Monday, October 21, 2013

Missing White Woman Syndrome

Missing white woman syndrome (MWWS) is a phrase coined by social scientists and media commentators to describe the "wall-to-wall coverage" given in media reporting, especially television, to missing person cases involving young, white, upper-middle class women or girls. The degree of coverage is usually compared with cases concerning a missing male, or missing females of other ethnicities, socioeconomic classes or perceived physical attractiveness. The actual phrase comes from Sheri Parks, an associate professor at the University of Maryland, who used the term in a 2006 interview with CNN to describe this observed media trend. Read more ...


What could be worse than having your child taken from you? How many cases of child abduction have you read about - even in your area - through the years? Children are more often than not programmed to be the victims of crazy parents and society at large. Is it any wonder they suffer from mental illness and behave as they do when they become young adults?

I am always grateful we live in a high tech society which allow parents and children to stay in touch by cell phone ... and surveillance to help locate a stole child. But not every parent has that luxury especially in third world countries where children are still sold by their parents. I am never able to bring myself to read the horror stories especially about the plight of female children. It's barbaric.

Currently, highlighting the news is the story of a blond little girl found during a raid on a Roma camp in central Greece last week. This story has touched the hearts of millions of people around the world for different reasons. There is anger about child trafficking. Parents whose children have been taken, are regaining hope that their child may be alive and well, to one day be reunited with them. People who can't have children, have offered to adopt the little girl, though I see her biological parents found somewhere in Europe. On the larger scale, there is the tug towards the greater "family" reunion when the program ends and souls reunite in the collective unconsciousness leaving behind the emotional dramas of physical reality.

  Greece girl Maria: Roma couple in court over 'abduction'   BBC - October 21, 2013
A Roma couple is due to appear in court in Greece, on charges of abducting a four-year-old blonde girl named Maria.