according to officials who raided the site on 3 April.

The "spiritual marriages" have no legal standing.

The state officials said in an affidavit released on Wednesday that the building used as a 'temple' on the sprawling 1700-acre complex "contains an area where there is a bed where males over the age of seventeen engage in sexual activity with female children under the age of seventeen."

The YFZ ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that split from the mainstream Mormons when polygamy was banned.

One man had 20 wives?

According to the affidavit, investigators also found documents showing that one man living at the site had 20 wives.

The ranch was purchased in 2003 and built by Warren Jeffs, who considers himself the sect's prophet and was jailed for life for being an accomplice to rape.

Mainstream Mormons now excommunicate members who engage in the practice and reject any connection with the FLDS.

Investigators also found "multiple locked safes, locked desk drawers, locked vaults, as well as multiple computers and beds," the affidavit said.

On Tuesday officials emptied the sprawling compound of more than 400 children.

The children were deprived of food and locked in closets as punishment, and severe beatings were also reported.

Pregnant and abused

A number of young girls who were pregnant or had recently given birth were discovered on the ranch after a desperate call for help was made by a 16-year-old girl.

In a series of whispered calls on a borrowed cellphone, the girl told a local family violence centre that she was being held against her will on the compound and was told she would be "found and locked up" if she tried to leave.

The girl said she began to be abused soon after she was left at the ranch by her parents about three years ago and at age 15 became the seventh wife of a 49-year-old man.

She said she is pregnant again just eight months after giving birth to her first child by a man who would force himself on her sexually and beat her "whenever he got angry," according to an affidavit released on Tuesday.

Other women in the home would hold her baby while the man identified as Dale Barlow beat her.

Barlow would choke her and hit her in the chest and she was once beaten so badly that she was taken to the hospital with several broken ribs.

The girl said she had no contact with her parents but knew they were preparing to send her 15-year-old sister to the ranch.

While she was anxious to escape, she was worried about what would happen to her if she left the confines of the ranch.

A hearing is set for 17 April to determine if the children should be permanently separated from their parents.

AFP

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