Salt Lake City, USA - A Utah legislative committee has advanced a bill pushed by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to help the "lost boys". Those are the youths evicted from polygamists' homes.
Shurtleff says the bill _ among his top priorities _ would allow a judge to emancipate a minor at age 16.
Shurtleff said hundreds of young men need help after being cast out by their polygamous families in the towns of Hildale, Utah, and neighboring Colorado City, Arizona
He said the youths are persecuted for their behavior or forced out as competition for older men seeking plural wives.
Similar legislation failed to pass the Utah Legislature last year.