Blond Angel case information

The Blond Angel case or Petite Maria case started with the search for the biological parents of a blonde girl found by Greek police in a Romani camp on October 16, 2013. Eight days later, after taking on an international dimension with the involvement of Interpol and an appeal for witnesses launched by the child protection association "The Smile of the Child", the investigation led to the identification of the parents, Atanas and Sacha Roussev, in a Romani camp in Bulgaria. Both confirmed that they had entrusted their daughter shortly after her birth to Christos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, the couple with whom she had been found. On November 9, 2015, they were acquitted of the kidnapping charge for lack of evidence. Little Maria Roussev remained in Greece, in the care of the association.

The case led to a series of reforms within the Greek administration, highlighting the shortcomings of the civil registry as one of the factors in the child's situation. Above all, it was the subject of ten days of intense media coverage around the world, and especially in Europe, before disappearing from the news once the biological parents had been found. The media coverage led to the emergence of several similar cases across the continent, notably in Ireland, where two other "blond angels" were taken from their Romani parents by the authorities. Official and associative reactions followed, most notably from the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, who denounced the risks of stigmatization associated with the spread of prejudices based on stereotypes.

The case, in which a police investigation triggered a media frenzy that was as intense as it was fleeting, has given rise to numerous analyses. Depending on the angle chosen, those that aim to shed light on the context highlight the vulnerability of Romani minorities to child trafficking, the particular severity of the discrimination they suffer in Greece, the "official invisibility" that surrounds them throughout Europe, or a political climate marked by a continent-wide tightening of national policies against them. From the point of view of social work and the intentions of the police and child protection associations, the case seems emblematic of the perverse effects inherent in the creation and exploitation of a "moral panic". An analysis of the media's treatment of the case highlights the role played by representations of the Romani people, whether in explaining the media frenzy, in the initial dramatization of the case by the Greek press, or in the qualitative shortcomings of its European coverage and across the diversity of national situations. An examination of these representations reveals the racial assumptions behind the image of the "blonde angel" and the fantastical nature of the child-stealing Romani, as opposed to the concrete harm suffered by Romani families and communities.

Blond Angel case information

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