7 year old blond girl - Dublin - Roma family

[LoopaDaLoopa]

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?

[Herisson]

Bloody hell, this is appalling. I am half Indian and have a blonde, blue-eyed daughter. Do you think I should take to carrying her birth certificate with me at all times?

And, even though I am half-Indian and have dark straight hair as an adult, I had blonde curly hair as a baby/toddler.

[bkgirl]

I think the problem was in the paperwork. There were discrepancies so it was the statutory duty of the police to establish the truth. It just means we ALL should have birth certs with the right details. Then no problem :) I would be happy to prove my kids are my own. I cannot understand why this case was reported before any dna results. How did a journo get the story? Thank goodness it turned out the child did grow up with her own family. Sadly too many children have gone missing and we cannot let this distract from any ongoing attempts to recover them.

[limitedperiodonly]

The police never get anything wrong. And we should carry our papers at all times.

How fortunate that a 'journo' got this story. Because if not, the child might have disappeared into the system. Sadly.

Still, no harm done.

[Mimishimi]

My husband is Indian. I have dark brown eyes, hair and olive skin from mum's side of the family. My son has fair skin, curly light brown hair and light brown eyes because many on Dad's side are blonde/blue eyed. Not all people in the Roma community are full-blooded as you would expect after centuries of being in Europe. I have a friend whose mum is full-blooded Hungarian gypsy, her own children are all fair haired (blonde or red) with blue/green eyes because both she and her mum married non-gypsies.

[cory]

The latest news seems to be that there were no discrepancies with the paperwork, that the birth certificate was in order and that when an independent check was made with the hospital the birth record was found. So, a hospital taking some time to locate its files- who would have believed it? Could never happen to anybody honest, could it?

[limitedperiodonly]

It is not the statutory duty of the police to act on every confused or malicious call they receive - and I imagine they get quite a few.

Sometimes it's quite difficult to rouse them when you have a legitimate complaint. If I'm ever burgled I'll remember to say that gypsies squeezed a little blonde girl through the downstairs loo window.

[mathanxiety]

It's hard to tell what is confused or malicious when the police harbour the same prejudice the callers do. So easy to jump in the squad car when the complaint is about the Roma, but yes, Limitedperiodonly, I agree, in the case of other groups and individuals (Catholic Church, founders of Irish language schools and former members of the IRA for instance) there is nothing but heel dragging.