Prosecutors said the group, which was labeled a cult by a federal judge in 2018, beat children and imposed severe dietary restrictions.

Victims’ food and water intake was so heavily policed that a girl drank water from a toilet because she was thirsty, the federal prosecutors said

Six members of a Kansas-based cult have been convicted in a scheme to house children in overcrowded, rodent-infested facilities and force them to work up to 16 hours a day without pay while subjecting them to beatings and other abuse.

Federal prosecutors say the United Nation of Islam, a quasi-religious group deemed to be a "cult," used fear to coerce children into working up to 16-hour days in its storefronts, which were donated by the Kansas City,