US: Up to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect so that more young women are available to marry older married 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 (FLDS), 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.
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.
Jim Hill, an investigator in Utah's attorney general's office, 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," he 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".
One of the boys, Gideon Barlow, said he was expelled from a community in Colorado City, for wearing short-sleeved shirts, listening to CDs and having a girlfriend. His mother was ordered to reject him, he said.
- Guardian service