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SAN ANGELO (Texas) - HUNDREDS of young girls removed from a polygamist sect in Texas were being groomed to accept sex with adult men as soon as they reached puberty, officials said in court records released on Tuesday.
Girls as young as 13 were 'spiritually married' to men on the compound and forced to have sex with them 'for the purpose of having children,' according to an affidavit by an investigator with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
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 who was pregnant again just eight months after giving birth to the child of her 50-year-old husband.
'There is a pervasive pattern and practice of indoctrinating and grooming minor female children to accept spiritual marriages to adult male members of the YFZ (Yearn For Zion) Ranch resulting in them being sexually abused,' investigator Lynn McFadden told the court.
'Similarly, minor boys residing on the YFZ Ranch, after they become adults, are spiritually married to minor female children and engage in sexual relationships with them, resulting in them being sexual perpetrators,' she said.
'This pattern and practice places all of the children located at the YFZ Ranch, both male and female, to risk of emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse.'
More than 400 children were removed from the 1,700 acre (688 hectare) ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints during a daylong raid which began on Thursday.
They are being held in a historic fort in nearby San Angelo, Texas along with more than 130 women, most of them mothers, who left the compound.
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