From Cosmopolitan

On the heels of a seriously heartbreaking story about a 3-month-old who died on her first day of daycare, a woman named Deborah Stokes is making headlines for operating a string of "disastrous" Christian daycares all over southern Alabama for a decade.

Stokes began opening daycares 14 years ago in Saraland, Alabama, according to Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting. Just weeks into her new career, authorities discovered she was keeping kids in a building that didn't meet basic health and safety standards. Stokes was arrested for child endangerment, criminally charged, and later convicted. She also was banned from operating a daycare for two years.

But soon enough, she was back at it. She opened a daycare in a decrepit warehouse that one worker described as a "house out of a horror movie." Another was next to a porn store. Parents and workers have reported Stokes for abuse and neglect - hitting kids with flyswatters, locking them in closets, rapping them with rulers, and failing to pay employees, according to police reports.

Of course police, county health officials, city council members, building inspectors, and tons of former employees and upset parents have tried to take action, but they can't seem to stop Stokes. When she's forced to close one of her daycares, she just opens another in a neighboring town. This is all possible, because daycares that identify as religious, like Stokes's, are exempt from certain licensing rules and don't require any real government oversight in 16 states, including Alabama.

In 2006, the Alabama Department of Human Resources didn't verify the safety requirements of one of her daycares in Mobile, because they trusted that churches would tell the truth about complying with the law.

Within months, a county health inspector named Alice Rollins was responding to parents' complaints and found babies lying in carriers on the floor because Stokes hadn't bought enough cribs. Rollins wrote in her notes that one infant had been neglected for so long that "urine had soaked through its outer garment as it sat on the carpet" and electrical outlets in the kitchen didn't have childproof plugs or cover plates.

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Meanwhile, Reveal reports that they could find no evidence that Stokes's church - which she founded - holds services or performs outreach. The site's investigation also found at least 80 daycare operators who suddenly decided to identify as religious after regulators tried to shut them down.

Currently, Stokes is running a church daycare called Little Nemo's, next to an auto repair shop, that is at least her 12th operation. All she had to do to open her doors was tell regulators was that her daycare was "an integral part" of her church.

But there is hope for parents who are appalled by what Stokes and similar daycare owners have been using religion to circumvent regulations. Yesterday, Alabama lawmaker Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham introduced a bill to overturn the state's religious exemption for faith-based daycares, citing the Reveal investigation's findings.

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