One of the nation’s largest fundamentalist Mormon churches has been fined $1.9 million by the Department of Labor for violating child labor laws.

The Hill reports the Department of Labor (DOL) conducted a multiyear investigation and found that leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) illegally hired young children in Southern Utah and northern Arizona to harvest pecans by hand for commercial sale.

On Wednesday, the DOL took administrative action to collect $1.9 million from the FLDS Church for child labor violations that occurred during the 2012-2013 pecan harvest.

According to reports church leaders pulled children out of school for several weeks to work during the 2012-13 pecan harvest. Adding insult to injury, the children were not even paid for their labor.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that last May the Labor Department announced fines totaling almost $2 million against the FLDS, and the man running its day-to-day operations, Lyle Jeffs.

On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Labor also filed a lawsuit against the FLDS. According to the lawsuit as many as 175 children under the age of 13 were found among the 1,400 children and adults who harvested pecans at the Southern Utah Pecan Ranch in Hurricane but were not paid, according to a lawsuits.

The lawsuit is seeking back wages for the 1,400 workers and names FLDS Bishop Lyle Jeffs; member Dale Barlow, who supervised the ranch; and the two operating branches of the church, the Corporation of the President and Corporation of the Presiding Bishop, as defendants.

The lawsuit states:

These children worked for the defendants in agriculture performing various job duties, including but not limited to: pruning trees, mowing fields, maintenance duties, picking and bagging pecans, shaking trees, driving equipment, cleanup work, and preparing pecans for commerce. Defendants knew that they were employing these children during school hours without pay.

David Weil, administrator of DOL’s Wage and Hour Division, said:

For years, these employers have trampled on the rights of workers, both children and adults, and violated our child labor laws forcing minors to work for them. Such disregard for the rights of all workers, especially children, will not be tolerated.

Nothing says “religion is child abuse” quite like forced child labor.