The lost boys

The Guardian

Up to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young women available for older men, Utah officials claim. Many of these ‘Lost Boys’, some as young as 13, have simply been dumped on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah, by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and told they will never see their families again or go to heaven. The 10,000-strong FLDS, which broke away from the Mormon church in 1890 when the mainstream faith disavowed polygamy, believes a man must marry at least three women to go to heaven. The sect appeared to be in turmoil yesterday, after its assets were frozen last week and a warrant was issued in Arizona on Friday for the arrest of its autocratic leader, Warren Jeffs, for arranging a wedding between an underage girl and a 28-year-old man who was already married.

Mr Jeffs is also being sued by lawyers for six of the Lost Boys for conspiracy to purge surplus males from the community, and by his nephew, Brent Jeffs, who accuses him of sexual abuse. Warren Jeffs’ whereabouts yesterday were uncertain, but Utah officials said they believed he may be hiding in an FLDS compound near Eldorado, Texas, and they have contacted the Texan authorities. Some have voiced concern that an attempt to corner the sect leader could provoke a tragedy like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas. Jim Hill, an investigator in Utah’s attorney general’s office, told The Guardian yesterday: “From everything I’ve been able to discern about Warren Jeffs, he is someone who is capable of some very different things. Whether that includes a mass suicide, I don’t know. But I worry about it all the time.” FLDS officials and the sect’s lawyer, Rodney Parker, did not return calls seeking comment, but have previously argued that the Lost Boys were exiled from their communities because they were teenage delinquents who refused to keep the sect’s rules. Mr Hill said although the boys may have been rebellious, their expulsion had more to do with the ruthless sexual arithmetic of a polygamous sect.

“Obviously if you’re going to have three to one or four to one female to male marriages, you’re going to run out of females. The way of taking care of it is selectively casting out those you don’t want to be in the religion,” the investigator said. Dave Bills, who runs Smiles for Diversity, a foundation in Salt Lake City set up by an ex-FLDS member to look after the Lost Boys, said it was difficult to estimate their numbers because they had been scattered. But Mr Bills said the figures could be “as low as 400 and as high as 1,000”. “They live every day like it’s their last day and they don’t care about anything,” Mr Bills said. “They’re told they won’t have three wives, and they’re doomed. But they all want to go back to their mums.” One of the boys, Gideon Barlow, said he was expelled from a FLDS community in Colorado City, Arizona, for wearing short-sleeved shirts, listening to CDs and having a girlfriend. He said his mother rejected him on orders from the sect’s leaders.

What is the FLDS?

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints split off from the Mormon church in 1890, when the mainstream faith disavowed polygamy. The sect has communes in Utah, Arizona, Texas and Canada. It is the biggest polygamous group in the US.

What does the FLDS believe?

Polygamy allows a higher birth rate, increasing the “righteous” population. No man can go to heaven if he has less than three wives. The sect believes black people are inferior, the offspring of Cain. It teaches that America was first colonised by a lost tribe of Israelites and was visited by Jesus after resurrection.

Who runs the sect?

Warren Jeffs, 49, inherited the leadership in 2002 after his father, Rulon, died. He has pursued a hard line against sect members deemed to fall short of “perfection”, and has purged hundreds from the ranks, mostly men and boys. He is estimated to have 40 wives and 56 children. His whereabouts are uncertain but he is widely thought to be holed up in the FLDS compound outside El Dorado, Texas.