Controversy over celebrity adoption

Mercy, the little girl Madonna planned to adopt, hand-in-hand with Lourdes ©Darren Fletcher/THE

 

International adoptions are far from straightforward. Families appear protesting that the child is being taken away from them: Madonna’s first adopted child, David Banda, has a living father and extended family, while four women have come forward claiming to be the mother of Zahara, the Ethiopian child Angelina Jolie adopted from Namibia. 

Another unsettling aspect of international adoptions is the way the children are treated like so-called commodities, plucked from their native countries and whisked ‘home’ to a new life. Madonna arrived in Malawi by private jet last week to pick up Mercy, the little girl she ‘picked out’ over a year ago on a trip to the impoverished African country. It’s an uneasy image, which could explain in part why the Malawian authorities refused to let Madonna take a second child out of the country.  

Yet at the end of the day, a celebrity has equally good intentions and en equal right to adopt a child as anyone. The underlying issue, says Genevieve Andre of humanitarian aid organisation Medecins du Monde, is whether they respect adoption laws or not. “Some celebrities respect the legislation of the country, even if their fame serves to speed up the process, while others totally flout the law.” 

Like Madonna? Divorcees and single parents are not approved for adoption as a rule in Malawi, but the minor detail of Madonna’s recent divorce from Guy Ritchie, David’s adoptive father, seems to have been overlooked. In 2006, the judge who handled the David Banda case turned a blind eye to the fact that Madonna wasn’t resident in Malawi...so why did the Lilongwe High Court impose the rule for Mercy?