Children from FLDS Sect Moving to Foster Care

Children from a polygamist sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who had been taken into protective custody by the state of Texas, are being relocated into foster homes. Of the 437 children removed from the ranch, 174 of them have now been placed in homes.

WASHINGTON (Catholic Online) - For the past two and a half weeks the children of a polygamist sect, who were removed from their compound, have been living at the San Angelo Coliseum.

A ruling on Tuesday by the courts upholding their extraction allows Child Protective Services (CPS) to begin placing children in foster homes.

According to Darrell Azar, a spokesman for the Texas Children Protective Services, 111 children were removed on Tuesday following the ruling.

An additional 63 children were placed in foster care around San Angelo and other areas. Approximately 260 children still remain and will be placed in the next few days. In total, all 437 children will be relocated.

Azar went on to say that the reason for relocation is to get the children out of the limelight and into a more homelike setting.

Relocation began as DNA tests taken on the children were being completed. The results of tests will not be known for another month. Speculation has been that the placement of these children is really stretching the limits of the foster care system in Texas.

Some of the mothers who had also been staying at the coliseum have also been relocated, 64 in total. Of that, 17 who have small babies were relocated to a facility where they could take care of their children, 40 of them were separated from their children and placed in a different facility and 7 returned home.

Now, some of the mothers have been declared to be minors. They are being included in the process.

Over the last few weeks the group has become more available to the media to plead their case. They have allowed visits to their ranch and interviews with many of the mothers whose children were removed.Several of the alleged fathers have also spoken out.

The DNA testing ordered by the court will be used to determine which children actually belongs to which parent. Not only is this one of the largest child custody cases in history, but also one of the most confusing as husbands not only had a "legal wife" but multiple spiritual wives, many of whom are minors.

The sect's practice not only includes polygamy but also the re-assignment of families to other husbands should a man lose favor in the group.

The testing has been made more complicated as some of the fathers are reluctant to go through the process, believing it will be use to prosecute them. Some may have even fled the state.

The removal of 416 children from the "Yearning For Zion" ranch took place at the end of March. The ranch was home to a small Mormon sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

An anonymous phone call to a local shelter was allegedly received from a teenager at the ranch who was one of the wives of a 49 year-old man and claimed she was being beaten.

There have been unconfirmed claims over the past two weeks that no call was actually received and that State officials had made up the story as an excuse to raid the compound.

Also unconfirmed is a claim that the call which precipitated the entire intervention by the State was a fraud. A young woman is being investigated in a follow up to that claim.

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