SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - Rowenna Erickson wants Utah to take polygamy seriously and the Winter Olympics has offered her the perfect opportunity to publicize what she describes as the "horrors" of the practice of taking multiple wives.
Erickson, now 62, ran away from her 38-year marriage to a member of one of the biggest of Utah's polygamous families and four years ago established Tapestry against Polygamy.
The organization helps women, children and even men from polygamous marriages by offering them support and safe houses.
"There are a lot of people leaving these marriages and many are afraid," Erickson said. "These are cults practicing brain-washing and mind control and when they leave it is a horrendous effort to make the transition.
"We are assisting refugees in their transition from polygamy to a new life of freedom."
Polygamy was originally encouraged by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- commonly called the Mormon church -- in the Utah territory, where they settled after their trek across America fleeing religious persecution.
But the practice was a serious hindrance to their plans for full statehood within the United States.
The Mormon church issued an edict in 1890 banning the practice and duly won statehood in 1896.
But many in rural Utah still adhere to fundamentalist Mormon beliefs and, according to Erickson, the state turns a blind eye.
"It's time for Utah to wake up and take it seriously," she told Reuters in an interview. "The abuses in polygamy are so horrific, it's a breeding ground for sexual abuse.
"The groups are isolated, they live in secrecy and avoid the law -- and the law doesn't go after them.
"It seems the state of Utah is avoiding and ignoring us because of the Olympics. They hope we'll be quiet but that won't work."
Anti-polygamy groups plan a news conference on Wednesday, two days before the Games open, in front of the state Capitol. The National Organization for Women is lending its support.
"This form of terrorism must be recognized by the International Olympic Committee ... for the rights of the vulnerable who will be left behind long after the Games are gone," it said in a statement.
POLYGAMOUS MARRIAGES
It is difficult to estimate how many polygamous marriages exist in the U.S. because of the secrecy of adherents to the practice, but Erickson said there could be 100,000 people involved in the U.S. with up to 30,000 to 50,000 in Utah.
Last year avowed polygamist Tom Green was sent to prison for living with five women at the same time. The wives and many of his 29 children attended the high-profile trial in Utah.
Erickson was born and raised in a polygamist family and was married at 20 to a man already married to her elder sister.
"I was so brainwashed. We thought it was the sacrifice that God wanted of us," she said. "I realized I had been conned -- I suddenly woke up to see I was serving a god that didn't exist."
In her family, women were expected to have one child a year and Rowenna and her sister eventually had 14 between them.
One man in her community, aged 42, had 32 wives and at least 250 children.
"His first wife has 18 children and his third 15 and he only visits his wives when they are ovulating and can conceive," she said.
"They think the head of the religion will be god in eternity and he needs wives to go populate other worlds -- they're just eternally having sex."
MENTAL PROBLEMS
She says wives of polygamists often suffer post-traumatic stress disorder when they flee such marriages -- and even while they are in them -- as they are forced to look after a clutch of children with little money or support from their husband.
Children are neglected, she says, and the girls are often subject to sexual abuse by their father and other members of the family before being married off at a young age.
"I've heard about horrible atrocities perpetrated on young girls who are forced to submit to older men. They are physically and emotionally traumatized and I think they will never be healed," said Erickson.
"It is so difficult to repair one's spirit and soul after this much abuse."
Erickson says she still has some healing to do herself but has kept a up her relationship with her sister who remains in the polygamous family.
"She lives right next door," Erickson says with a laugh.