Spanish authorities have released few details about
the case to protect the girl's privacy. But in comments published Wednesday,
her mother told reporters the baby's father is a 13-year-old boy who is still
in Romania and is no longer going out with her daughter.
The 10-year-old girl
and her baby daughter plan to stay in Spain because the young couple separated,
said the girl's mother. She identified herself only as Olimpia. She also said
she didn't understand the attention the case was generating because she and her
daughter are Romanian Gypsies, or Roma, and their custom is to allow girls to
marry young even though that's against the law in Romania.
"That's the way
we get married," the girl's mother told reporters outside the modest
apartment building in the southern town of Lebrija where the family lives.
Meanwhile, the story was going viral on the Internet and causing uproar in
Spain. "Mother at 10 years old" blared a headline in Barcelona's La
Vanguardia newspaper, which dedicated two pages to the story.
