For some years Daphne has investigated the issue of polygamy as practised in the small community of Bountiful, tucked in the southeastern corner of British Columbia. Her interest arose from an email which a reader sent to her after reading her articles on illegal trafficking of Asian women. She challenged her to look into the situation of Canadian girls being trafficked to become concubines to polygamist men. And so she did, with this book the culmination of her exhaustive investigation of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints, a sect of fundamentalist Mormonism which practises polygamy and the community of Bountiful, BC in particular.
Mormons agreed to give up polygamy in exchange for statehood in the United States of America and since have excommunicated practitioners of polygamy. The FLDS church was a break away sect which maintains that a man cannot enter the highest level of the kingdom of heaven without multiple wives and some practitioners arrived to settle in BC in the forties, despite the fact that polygamy is illegal in Canada.
The community consists of a mere five families and currently has a population of around 1000, with all the progeny originally descended from half a dozen men. The former bishop, Winston Blackmore, who actually was excommunicated from the FLDS church in the USA, has 26 wives, several of whom he married as teenagers, one a mere fifteen year old and more than 100 children. He has absolute power over the lives of his followers, although his excommunication in 2002 split the community in two. He administers an independent school which is more than 60% funded by the Provincial Government, as well as accredited by it, despite the fact that the children are not receiving a standard education and the sect actively promotes racism.
Children are considered and treated like chattel, girls must obey and they are forced into marriage at a very young age with men who are often old enough to be their grandfathers. The family genealogy is so convoluted that one young girl on her marriage became her own stepgrandmother.
Since the most powerful members of the community marry multiple times this eventually forces the young men to leave the community if they are to find wives and ill equipped as they are, lacking a real education, they become the lost boys of the title. Before they leave they are often employed by Blackmore in his various businesses and woefully underpaid for their hard work.
The marriages are of course unlawful, one only is usually registered and the others are religious ceremonies which are not recognized by the state since polygamy is illegal. However all the children are registered so that they may take advantage of the child allowances and welfare payments given by the government. A government which of course they consider an agent of Satan. They are all taught that it is perfectly acceptable to lie to outsiders, certainly about their family situations, outsiders whom they refer to as gentiles.
Some brides have been brought illegally into Canada from the United States and the US Consulate has been investigating the situation in Bountiful. One young girl came up to attend a cousin’s wedding and was forced into a marriage herself.
Of course not everyone is happy in Bountiful and some people have left. Jane Blackmore, Winston’s first wife and mother of seven of his children as well as the community widwife, divorced him after 17 years and left to give her children a better life. Debbie Palmer, at 15, was given by her father to be the 6th wife of a 57 year old man and became stepmother to 32 children. After her third marriage, at 34 she gained the courage to run from the community with her 8 children and became a strong advocate against polygamy. She documented her life in Bountiful in a book called Keep Sweet – Children of Polygamy.
For more than 60 years the authorities have ignored the blatant flouting of the law against polygamy. Some think that any testing of the law will find it unconstitutional and that it will be struck down. There is also the problem of the rights of religious freedom, as laid down by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985. However the Court went on to say that limits on religious freedom are “necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.” Canada does recognize these limits in other cases, regardless of religious belief. They do not allow genital mutilation to be practised in this country. They do not allow Muslim immigrant men into the country with multiple wives. They have over-ruled the refusal of Jehovah’s Witnesses** to use of blood products in their children when medically required. There certainly are precedents.
So what about the rights and freedoms of the women and children of Bountiful? In Daphne’s opinion Canada has no moral authority to tell other countries what to do when they have this situation within their own borders. Why are Canadian soldiers fighting in Afghanistan against the Taliban who advocate some of the very same things that are practised in Bountiful.? Their women have no freedom of dress, belief or action. They are forced into marriage while legally under age, some forceably raped. What about their rights? Surely no one would consider it right that girls as young as 13 and 14 years old are married to men in their fifties? Could this be considered child abuse? Harder to prove than polygamy. Basically this seems to be all about power and sex.
But there is some hope on the horizon. The current Attorney-General of BC, Wally Opal, has finally laid charges of polygamy against Winston Blackmore and the current bishop, James Oler. It is expected that the case will finally go before the Supreme Court of Canada and the law against polygamy will be tested. Of course no doubt the defense will ultimately be funded by the public purse.
Daphne spoke passionately about her subject. Five woman from Bountiful generously, if often painfully, shared memories of their life there and made this book possible. On one occasion, as she spoke, tears welled up in her eyes, so emotionally involved has she become in this situation. After she finished speaking, there were many questions from her very interested audience. Many of us have known about Bountiful, BC, albeit only marginally, until recently. Certainly Daphne has helped to publicize the shocking situation there, both in her articles in the Vancouver Sun and also with her widely acclaimed book, all based on meticulous research.
She had some copies of her book for sale and I purchased one which she graciously signed for me. That evening I read the first one hundred pages in one gulp and there was a lively discussion about her talk and her book at a luncheon I attended the next day with some of the people who had been there. It was indeed a mesmerizing book and I am very glad to have read it. Let’s hope that it will be instrumental in getting the message out about this flagrant abuse of women and children’s rights in the name of religious freedom.
* Daphne Bramham’s image is from the Vancouver Sun
** Corrected to read Jehovah’s Witnesses. My error in previously saying Seventh Day Adventists. Apologies to same.
It is almost nine years since I was last in Australia. It was the year 2000 in fact, when we went for the OS’s mother’s 100th birthday party.
o we will be staying for two nights at a small boutique hotel, The Rendezvous Stafford, before we leave on a 17 day cruise on the Volendam, seen above, from Sydney, down the east coast of Australia and across to and around New Zealand and back to Sydney. My favourite area of Sydney is the Rocks, the original settlement area of Sydney and which is right on the harbour, close by the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I am willing to pay a premium to stay there. It is right downtown, on the harbour front near Circular Quay, the ferry terminal, opposite the Sydney Opera House and within walking distance of the central business area, but relatively quiet. Above you can see a view from the hotel penthouse, which we will not be occupying but there is a rooftop viewing area.
