Identified! Greece - LIVING 4 year old, with Roma couple, Oct'13 - #1

[stacemcace]

Thank you for the photo. I think you're right.

She could have Ocular Albinism. It mostly affects the eyes but can also lighten hair and skin colour. My sister has it and didn't find out until she was 20 when she had problems with her eyes. She has much lighter skin and hair than the rest of the family.

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/ocular-albinism

 

[Tugela]

Trying to bump the photo. Hope it works. Anyone think there is a possibility Maria has albinoism?

No. She looks like your stereotypical Russian/Ukrainian kid. My guess is that she is from somewhere in that part of the world.

With all these kids that, from the sounds of it, are passing through this couple's community, my guess is that there is some human trafficking going on and she is being traded, on the adoption black market. Trafficking is quite common in the former Soviet Union countries.

The scenario would be to kidnap them when very young, ship them off to some other country and hold them until they have forgotten their old life. Then sell them for adoption to places that prize blue eyed blonde kids, such as the US.

 

[Hexe]

Someone upthread (sorry, can't remember who) commented that she doesnt fit the name Maria.

In the US, we often think Maria=Hispanic (or perhaps Greek).

Maria is actually the version of the name Mary in Albanian, Corsican, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Kiswahili, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, & Scandinavian. (via Wikipedia for "Mary (given name)")

And Polish too.

 

[jjenny]

The younger the child is, the more valuable the child is for adoption. So I don't think she is "traded" on the adoption black market.
They already kept her for several years, they likely weren't going to adopt her out. They got her from somewhere and likely were going to use her in the activities described in that documentary posted on the thread.

 

[Elley Mae]

As someone up thread said, these people are known to use their children to beg for money from strangers, so the more the children the more out stretched little hands you have.
When I look at the picture of her in the grey sweatpants and shirt, the look on her face is a beggars plea not so much as a scared look as has been described by media heads.jmo

 

[jjenny]

As someone up thread said, these people are known to use their children to beg for money from strangers, so the more the children the more out stretched little hands you have.
When I look at the picture of her in the grey sweatpants and shirt, the look on her face is a beggars plea not so much as a scared look as has been described by media heads.jmo

And a cute little blond girl is likely to bring more money begging.

 

[Lorrie]

No. She is not Swedish or Albanian decedent. OR other Baltic.
She is Norwegian. Probably missing from a part of Norway 3 years ago or so. When she was year or two old. Maybe Olsen Norway. probably taken from a stroller.

I dont think so - if a child here in Norway had been taken from a stroller it would been all over the News 5 minutes later... So the only possibility she would be Norwegian is that the parents have given her away or it is kidnapping by one of her parents... Who is Olsen Norway??

 

[Oblio]

I'm feeling cynical. Am I the only one bothered by the fact she seems to be the only one featured in the media when there seems to be six kids in question?

 

[mrsward]

http://news.sky.com/story/1156981/mystery-blonde-girl-eight-promising-leads

Fingers crossed

 

[dotr]

http://news.sky.com/story/1156981/mystery-blonde-girl-eight-promising-leads

Fingers crossed

Looking forward to this!
From the link.
"It said of the eight "promising" calls, four were from the US, and one each from Sweden, France, Canada and Poland, and the organisation was passing the information to police".

 

[dotr]

On the other hand...


" But a man calling himself Kostas, the brother of the 39-year-old male, said Maria was very loved and cared for.

"We got this girl in a very nice way. We raised her. We got her. She was given to us and we raised her," he said.

"She had problems with her eyes. We took her to the doctor, we took her everywhere. We didn't take her to sell her. We loved her so much, with so much passion."


http://news.sky.com/story/1156981/mystery-blonde-girl-eight-promising-leads

<<snip>>


" Giorgos Tsakiris, the general secretary of the Roma association in Farsala, said the girl had a good life with the people who were raising her.

He said: "I can tell you better than her other siblings, the biological ones. She spent her days very well and that is why the little girl loves them and what they say about abductions is not true."

 

[aleigh]

On the other hand...


" But a man calling himself Kostas, the brother of the 39-year-old male, said Maria was very loved and cared for.

"We got this girl in a very nice way. We raised her. We got her. She was given to us and we raised her," he said.

"She had problems with her eyes. We took her to the doctor, we took her everywhere. We didn't take her to sell her. We loved her so much, with so much passion."


http://news.sky.com/story/1156981/mystery-blonde-girl-eight-promising-leads

<<snip>>


" Giorgos Tsakiris, the general secretary of the Roma association in Farsala, said the girl had a good life with the people who were raising her.

He said: "I can tell you better than her other siblings, the biological ones. She spent her days very well and that is why the little girl loves them and what they say about abductions is not true."

Is that a picture of her when she was younger next to the current picture in that link????

 

[mrsward]

Is that a picture of her when she was younger next to the current picture in that link????

Yes this is what there saying.. when she was 18months

 

[jjenny]

I'm feeling cynical. Am I the only one bothered by the fact she seems to be the only one featured in the media when there seems to be six kids in question?

It's not possible for a woman to produce six children in 10 month. (unless she is an octomom). It' s rather likely this woman just registered children she didn't have in order to get government payments for them. Apparently in Europe government pays for each child. That's sweet racket right there.

 

[time]

Trying to bump the photo. Hope it works. Anyone think there is a possibility Maria has albinoism?

No, doesn't look albino.

Someone had said the 18 mo old pic might indicate a Vitamin D deficiency (her forehead) so might that give her vision problems too? Her problems might also have just been temporary given what it seems they said about them, like pink eye or something.

 

[ktgirl]

I'm very fair like this child but not albino (in fact, kids used to make fun of me by calling me albino....which really hurt ). There are plenty of very fair children like Maria in Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, parts of Russia, etc...my dad's family is from the Poland-Ukraine border region.
You can look at Maria's skin and see it does have some slight ruddiness to it. Also, her eyelashes are by no means dark, but her eyelashes aren't white like pictures of the children with albinism. I see some light color in her eyelashes. This tells me she's just VERY fair like me and not albino. My hair was strawberry blonde as a child, but had I spent extensive time outside, it would have been bleached by the sun and perhaps as light.

 

[shadowdancer]

It's not possible for a woman to produce six children in 10 month. (unless she is an octomom). It' s rather likely this woman just registered children she didn't have in order to get government payments for them. Apparently in Europe government pays for each child. That's sweet racket right there.

Its very unlikely! Although, there is a woman in my area who had three babies in ten months! She had a baby and then got pregnant again with twins when her first baby was about two months old. The twins were born a little bit early. They are all in the same class at school!

This woman would have to have had two sets of triplets or twins then quads or something. Its not impossible, but the chances are tiny.

 

[ktgirl]

Snipped by me for space.

It is true that in Southern Spain, dark-haired people out-number blondes. it is certainly not true that there are no fair-haired, fair-skinned Andalucians. There are quite a few. I have two aunts who are fair-haired and fair skinned (married into the Gypsy family). I see blondes every time I go to Spain. In fact I have a photo I took a couple years ago of a very blonde lady on Maundy Tuesday during Semana Santa (Holy Week), all dolled up in a traditional mantilla, in Sevilla.

My cousin has a very blonde, fair son and they are full-blooded Gypsies. She is blonde with green eyes herself, but tans and has darker skin. Her brother was blonde, fairs skinned and brown eyes, just like her son.

I can't imagine anyone there asking to touch your hair or skin! It's not Africa!!!

Gitana, I should have been more clear. It was group of women in Granada, Spain who were immigrants from North Africa & South Asia who asked to touch my hair and face. I assumed they wanted touch my face because of my fair skin, but who knows. They told me they'd never touched blonde hair before. Near the cathedral one night a group of boys (maybe around 8-9 years old) followed my friend and me and kept calling "Rubia, rubia" (blonde, blonde). I saw a few other blondes in Granada, but most had darker skin than me (I'm VERY fair, though, so almost everyone has darker skin than me) and at this time my hair was very long, straightened, and very white-blonde (a la Britney Spears in the "Britney"/"In the Zone" era - it was the "look" then, or so I thought). I don't remember seeing any other women while I was there whose hair was as white-blonde as mine at the time.
Eventually my friend and I stopped and the boys told me I looked like "la muñeca Barbie" and then asked for money (I laughed because Barbie is tan, way thinner, and well, has better endowments, if you will), so perhaps this was all a ploy for money, since it was flattering. Southern Spain is one of my favorite places in the world and I'm jealous that you have familial connections there!

Sorry for going off topic.

I can't get over how much this girl looks like she could be a member of my Polish-Ukrainian family. She and I even have eyes that look green in some light/to some people and blue in some light/to some people (I've solved this by saying I have "blue-green" eyes). I hope her real family is found soon and if not, I hope she is placed with a family that treats her like an absolute princess.

 

[Norwegian]

Just read in an article in a Norwegian newspaper that the camp where the girl was found also was searched back in 1991 after 21 months old Ben Needham disappeared while on vacation in Kos, Greece.

He was never found, but something is taking the police back to this camp to search for missing kids.

Ben's FB page: https://www.facebook.com/helpfindben

 

[jjenny]

Just read in an article in a Norwegian newspaper that the camp where the girl was found also was searched back in 1991 after 21 months old Ben Needham disappeared while on vacation in Kos, Greece.

He was never found, but something is taking the police back to this camp to search for missing kids.

There is a documentary about gypsies posted on the thread. A lot of illegal activities are going on-children are send out to steal wallets/money from unsuspecting people. Police doesn't do anything, at most they will take the gypsy children to some place for a couple of hours then they are let go. So it's really not surprising police would go to such camps looking for illegal activities.