BEIJING, April 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Texas authorities have so far removed more than 400 children from a polygamist compound and sent them to state custody, media reported Tuesday.
"This is the largest endeavor we've ever been involved in the state of Texas," said Marleigh Meisner, spokesman of Children's Protective Services.
Women were found dressed in home-sewn, ankle-length dresses with their hair pinned up in braids, and girls in pioneer dresses when police raid the 1,700-acre property, which includes a medical facility, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, numerous large housing units and a white limestone temple.
The women were not allowed to wear red -- the color jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs said belonged to Jesus -- and were not allowed to cut their hair. They were also kept isolated from the outside world.
"Once you go into the compound, you don't ever leave it," said Carolyn Jessop, 40, one of the wives of the alleged leader.
They "were born into this," said Jessop, "Their mothers were born into and have no concept of mainstream culture. Their grandmothers were born into it."
Meisner said each child will get an advocate and an attorney but predicted that if they end up permanently separated from their families, the sheltered children would have a tough acclimation to modern life.
Police have arrested one person as they continue searching the rural compound that houses followers of Jeffs.
The raid was sparked by a 16-year-old girl's call to authorities that she was abused. She also said that girls as young as 14 and 15 were forced into marriages with much older men. The location of the girl is still underway.
(Agencies)
Polygamist temple: search goes on for 16-year-old mother
BEIJING, April 7 (Xinhuanet)-- U.S. state troopers who removed 219 women and children from a polygamist compound were continuing their investigation to determine whether they had the 16-year-old girl whose report of underage marriage led to the raid, media reported Monday.
What made the investigation difficult is that many people share similar names, and in some case they were giving different names at different times, investigators said.
The investigators armed with a search warrant raided the compound on Friday to look for evidence of the girl, who allegedly had a baby at 15, with a 50-year-old man. Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 cannot marry, even with parental approval. Full story
U.S. authorities remove 137 children from polygamist compound
Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs (L) sits with his defense team as they listen to Judge James L. Shumate's sentence in the fifth district court in St. George, Utah Nov. 20, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters File Photo)
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A total of 183 people -- including 137 children -- have been taken away since law enforcement officers raided the compound Thursday night, said Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the Texas Child Protective Services Division. Full story
YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

133 women and 401 allegedly abused children have been taken into state custody after officials received a call from a distressed 16-year-old girl. The children were found in a 1700-acre compound belonging to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints during a raid which started on Saturday. Children as young as 6 months have been removed from the compound.

The 16-year-old girl called in saying that she had been abused and forced to marry a 50 year old man. The girl also said that in the compound – which included a medical facility, a cheese-making plant, a cement plant, a school, numerous large housing units, and a white limestone temple – some females as young as 14 and 15 were already mothers. The girl has not yet been identified.

The women leaving the compound were wearing home sewn, ankle-length dresses and were said to have been kept in isolation from the outside world.

A spokesperson affiliated with the Texas Department of Public Safety has said that so far, one person has been arrested for "interfering with the duties of a public servant." She also told reporters that "an unknown number of men remain on the compound and are not free to leave."

The children will be assigned attorneys and the case hearing will be held next week. Meanwhile, the children will be staying in temporary shelters, which officials say are filling up fast.

Police had been monitoring the compound ever since it was bought by the sect one year ago.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a polygamist sect led by Warren Jeffs – jailed last year for the rape and forced marriage of a 14 year old girl – is a breakaway branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which abandoned the practice of polygamy in 1890.