The Irish Traveller Movement has criticised media coverage of the controversy surrounding the 13-year-old traveller girl pregnant as a result of rape. The extent to which the family of the young girl, and therefore the girl herself, has been identified contrasts with the coverage of the family in the X case, said Mr Fintan Farrell, co-ordinator of the Irish Traveller Movement.
Travellers are in an exposed condition and more open to the media coming in on them, Mr Farrell said. The parents of the girl had been open to the media coming into their lives, but the point still stood.
"I don't think it is in the girl's interest," he said.
He was particularly critical of the publication of a photograph of the family's caravans in yesterday's editions of The Irish Times and the broadcasting by RTE of an interview with the girl's father.
The photograph and the interview would have identified the family to many people who knew them.
"I think there are good standards for journalists for protecting minors in cases like this and it would be better if they had not been breached."
