Galery

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Anastasia Balezdrova

The case of Maria who was found in a Roma camp near Farsala has uncovered all the defects of today's society. It had all started when a prosecutor from Larissa had noticed the blond hair of a child, covered with a blanket, during a police raid to search for drugs in the camp.

Then the course of developments was swift. The media had immediately presented the persons pretending to be Maria’s parents as her kidnappers and the police in Larissa had immediately disseminated their photos. Without exception, all the world media rushed to publish the photos of the "blond angel" who had been "held captive" by the "bad" and, mainly, black Roma. The old stereotype and racist threat to children, namely, "you have to be good, otherwise the black gypsy woman will come and take you away" had instantly been revived. The media had also revived all unrevealed cases of missing children, including that of Ben from the UK, who has been missing for 22 years already and of Madeleine, whose family has been searchin for her since 2007.

The identification of Maria’s biological parents, Roma Sashka and Atanas Russevi from the village of Nikolaevo in Bulgaria, had abruptly interrupted the hysteria. The child had immediately become just "little Maria", probably because, according to the media, Roma children cannot be called "angels", not to mention "blond".

In addition, it became clear that in Greece everyone could register a child without having to present any official documents. By order of the prosecutor of the Supreme Court, an investigation in all municipalities is currently underway to detect suspicious cases of improperly registered children. So far, only one such case has been established, again in a Roma family. The other participants in the trafficking networks such as doctors, lawyers and mediators are still in the dark.

The Greek authorities have not yet found a way to counter child trafficking, as stated by the majority of the readers of the three language versions of GRReporter. Only the readers of the Greek version, 33%, rank first the fact that the child is feeling well, followed by 26% of readers of the Bulgarian and 21% of readers of the English versions of the website.

In parallel, they state that the authorities have done well but the media have overreacted, the most explicit being the readers of the Greek version, 23%, followed by 21% of the Bulgarian and 20% of the English readers.

Fourth is the opinion that "The case shows how corrupt the Greek state is" as it collects the votes of 20% of the readers of the Bulgarian version, 17% of the Greek and 15% of the English readers of GRReporter.

It is worth noting that only the English-speaking audience, 20%, perceive as racist the dissemination of the photos of the supposed adoptive parents of Maria. This is the preference of 9% of respondents in the Greek and of only 4% of respondents in the Bulgarian versions.

Thank you for your active participation and we are looking forward to your answers in our new poll, How could the problem of refugees in Bulgaria and Greece be solved?