The mother aged 10 who had baby with her 13-year-old cousin

The mother aged 10 who had baby with her 13-year-old cousin

Mtoday news / The Mail, UK

It is the kind of innocent embrace you might expect from teenage sweethearts.

Wearing hooped earrings and with a flower in her hair, the girl drapes her arms around her ­boyfriend’s neck.

But that is where any resemblance to an ordinary young couple ends.

Parents-to-be: Elena Chiritescu with her 13-year-old boyfriend Gheorghe Mecic, during her pregnancy

For this is Elena Chiritescu, the ten-year-old gipsy girl who became one of the world’s youngest mothers when she gave birth naturally to 6lb 6oz baby Nicoleta.

The picture was taken when she was three months pregnant. At her side is her 13-year-old cousin Gheorghe Mecic, the baby’s father. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pair are no longer a couple.

Today the Daily Mail publishes these first pictures of the feckless parents and can exclusively reveal details of their doomed relationship, including how after she became pregnant aged nine, their mothers allowed them to live as ‘husband and wife’.

Elena and Gheorghe were raised as siblings by their grandmother in the Romanian capital of Bucharest after their mothers fled abroad to escape the grinding poverty.

Despite looking older than her years, officials have confirmed Elena was born in April 2000.

According to neighbours at her former home in a tower block in District 5, the poorest part of Bucharest, her father Valeriu died when she was five. ‘The family had a lot of debts so the mother, Olimpia, had to sell everything,’ said one who lived nearby. ‘She went to work in Spain picking strawberries a couple of years ago and left Elena with her grandmother.

‘She would come back from time to time but always returned to Spain for work. Last year Olimpia’s sister went to Spain as well for work and left Gheorghe with his grandmother.’

 

Elena with her mother Olimpia, right and Gheorghe’s mother Florina, left

Abandoned, the children found solace in each other. When their relationship became sexual is unclear.

Relatives say their grandmother, Petra Tiberie, knew nothing of their relationship, although the baby was conceived in her tiny bungalow.

When the pregnancy finally came to light after Elena could no longer hide the physical signs, Olimpia was eager for the pair to stay together.

‘She let them live together as husband and wife,’ the relative said.

‘Elena was Gheorghe’s first girlfriend and the same for her.

‘The youngsters seemed to love each other and planned to bring the baby up together. But I don’t think either of them knows how to change a nappy.’ But he added: ‘Gipsy children grow up quickly. They don’t go to school so they look older than they actually are.’

With Elena’s due date nearing, her mother took her to Spain and it was there that Nicoleta Narcisa Chiritescu was born in a hospital in Jerez de la Frontera on October 26. Gheorghe stayed in Romania.

Mother and baby are now with relatives in a shabby three-storey block in the nearby town of ­Lebrija, where Olimpia said they were all ‘ecstatic’ and tried to play down the scandal.

 

Ten-year-old Elena, covered by a blanket, is led from the hospital by her mother after giving birth

‘These things are normal in our country,’ she said. ‘Girls get married at ten so we don’t understand why people are so surprised. Elena is feeling very well, just like her daughter, who’s also doing very well and is very pretty.

‘Elena and Nicoleta will stay in Spain because her relationship with the baby’s father has ended. Elena is very happy with her child. We have a house, we have everything we need.’ The family denied reports that they are beggars.

Spanish authorities are considering whether Nicoleta should be taken into care and yesterday social workers inspected conditions at the run-down flat.

Despite Olimpia’s apparent determination to remain in Spain, however, the family’s host, who declined to be named, suggested they would be going home.

 

Birthplace: The Jerez hospital where Elena gave birth to Nicoleta

The 22-year-old said: ‘Elena came to Spain a couple of months ago on the coach with her mum. I had no idea she was pregnant until they arrived, otherwise I wouldn’t have invited them. They’re family friends and I asked them to come for my wedding.

‘They had to get the child’s birth certificate because they couldn’t leave without it. What they’re waiting for now is for the baby to get a little bit stronger and older so she can travel back on the coach with them to Romania.

‘I’m doing what I think is the right thing by letting them stay.’

Romanian law allows girls to get married at 18, or 16 with parental consent. But arranged ‘marriages’ between those as young as ten are common among Roma families, who make up 1.5million of the country’s 22million population.

Britain’s youngest mother, Tressa Middleton, from West Lothian, gave birth at 12 in 2006. The youngest in the world was Peruvian Lina Medina, who had a 6lb son in 1939 aged just five.