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POLICE in Texas have removed more than 200 women and children from the compound of a polygamous sect as they investigate possible child abuse.

The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper reported today that authorities were still only halfway through their search of the compound, which was launched after allegations that a 16-year-old girl there was forced to bear the child of her 50-year-old husband.

The unidentified girl reportedly called officials from the compound owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a breakaway group of the US Mormon church, and said she had given birth to a child months ago.

Under Texas law, girls younger than 16 may not marry, even with parental approval, which suggests that the baby`s father may have violated state sex and marriage consent laws.

The teen`s complaints sparked a huge police operation at the compound, which so far has spanned three days.

Special police units entered the temple late yesterday without incident, following an hours-long stand-off during which temple leaders refused investigators access, US media reported.

While social workers interviewed residents from the compound, authorities continued to search for the teenage girl, her baby, and the infant`s alleged father.

The Utah-based Salt Lake Tribune reported that 60 women and 159 children had been evacuated from the isolated compound so they could be questioned in a less intimidating atmosphere.

Social workers were trying to determine if the young women removed from the compound had been abused or were in immediate risk of future abuse.

The vast Texas ranch was bought by the sect in 2003 and has been kept under surveillance by the authorities.

The compound, in the town of El Dorado about 400km southwest of Dallas, Texas, is linked to polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, who is now behind bars in connection with another polygamy case.

Jeffs is jailed in Kingman, Arizona awaiting trial for four counts each of incest and sexual conduct with a minor stemming from two arranged marriages between teenage girls and their older male relatives.

Considered to be the sect`s prophet, Jeffs was arrested near Las Vegas in 2006 and sentenced to life in jail for being an accomplice to rape. He also faces federal charges in Arizona and Utah.

The mainstream Mormon church - the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - renounced polygamy more than one century ago as a price of Utah`s admission to the United States.

It now excommunicates members who engage in the practice and disavows any connection with the FLDS church.

Members of the FLDS church are known to live in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, South Dakota and British Columbia.

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