The jailed foster parents of little\u00a0\u2018blonde angel\u2019 Maria<\/a>\u00a0bought her as an \u201cinvestment\u201d to cash in on the biggest tradition of the gypsy world, police believe.\u00a0The youngster is thought to have been bought young, with the intention of making big money by selling her into a forced marriage at the age of just 12.\u00a0Police are investigating whether Maria, believed to be aged five or six, was being prepared for sale to a wealthy gypsy leader.\u00a0Marriage at the age of 12 is common practice in many traditional Roma communities, with the bride\u2019s family getting a pay-out from the new in-laws.<\/p>\n Because Maria was seen as a \u201cwhite-skinned beauty\u201d within the gypsy camp, she would be considered a \u201cprize investment\u201d.\u00a0A police source said: \u201cThe money a family gets in the case of marriage is negotiable at a high level, especially with a prize catch like Maria.\u00a0\u201cThis could be like a business deal which would give them a profit at the end of it when they sell to the highest bidder.\u201d\u00a0It could explain why a family with 13 other registered children – and raking in more than \u00a32,000 in benefits a month – kept another mouth to feed for more than four years. Greek police believe Gypsy family planned to make big money by selling her into a forced marriage at the age of just 12. The jailed foster parents of little\u00a0\u2018blonde angel\u2019 Maria\u00a0bought her as an \u201cinvestment\u201d to cash in on the biggest tradition of the gypsy world, police believe.\u00a0The youngster is thought to have been bought […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21,28,7,4],"class_list":["post-349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-child-brides","tag-child-exploitation","tag-forced-marriage","tag-halo-project"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1779,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349\/revisions\/1779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nRead More:\u00a0http:\/\/www.mirror.co.uk\/news\/uk-news\/greece-girl-maria-bought-investment-2485445#ixzz2iqCkPIvO<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"