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News

7 year old blond girl - Dublin - Roma family

57 replies

LoopaDaLoopa · 22/10/2013 16:04

Here can't see another thread on this.

Firstly, please let's not get into racists anti-gypsy stuff.

What is going on? Is this co-incidence? Were the neighbours (presumably)prompted by the Greece news?

Will this lead to Romany persecution with kids taken away left, right and centre?

Or is there actually a problem, and should Roma families be looked into further?

OP posts:

Report

SeaSickSal · 22/10/2013 16:09

I saw that. I wondered if it could be Maddie given the age is ball park right.

I think there is certainly a problem with child trafficking which has been brushed under the table out of political correctness. I think however that this has normally been trafficking of children of Roma origin and it's only really getting attention now these blond children have been found.

I think it does need looking at, we've had the slavery cases over here and now this. I think that there is an issue that people within these communities might be getting away with crimes because they know people are too frightened to investigate, lest they're accused of racism.

LoopaDaLoopa · 22/10/2013 16:12

It's very tricky yes, I think you may be right in that many people are afraid to probe into protected groups.

OP posts:

LeBearPolar · 22/10/2013 16:16

The age is nowhere near that of Madeleine - she is ten going on eleven.

SeaSickSal · 22/10/2013 16:27

I think they age they gave is the one that the people she was with gave as her birthday, but they've found out that is incorrect.

It is in the same ballpark. If it's a girl who looks 8/9 they have been passing off as an old looking 7 but is actually a young looking 10. I think it would totally be possible to pass off a 10 year old as a 7 year old.

As they don't know when/where she was born or who she is they can't really give an age now can they?

IrnBruTheNoo · 22/10/2013 19:27

Read about this from another thread today. It will also on BBC Radio Scotland news earlier. It would be too much of a coincidence if it was Madeleine. So many young girls out there with blonde hair and blue eyes!

mathanxiety · 23/10/2013 05:32

Are they just looking at the blond children with suspicion? Surely children go missing who have brown hair and eyes...

I can see an uptick in vigilantism arising from this, especially in parts of Europe where it has always been acceptable to abuse the Roma. People will use any stick to beat them with.

BinarySolo · 23/10/2013 06:35

Will be interesting to see what the DNA says. Very odd to get both these stories so close together, but I guess the Greek story prompted the report.

I think it's a bit sad that the story in Greece is only focused on Maria when there were other children there that did not bring to the 'parents'.

matana · 23/10/2013 08:24

Sorry to say but this is the tip of the iceberg and, what's more, it's happening all over the world, including the UK. You only need to look at Rochdale to see that modern day slavery and child exploitation is not something confined to foreign shores. The children in Rochdale weren't as young, but they were still under the age of consent and forced into selling sex to men. And it's not only children. Men and women, mostly Eastern European, come here to find jobs on the land and end up exploited by rogue landlords and unlicensed gangmasters. They live in cramped, overcrowded and dangerous accommodation and are told they have no legal rights and will be fined £1000 for every day they don't go to work. Where i live there was a recent police/ local authority operation and they discovered 80 victims of such exploitation. A while back some others were discovered in a garage with a trough dug out down the middle for use as a toilet. Absolutely horrendous conditions. This is happening up and down the country, so we shouldn't be fooled into thinking this is an endemic problem with the Roma community, or indeed just children. I have no idea what happened to Maddie, and these latest two finds may well have been discovered as a result of the Met's operation. But the whole world has been looking for Maddie for almost 7 years - she's been missed. It is therefore unlikely that she will be found because children who will be missed are generally not targeted for trafficking in this way. These poor children are likely not to have been missed by anyone.

swallowedAfly · 23/10/2013 08:30

.

canyou · 23/10/2013 09:17

this little girl in Ireland is the biological daughter of the Roma couple according to the news, but she is still in the care of the HSE.

MissMarplesBloomers · 23/10/2013 09:21

My grasp of genetics is not good but how can a blonde, blue eyed child be the biological offspring of two people from a naturally dark skinned,dark haired, brown eyed race?

limitedperiodonly · 23/10/2013 09:22

Or is there actually a problem, and should Roma families be looked into further?

Don't worry about that, I think they are OP.

I just listened to a news report on the child in Ireland and apparently DNA tests are inconclusive but she's still being kept from the people who claim to be her parents.

Does compulsory DNA-testing happen to everyone whose children don't look like them or just some people?

If so, the authorities are going to be very busy, aren't they?

lagoonhaze · 23/10/2013 09:23

Have you got a link to that Canyou?

GobbySadcase · 23/10/2013 09:24

Err... Same way neither me or my husband are ginger but our DD is. Genetic throwback.

mummytime · 23/10/2013 09:36

A parent is brown haired, they could still have one Brown haired gene and one Blonde gene. The brown will be dominant, and they will have brown hair. If two such individuals have children, there is a one in four chance they will have a blonde child. It works similarly with eye colour.

canyou · 23/10/2013 09:36

will be home late and try on the laptop it was on the Irish rate news at 9 am. cannot link on ph

snakeweave · 23/10/2013 10:03

genetically it's quite possible for two brown eyed parents to have a blue eyed child and plenty of people have blond hair when they're kids but it darkens. mine is now very dark brown but i was platinum blond as a child. i think it's a real shame the kids have been taken away unless there are signs of abuse and would be taken away anyway even if there was no doubt about genetics. imagine the trauma these poor little girls are going through if they were in happy family situations. from what i've heard, informal adoptions are not unheard of in lots of cultures so to jump to an abduction conclusion just because the dna doesn't match is not right. do the girls show signs of having been abused does anyone know?

LifeofPo · 23/10/2013 10:06

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

matana · 23/10/2013 10:11

I used to live next door to a pakistani family. Nobody was mixed race, all pakistani. They had a child who was white and had ginger hair. She was definitely their child - i remember the mum being pregnant with her and going into hospital to have her!

LoopaDaLoopa · 23/10/2013 12:10

Third child taken, also in Ireland

OP posts:

Sallykitten · 23/10/2013 12:51

Reporting today says that DNA testing is still underway.

www.channel4.com/news/ireland-roma-child-blonde-maria-found-police-dna-test

It also says that the documents they gave for this girl appear to be fake as the details given on them do not match official records.

I would be extremely surprised if she is who they say she is.

BinarySolo · 23/10/2013 13:04

Whilst it is genetically possible she could look so different to her birth parents, it's the faked documents that make this suspicious. I wonder if they'll check any siblings too.

swallowedAfly · 23/10/2013 13:06

one would hope any siblings would automatically be removed - child abductors with god knows what intent is surely enough to class you unfit to be in care of children?

TheFabulousIdiot · 23/10/2013 13:10

There was a guy on Channel 4 news last night saying that there are lots of blonde Roma children and it's not a genetic impossibility. I think we need to exercise caution when branding whole groups as child snatchers but I do hope that all this leads to those children who have been abducted finding their way back to their parents.

swallowedAfly · 23/10/2013 13:45

i think if there's any racism going on in this it's the sense in which the children that aren't genetically there's must be saved but somehow the ones that are there's are expendable and can be left with them.

surely child abductors are not suitable parents for any children. the genetically roma children are no less deserving of being saved from people who are found guilty of kidnapping or trading in children and using them as beggars and/or other commodities.

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