As I mentioned in my previous post, the discovery of Maria, the blonde haired, blue eyed girl found living in a Roma gypsy camp in central Greece, has sparked calls for Greece’s extremely lax birth registration process to be changed.

DNA tests proved that the couple caring for her were not her biological parents or in any way related to her. Currently, to register a birth, parents take their hospital papers to the nearest mayor’s office and declare the child. In the case of home birth, all that is required is two witnesses to the birth to be present. In Maria’s case, the woman caring for her had registered six children in the space of 10 months, showing mere months between their births, and no one noticed.

Greece’s Ministry of Internal affairs has today announced that a bill is to be brought into force that will require a DNA test in the case of registering children born outside of hospitals or clinics. This won’t come at too much of an expense to the Greek government, since homebirths are a rarity in the country.