Gardaí plan Romania trip to close file on missing child bride

GARDAÍ will travel to Romania within the next few weeks in a bid to close the file on a child bride whose disappearance sparked a major missing persons alert.

Detectives investigating the disappearance of the 12-year-old Roma child Violeta Rastas believe she was brought back to her native Romania shortly after walking out of a Dublin hospital.

But those heading the investigation want to speak to her in person to make sure she is safe and to close the missing persons file.

A trip to Romania is being arranged, Supt John Manley, of Crumlin Garda Station, has confirmed.

“We are satisfied she went back and that she is there now. We are in the process of organising someone to go over and meet her personally,” said Supt Manley.

Violeta is believed to have been trafficked into Ireland and married to an 18-year-old Roma man. The file on both the circumstances of her entry to Ireland and the involvement of various adults in her “marriage” is still open.

Meanwhile, a fresh case has begun into the whereabouts of Pansela Demitru, a 12-year-old Roma girl who has been missing for three days.

It is believed she has run away with her “husband” of the same age.

Pansela was in Tallaght, south Dublin, on Saturday morning. She was with a girlfriend and is known to have boarded a 77a bus to the city centre.

The young girl came to Ireland alone and was living in health board care in Tallaght. It is understood Pansela told social workers she came to Ireland to meet her “husband”, who lives in Dublin’s East Wall district with his parents.

Gardaí visited that house but the young girl was not there.

An appeal was issued yesterday for information on Pansela’s whereabouts.

A garda spokesman said: “Pansela has been missing since Saturday morning, May 15, 2004. She is originally from Romania and is more usually known as Pansela but her actual name is Aurelia.

“She is 5’ tall with long brown hair, brown eyes and dark complexion. She was wearing a grey skirt and a blue shirt. She was last seen in Tallaght village where she took a bus to the city centre.”

Arranged marriages involving minors are common among the Roma people of eastern Europe. The cases of Pansela and Violeta are only two of a number that have come to the attention of authorities here.

Both girls were in health board care, Pansela when she arrived, Violeta following a Garda raid on a house in Tallaght.

Violeta went missing last April with her 18-year-old “husband” after walking out of Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin.