A lawyer for the B.C. government says new evidence that eight teenage girls from Bountiful, B.C., were taken to the U.S. to become plural wives is proof that polygamy is inherently harmful.
The provincial government is asking a B.C. judge examining Canada's anti-polygamy law to admit last-minute evidence stemming from a raid on a polygamous compound in Texas in 2008.
The documents detail the marriages of nine girls between the ages of 12 and 18 — eight of whom were born in Bountiful.
The records indicate three of those eight girls were married to polygamous leader Warren Jeffs between 2004 and 2006, while the ninth was a 16-year-old American girl who was married to a Bountiful man.
B.C. government lawyer Craig Jones says the marriages bear out testimony from experts, who say polygamy inevitably leads to child brides and the need to traffic girls to be married.
Mr. Jones says it's clear that marriages involving young teenage girls have occurred recently, and he says the number of girls involved suggest the practice was widespread.