The news story on the polygamist sect in Texas grows more distressing by the day. What do you think of the way it's being handled?
I have so many questions that I hardly know where to start. Why did it take so long for law enforcement step in to protect these children? Women have been reporting abuse in polygamous compounds for years, yet it was allowed to grow to 400 before anyone steps in? Is it possible that separating these children from their mothers is compounding the trauma the children have already suffered? Is the state of Texas adequately prepared to get this right and adequately care for these children while the legal system grinds on? Why isn't there a national call for resources to address this, the biggest case of its kind in history, to give these children the best possible care?
Richard Wexler, who heads the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, says on his blog the actions in Texas remind him of a notorious comment made by a general during the Vietnam War. Surveying the destruction of a village he explained that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.”
"So here’s the third side of the story in Texas," he says: "Don’t destroy these children in order to save them."
And here's more:
It’s common for people to complain that news stories are “one sided” and journalists didn’t get “the other side of the story.” But often the bigger problem is when journalists stop at two sides.That seems to be what is happening now in Texas. We hear the mothers deny that anything at all was wrong and the state justify tearing the children from the mothers as the only way to get their stories out of them. (When this Blog predicted this would happen, and predicted the rationale, I noted that it also would be easier to get the children’s stories if they waterboarded them. Memo to the Texas child welfare agency: I was being sarcastic; please don’t get any ideas.)
But here’s a third side of the story: The children may well have needed to be removed from the ranch. But under the laws that govern American child welfare systems there is no way they’re going back until and unless their “stories” are fully known; and probably not then, either. So there was no excuse for further traumatizing them by tearing them from their mothers. There is no reason the children and their mothers could not be resettled, in effect, as refugees.
The ABC News website tells the third side of the story today. Though the headline asked who did more harm, the sect or the state, that’s not really the issue. One can believe the sect did more harm and still think it’s a bad idea for the state to harm the children further by separating them from their mothers.
A short aside: Most of the Associated Press stories you are reading about this issue are being reported by former Fresnan Jennifer Dobner, who studied at California State University, Fresno and worked for The Bee.
..it will have to be very gentle, but they need de-programming...romney got out in time.
They need to treat it in a sensitive manner but these kids need to be shown what real life is all about with or without theior mothers. They also need to get the kids out of all the other ones in Arizona, Utah and other states. A whole little bit of love goes along way. I would take one
Haven't heard anything about the horny old dudes. How are they HANDling this?
I am sure the hornies are getting their jollies at other sects that need to be raided. They are evertywhere and usually involve the city leaders to coverup what they are doing.