Why all the fuss, asks mother of 10-year-old girl who gave birth

THE mother of a 10-year-old girl who gave birth in Spain said yesterday she did not understand why the pregnancy had shocked people.

Spanish authorities have released few details to protect the girl's privacy, but it is understood the father is only 13.

Her mother said she did not understand the attention the case was generating because she and her daughter are Romanian gipsies, or Roma, and their custom is to allow girls to marry young even though that is against the law in Romania.

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"That's the way we get married," she said outside the apartment building in the southern town of Lebrija where the family lives.

Meanwhile the story caused uproar in the country.

"Mother at 10 years old" said a headline in Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper, which dedicated two pages to the story.

The girl moved to Spain about three weeks ago, her mother said, and her baby was born in a public hospital last week in the nearby city of Jerez de la Frontera. There were no complications, and the 10-year-old and her baby are doing fine, her mother said.

Under Spanish law, having consensual sex with someone under age 13 is classified as child abuse. But the Justice Ministry said this case was complicated, because the alleged father is still in Romania and is also a child. It was not clear whether he could be charged.

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Romanian law allows girls to get married at 16 with parental consent, or at 18 without it.

But arranged "marriages" between teenagers are relatively common among Roma, who make up about 1.5 million of Romania's 22 million people. Families "marry off" daughters when they reach puberty.

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