A Utah federal judge has found a company with ties to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS Church) guilty of contempt of court for using nearly 200 children to work long hours to harvest pecans in a child labour case filed by the U.S. Department of Labor.
U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell held Paragon Contractors Corp. and owner Brian Jessop in contempt of court after they violated a permanent injunction signed in 2007 that barred the company from employing minors.
In 2012, CNN filmed hundreds of children, who were members of the church, working at the Southern Utah Pecan Ranch in Hurricane, Utah. This prompted the labor department to investigate.
The U.S. government said Paragon had deep ties to FLDS Church led by Warren Jeffs and was under pressure to make money for its leaders before it used workers including children as unpaid labour, the Associated Press reports.
Testimonies by the children who worked at the farm said they had no choice.
"We really didn't have a choice," testified Nathan Barlow who was six years old in 2012.
His sister, Phoebe Barlow, testified that "[t]here were days when I was given no choice as to whether or not [to] work at the pecan harvest. Even if I did not go, my school was shut down so I could not attend school."
According to the decision, "Moreover, hanging over the decision whether to work was the threat of retaliation by the FLDS Church if the members did not follow instructions."
Alyssa Bistline said that if she didn't go work as directed by the Church, "I was in big trouble."
When asked what kind of trouble, she said, "Getting yelled at by my step-dad [James Jessop], losing my family. If I would have rebelled too much, I risked getting kicked out of the community."
Kenneth Benjamin Thomas, FLDS member from 2002 to 2013, said he sent five of his children to work at the ranch "any time the Church told us to, and they generally worked Monday through Saturday."
He said there was pressure on the members to follow the church's direction about their children to work at the ranch.
Parent Sheryl Barlow also said she was pressured to send her children to work and pick pecans.
She testified that "[d]uring Church meetings, everyone was strongly encouraged to send their children to work at the pecan harvest. If you were not sending your children to work, it was viewed as not doing your part to serve the Lord. The option to attend school instead was taken out when the schools closed down during the harvest."
There were not enough restrooms for all the workers and Phoebe said many times she helped little children with wet pants.
Paragon said the children were volunteers and not workers and that the children's labour was allowed under agricultural work exemptions.
But the court said "the children worked under pressure and coercion. They were not free to leave or not work. Their labour was not voluntary."
"The FLDS Church and Brian Jessop used their position in the community to coerce the families and children to work the harvest," the court ruled.
