Le Point (2014) reports on the arrests of several suspects accused of being involved in the trade of infants. The ethnicity of the suspects is stated to be that of French travellers, the babies however are said to be Rroma. Whether the author of the article uses the terms interchangeably or whether he means a different ethnicity is not evident. The accused are supposed to have smuggled infants from Corsica to France and sold them in Marseille and Ajaccio. Only inaccurate information is available about the exact background and motives of the events. One of the biological mothers is said to have given birth to her child under a false identity to facilitate a resale. By making the ethnicity of the accused explicit, something anything but obvious, the article suggests that the offense is a Rroma cultural peculiarity. This is much more the matter of extreme behaviour by some individuals. Something that is not stressed at all. With this, all those Rroma who are living blameless lives are discredited. The phenomenon of child trafficking, as repeatedly portrayed in the media, has to be critically reviewed, as scientific social studies demonstrate. These refer to the prevalence of criminal explanations of human trafficking over the perspective of the people involved and their backgrounds (compare Ortoli 2014, Oude Breuil 2008, Oude Breuil et al 2011). 

• Le Point/AFP (2014) Trafic de bébés roms: 5 personnes interpellées à Nancy et Bastia. In: Le Point online vom 20.6.2014. http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/trafic-de-bebes-roms-5-personnes-interpellees-a-nancy-et-bastia-20-06-2014-1838116_23.php
• Ortoli, Paul (2014) Trafic de bébés roms: l’affaire rebondit à Ajaccio et dans l’Est. In: Corse-Matin online vom 19.6.2014. http://www.corsematin.com/article/ajaccio/trafic-de-bebes-roms-laffaire-rebondit-a-ajaccio-et-dans-lest.1420459.html
• Oude Breuil, Brenda Carina (2008) Precious children in a heartless world? The complexities of child trafficking in Marseille. In: Child Soc 22(3):223–234.
• Oude Breuil, B.C., Siegel, D., Reenen, P. van, Beijer, A. & Roos, Y.B. (2011) Human trafficking revisited: Legal, enforcement and ethnographic narratives on sex trafficking to Western Europe. In: Trends in organized crime, 14, 30-46.

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