Larry,sorry I assumed there was money involved, etc. In any case, I know from your posts that you're too honorable for that to have been your main motive.
I still think people who are close to an issue, and considered experts on it (as I am on other issues) often face the problem of being so close to a community that they cannot avoid taking on a cause espoused by that community without endangering the relationship that allows them to be considered an expert. In other words, if an expert on the Masai pisses off the Masai tribal authorities so that he is shunned by the tribe, the Kenyan government will eventually cease to consider him an expert. Being an expert, which is where some of us get some of our sense of pride and self-worth, becomes contingent on taking sides. Usually this is not problematic for those of us interested in oppressed communities, because taking their side is usually what we'd do anyway. But sometimes our judgment can get clouded and we end up defending wrongdoing. An observation--do with it what you will.
Anyway, Larry, fight the good fight. Because whether or not THIS is an example of anti-Traveller discrimination (and I still think it's probably not), that discrimination DOES exist, and this case may bring it out in the open. In the meantime, let's all hope the mother can productively work through her issues and be reuinited with her child!
On another note, I think I may be the originator of some of the posts NicoleC is referring to as "it's just their culture." What I had said in part one was that many European ethnic communities practice corporal punishment, including my own, and that what I saw on that tape was not much worse than much of what I endured myself, and certainly no worse than what my parents endured. This is not saying "it's just their culture" so much as saying "it's our culture"; in other words, there is a disconnect between American official law and common practice in a wide range of families, and she was definitely in the realm of common practice for many communities. But having been properly chastened by some fellow Mudcatters, I realized that this should not excuse her from scrutiny. The fact is, in most cases like this, children are not permanently separated from their parents unless the abuse is ongoing, so the legal system can run its course. Unless there's evidence of worse abuse, I don't think drastic consequences will result. If they do result, without evidence of worse abuse, I think we need to take another look at the possibility of discrimination. But so far, she has been treated by the authorities just as any mother would have been treated in the circumstances.