Roma Children Removals Make Us Wonder What Family Looks Like

[kaine123]

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[QUOTE][IMG]http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/10/25/ap923139296365-9d60247ecb793f4354288f83c8bd12d8703d6847-s40.jpg[/IMG]
[I]The little girl known as "Maria" is at the center of a messy case in Greece. Police removed her from her Roma home on suspicions that the blond, blue-eyed girl had been kidnapped.[/I][/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Several recent cases of suspected kidnapping involving the Roma in Europe have had some some odd but peculiar resonances for 21st-century American life.

In one case, the police received a tip that a blond, blue-eyed girl was living with a Roma family in a Dublin suburb. The tipster believed that the 7-year-old didn't look like the Roma family with whom she lived. The police came and removed the child from the home, despite protests from the Roma family that the child was part of their family.

But after DNA test proved that she was, in fact, the biological child of the people who were raising her, she was returned to the family.

"We were all traumatized," the girl's older sister told the Daily Telegraph. "I used to be blonde when I was little, and my mum was blonde when she was little."

Even as that story was unfolding, there was another case in which Irish police had taken another child — again blond and blue-eyed — from his Roma family. That boy, too, was suspected of not belonging with the family, and taken away from his parents, who again insisted that he was, in fact, their son.

You can guess where this one is going. DNA tests again proved that the child was the biological child of the Roma family. He, too, was given back to his relatives.

These two stories followed another incident in which a Roma family, this time in Greece, was charged with abducting a blonde girl they claimed to have informally adopted from another Roma woman. (That story is a bit more complicated.)

These stories were initially covered in the press as possible instances of child trafficking, owing in part to stereotypes about Romas being unscrupulous and untrustworthy. For many folks, it was hard not to see the suspicion cast on the families of these children as instances of racial profiling.

"Not all Roma communities have dark skin: There are Roma who have light skin and green eyes," Dezideriu Gergely of the European Roma Rights Centre told the BBC.

Back here in the States, ideas about what families are supposed to look like, both visually and in terms of their structure, are being blown up all the time. As more people here grow up in blended or adoptive or inter-ethnic families — to say nothing of regular old recessive genes — we're more likely to see more people who don't look like "family."

We asked readers on Twitter about times when people treated them and their relatives as if they weren't related. Some stories were funny. But sometimes the cops were called.

[B]...[/B][/QUOTE]

[B]Read the rest here:[/B] [url]http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/10/25/240865629/roma-children-removals-make-us-wonder-what-family-looks-like[/url]

[Curls]

can't imagine how shitty it'd be to lose your kid.

[BuffaloBill]

Removing kids just because they don't look like their parents is beyond retarded.

[Curls]

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;42666803]Removing kids just because they don't look like their parents is beyond retarded.[/QUOTE]

There's probably like, a bazillion kids that don't look anything like their parents out there.

Fuck, there are even black couples with white babies, white babies who 100% are genetically from both parents.

Basing it on looks is like, crap they did long before "genetic code" was even a word.

[Conely]

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;42666803]Removing kids just because they don't look like their parents is beyond retarded.[/QUOTE]

welcome to Europe, where we're so afraid of Roma people that we'll bypass the law to annoy them

[Wizards Court]

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;42666803]Removing kids just because they don't look like their parents is beyond retarded.[/QUOTE]

my grandmother would be probably be hosed if she lived in europe based on this :v:, 3 of her 4 children are white skinned(one of them even has green eyes), and she is black(my granddad was blonde with blue eyes).

[MatheusMCardoso]

What's a Roma

[Purple Magpie]

[QUOTE=MatheusMCardoso;42667006]What's a Roma[/QUOTE]

Romany. Also known as Gypsies. At least I'm pretty sure, I'm not exactly an expert.

[Wizards Court]

[QUOTE=MatheusMCardoso;42667006]What's a Roma[/QUOTE]

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_(Romani_subgroup)[/url]

[Conely]

[QUOTE=MatheusMCardoso;42667006]What's a Roma[/QUOTE]

they're basically an ethnic minority that some people in Europe hate super hardcore, to the point that you'll sometimes get dudes advocating their genocide for one or two of them stealing like a hedge trimmer or something

[Vasey105]

Pretty sure they're just gypsies.

I'd never even heard the term roma until a few days ago.

[person12]

[QUOTE=Cone;42667070]they're basically an ethnic minority that some people in Europe hate super hardcore, to the point that you'll sometimes get dudes advocating their genocide for one or two of them stealing like a hedge trimmer or something[/QUOTE]

It's amazing what I hear when I travel in Europe.

You see a small child pickpocketing a tourist and suddenly we need to kill all of them according to the French taxi driver...

[editline]27th October 2013[/editline]

[QUOTE=BuffaloBill;42666803]Removing kids just because they don't look like their parents is beyond retarded.[/QUOTE]

This is true, though they did end up proving they were not her real parents.

[editline]27th October 2013[/editline]

[QUOTE=J!NX;42666784]can't imagine how shitty it'd be to lose your kid.[/QUOTE]

I am pretty sure her real Bulgarian parents sold her or gave her away or something. I remember hearing that.

[itisjuly]

[QUOTE=person11;42667092]
You see a small child pickpocketing a tourist[/QUOTE]
Problem is you see that every day. If you look closely even multiple times a day.

[Vasili]

Is there a photo of the gypsy parents who owned the child?

[Curls]

[QUOTE=Vasili;42667236]Is there a photo of the gypsy parents who owned the child?[/QUOTE]

why do I get the feeling they're going to look insanely alike

[Vasili]

[QUOTE=J!NX;42667263]why do I get the feeling they're going to look insanely alike[/QUOTE]

That is my suspicion, as ethnically roma gypsies look radically different to the child, this is why the alarm was rung in the first place.

Here;

[img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/23/article-2474417-18E4ADDB00000578-399_634x320.jpg[/img]

Yeah no wonder people reported it.

[Jeep-Eep]

[QUOTE=Vasili;42667408]That is my suspicion, as ethnically roma gypsies look radically different to the child, this is why the alarm was rung in the first place.

Here;

[img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/23/article-2474417-18E4ADDB00000578-399_634x320.jpg[/img]

Yeah no wonder people reported it.[/QUOTE]

I see a resemblance between the child and mother. Give her a few years with too much sun, and most folks would think she's been at the peroxide when compared with her parents.

[Vasili]

[QUOTE=Jeep-Eep;42667484]I see a resemblance between the child and mother. Give her a few years with too much sun, and most folks would think she's been at the peroxide when compared with her parents.[/QUOTE]

I think she is the result of a rare mutation. Her mother and father have brown eyes yet she has blue, her hair is blonde but the parents have black while her skin colour is whiter and the parents are brown, and thats no tan.

[person12]

Okay but they have shown that they are not the real parents. You don't need to try to prove a resemblance.

[Jeep-Eep]

[QUOTE=Vasili;42667585]I think she is the result of a rare mutation. Her mother and father have brown eyes yet she has blue, her hair is blonde but the parents have black while her skin colour is whiter and the parents are brown, and thats no tan.[/QUOTE]

She might even have a minor form of albinism.

[Deunan]

[QUOTE=Vasey105;42667087]Pretty sure they're just gypsies.

I'd never even heard the term roma until a few days ago.[/QUOTE]

Gypsies is what most people call the group. (gets complicated in the UK where both travelers and roma are considered gypsies) but the ethnicity is roma.

[Vasili]

[QUOTE=person11;42667617]Okay but they have shown that they are not the real parents. You don't need to try to prove a resemblance.[/QUOTE]

oh they have? I was being confused with the ones in Ireland.

[swebonny]

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/11rvC9V.jpg[/IMG]

These are the real parents. They're from Bulgaria and she worked for the Greek woman.

[Sgt-NiallR]

[QUOTE=Vasili;42667408]That is my suspicion, as ethnically roma gypsies look radically different to the child, this is why the alarm was rung in the first place.

Here;

[img]http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/23/article-2474417-18E4ADDB00000578-399_634x320.jpg[/img]

Yeah no wonder people reported it.[/QUOTE]

I pointed out that there was no resemblance whatsoever between the alleged parents and the child, and oh god I'm still covered in boxes.

Of course, you shoudn't take a kid away from someone because they don't look alike, but there's no questioning that it could be suspicious. You don't take risks when it comes to a child's welfare.

[SigmaLambda]

[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;42667932]I pointed out that there was no resemblance whatsoever between the alleged parents and the child, and oh god I'm still covered in boxes.

Of course, you shoudn't take a kid away from someone because they don't look alike, but there's no questioning that it could be suspicious. You don't take risks when it comes to a child's welfare.[/QUOTE]

White parents with kids that don't resemble them (for whatever reason) don't get the cops called on them.

[Sgt-NiallR]

[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;42667977]White parents with kids that don't resemble them (for whatever reason) don't get the cops called on them.[/QUOTE]

I know, and I wasn't suggesting that they should.
I'm saying that it's an additional factor to consider.

[TheHydra]

[QUOTE=Sgt-NiallR;42668700]I know, and I wasn't suggesting that they should.
I'm saying that it's an additional factor to consider.[/QUOTE]

then we should also consider that two blonde-haired blue-eyed white people with a child of some non-white ethnicity could be kidnappers

[tr00per7]

I cant see a resemblance either, arrest the parents for child abduction.

[President Buer]

[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;42667977]White parents with kids that don't resemble them (for whatever reason) don't get the cops called on them.[/QUOTE]

[video=youtube;q37M7ReFRq0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q37M7ReFRq0[/video]
News story starts at 2:30.

Maybe this recent string of false accusations will make parents of all races start keeping up to date and correct documents around, even if in case of an emergency or the child actually being kidnapped.

[Sgt-NiallR]

[QUOTE=TheHydra;42668874]then we should also consider that two blonde-haired blue-eyed white people with a child of some non-white ethnicity could be kidnappers[/QUOTE]

In the presence of other evidence, one shouldn't ignore that fact.
The Dublin police were tipped that the Roma child wasn't related to those caring for her. In the event of a tip, it makes sense to err on the side of caution in order to ensure the child is safe. The fact that she didn't look like her supposed parents simply helped that suspicion.