Breaking news: Unidentified 4 year old girl found in Roma camp in Greece (title edited by MNHQ)

[YourHandInMyHand]

Unidentified 4 year old found with couple who are not her parents.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/who-four-year-old-blonde-girl-found-2467385

news.yahoo.com/greece-trying-identify-girl-found-roma-camp-151038923.html

"having your child adopted is patently different to just dumping it in greece."

have you read the link to the article where the woman (who thinks she is maria's mother) explains what happened and why?

she did not dump the child. what she did was adoption, no paperwork, but it was an adoption for much the same reasons as many official adoptions across the world take place. she couldn't afford to raise the baby so gave it to a couple who said they could.

"there is a difference between having your child adopted through official channels or through trusted family members and dumping a child in another country in squalid conditions."

the child was given over 5-6 years ago, who is to say they were in squalid conditions then? who is to say they didn't persuade her they were model citizens? who is to say she wasn't forced? the woman was post natal and probably desperate at best. she has 8 children and said two of them have been born since she handed her baby over so that would have been a 6th child for a very poor woman, with very little support and possibly no other options. she is roma and probably wanted her child brought up within a roma community, had she gone through 'official' channels do you think she would have been placed within a roma community? would she hell. so what then? hand her over to an orphanage that is responsible for 500 children being handed over to traffickers?

and who is to say the woman's own condition weren't already squalid and far worse than what she was sending the baby to?

DNA tests have now confirmed the Bulgarian Roma couple mentioned earlier are in fact the blonde girl's parents

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24673804

I thought it very likely already after reading the Guardian article. Given the place and date of birth and the hospital records.

I feel saddened by how worthless these Roma children are. Not because the parents are bad parents, but because how devastatingly poor they are. I don't know what we could do to help lift them out of poverty.

well i'm glad that that mystery has been solved but I do fear for what lies ahead for that little girl. she wont be allowed back to the only family she has known, if her parents want her back that means moving to a brand new country and integrating with a new family aged 5-6 and if she isn't placed with them then what? an orphanage?

I cant help thinking that there must be a ridiculously thriving (made worse by the fact that it is accepted) trade of children in certain poorer parts of the world and it breaks my heart. I may be wrong but I dont think that these children are going to a better life, they are going to a life of begging or worse (organ trafficking/sex trade/child abuse) and i think its just stupid western naivety to think that all these unwanted children and being happily taken in by adoptive families. I read in one of the papers that the man accused of abducting maria was trying to defend himself by saying that he would never buy a child, proved by the fact that some other man was selling five children for £850 each and he never bought one. Like it was an everyday occurrence, nothing unusual that you would have to inform any authorities about. Not sure what can be done about it though.

OneLittleToddle - pushing for the EU to enforce anti-discrimination laws. The current situation for Roma includes legally enforced often walled ghettos in several EU countries, separate very unequal education for Roma children in those countries, and the overt discrimination in law, by political parties through the media, and in general public life make any efforts by the Roma to raise themselves very difficult, even more so for any outside agencies when not allowed to do anything to bring better quality of life to those within the walled ghettos. While in the UK it is mainly social barriers, many other countries there is a lot of legal and major historical issues as well (Roma were enslaved in most of Eastern Europe, and the vast majority of those on the continent died during the Holocaust) and the propaganda from those eras has never been properly challenged.

in the case of this ghetto it was unsafe to go in there - how do you go and help people who are hoarding guns and drugs? would you want to wander in and ask them to better themselves?

the police didn't go and look for ben needham there after a siting because they felt it was unsafe. you can't exactly blame people for wanting to distance themselves from communities that are that dangerous. yes it's bloody unfortunate for those who aren't violent and hoarding illegal weapons but that level of criminality and utter disregard for the law makes people hard to live with.

yes all those abhorrent people who have their children adopted to give them a chance at a better life hmm how ignorant and offensive to anyone who has had to make that very difficult decision. never mind those who were forced into it by abusive partners or parents.

Oh come on, giving a child up for adoption isn't quite the same as handing them over to someone whose name you can't even remember four years later.

"giving a child up for adoption isn't quite the same as handing them over to someone whose name you can't even remember four years later."

it really depends what your options are though doesn't it? giving your child up for (legal-official) adoption in the UK Is probably the considered the only option for a parent who doesn't wish to raise the child. we have pretty well regulated system for adopted children, homes are found for newborns pretty quickly (if no serious health complications) the parent knows their child will be cared for according to the law.

in Greece? is that same option available to a poor roma woman? would she be provided with counselling? assurances that her child would be well cared for in the system? that it wouldn't be left in an orphanage or passed onto sex rings to be raped and exploited, possibly murdered?

she didn't even bother to find out their names ffs. come off it.

it's entirely possible no names were given so that neither side could tell the police if they were ever found to have done it, or she could have known the names but told the media/police she didn't to protect the other couple or herself in some way. don't believe that you are hearing all the facts or how the story actually happened.

nor do you but you are determined to paint them as innocent shining parents simply because they're roma.

having looked at the bbc link on the other thread the biological mother says she worked with the adoptive mother at the time she gave her to her. she knew her name. my bet is she was trying to protect all involved by refusing to give names.

innocent shining parents? no- I am simply suggesting reasons as to why they aren't necessarily demons. it's nothing to do with them being roma. it's to do with them being human beings in a very difficult way of life that creates all sorts of situations some of could never understand being in or the decisions that arise from that.

So what about the non blond children that the couple had in their care that weren't biologically theirs? Is that even being looked into?

Difficult to separate fact from fiction in this case due to unreliable news reporting, for example whether she was sold or given and whether the 'father' really referred to her as a bomb.

Still find it strange that they dyed her hair but maybe not so much given the uproar this story has created.

I knew someone who did preschool literacy in a permenant gypsy camp here. They apparently initially suspicious but then were quite positive about accepting the help. Why would you welcome outsiders if you were used to being judged and persecuted.

Anyway, the point is that the mystery has been solved and now it will be interesting to find out what the future holds for both Roma couples and who will be the sole carer for this little girl.

do you think we will find out irnbru? I've a feeling this will disappear from the public eye. Greece will not be welcoming of all this media focus on their treatment of roma or orphaned children.

Maria being looked after by a couple that was not her biological parents has not been the worst outcome for her. If she'd been dumped in an orphanage then she'd be even worse off than she is at the moment.

The media has sensationalised this story and it has caused such alarm yet in their culture no one bats an eyelid. I'm not saying I agree with informal adoptions but it must be routinely done behind the authorities, to avoid children going into orphanages? I like to think of that as the biological mother caring about her child being brought up within a family setting by handing baby Maria over at that time to another Roma couple, rather than being left at an orphanage in a cot to rock back and forth with little human interaction.

I do hope we find out what happens now after all the media attention that started last week.

I guess many Roma would not want their children adopted through official channels (who might not want to give them up for adoption to another poor couple - even though relatively less).They would want to have them stay in the community. I am not at all sure that she should go back to her biological parents - she wouldn't know Bulgarian and their poverty is shocking. I believe the mum when she says the child wasn't sold. Very sad all round.

This has been preying on my mind. I feel so naive not to know that whole communities in the EU are living in such poverty as the Bulgarian family. :( That to me is the most shocking part of the whole case. Do they have NO welfare state? What education do the children have a chance to receive?

The natural hair colour of some of Maria's siblings is too (it is real?)

Maria is a spitting image blonde version of her bio dad. The bio & adoptive dads could be twins, in other respects.

The adoptive parents still committed fraud by claiming money from the state for the child without formal custody. And what about the other other children in the adoptive-family household who can't be theirs (all born in the same year etc.) Is anyone trying to trace their origins or do they not matter since they aren't blonde? Is this a case of Roma community looking after their own or is it fraud? I can't decide.

is there a link somewhere with a photo of the biological father?

I've also been looking for photos of the biological father but cannot seem to find anything...