AdopTalk

http://adoptionneedtoread.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, March 30, 2005 Post:

Degenerative Policy Design: An Examination of Sealed Adoption Record Policy by Larry Watson, LMSW-ACP

This article NAILS IT!!!

....

Talmmudist and philosopher Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik sums up the Jewish law:


Judaism saw the teacher as the creator through love and commitment of the personality of the pupil. Both become personae because an I-Thou community is formed. That is why Judaism called disciples sons and masters fathers. . . Our Talmudic sages stated) "Whoever teaches his friend's son Torah acquires him as a natural child" (Sanhedrin I9b). . . . Judaism did not recognize the Roman institution of adoption since the Roman concept is directed toward substituting a legal fiction for a biological fact and thus creating the illusion of a natural relation-ship between the foster parents and the adopted son. Judaism stated its case in no uncertain terms: what the Creator granted one and the other should not be interfered with; the-natural relationship must not be altered. Any intervention on the part of some legal authority would amount to interference with the omniscience and original plan of the Maker. The childless mother and father must reconcile themselves with the fact of natural barrenness and sterility. Yet they may attain the full covenantal experience of parenthood, exercise the fundamental right to have a child and be united within a community of I-thou-he. There is no need to withhold from the adopted child information con-cerning his or her natural parents. The new form of parenthood does not conflict with the biological relation. It manifests itself in a new dimension which may be separated from the natural one. In order to become Abraham [a spiritual parent], one does not necessarily have to live through the stage of Abram [a biological parent). The irrevocable in human existence is not the natural but the spiritual child; the three-fold community is based upon existential, not biological, unity. The ex-istence of I and thou can be inseparably bound with a third existence even though the latter is, biologically speaking, a stranger to them.

in Solovetchik, Family Redeemed, pp.60-61

....

Madonna is really pissing me off more and more each day.

I feel like Oprah Winfrey after she gave The Onion a good review only to find out that the author fictionalized his memoir.

First, I reported here that Madonna was so much better than Angelina Jolie, because contrary to rumors she was NOT going to adopt a baby, but support an orphanage in Africa.

Then, amidst recurring rumors back and forth: she's adopting...she's not adopting...her husband reportedly was against the adoption.

THEN...she goes and adopts, not just any ole orphan...she has to find a child in an orphanage that is not an orphan, but had family who cares about him and visits him every chance he gets, hoping to take him back home someday. YUCH!

The baby's father was told that Madonna is a "nice Christian lady" - obviously not knowing she plans to convert all the kids in the orphanage to Kaballah. He does not speak English and could nto understand all the court papers - which were in English. he was convinced that it was best, though, by his minister (sound familiar).

When the press got down on her for using money to buy a child (not to mention a white woman buying a black baby) and violating laws in Malawi...she said she was "hurt" and that she didn’t do anything no one else could do....yeah, like we all have private jets and an entourage of people to fly our newly selected purchases home from Africa...and then go to the gym hours after his special delivery.

As if all that wasn't enough, now, faced with violating both Malawai and British law by bringing this child back to the UK...Madonna is now reportedly consulting Angelina Jolie and likely will adopt in the California, the land of almost NO adoption restrictions!

....
Madonna's adopted baby's father tells how he was powerless to stop her
By Angella Johnson Last updated at 10:59am on 15th October 2006

Comments Reader comments (16)

Madonna has come under fire for adopting Yohane Banda's son
Headlines

* Darren Wyatt insists 'I am a loving dad'
* Dad dies of heart attack after confronting yobs
* Pop star's brother jumps to his death
* Cherie in a rush to make dollars while she remains Britain's 'First Lady'
* OAPs at risk as social workers give them just 15 minute's time
* EU plot to rule the waves instead of Britannia
* Global warming in Essex as wild grapes are found growing by rail lines
* Free face clowning classes for refugees
* School bans Christian chastity ring but allows Muslim and Sikh symbols
* Muslim architecture student quizzed by police over Canary Wharf photo project
* Queen advertises for someone to load her iPod
* Posties go from mailbags to moneybags with £9.35m Lotto win
* Half of parents admit lying to get kids into good schools
* NEWS HOMEPAGE

The father of the little boy adopted by Madonna in Malawi has described his feelings of confusion and powerlessness in the face of the singer's determination to take his only surviving child away.

Peasant farmer Yohane Banda, who can barely read or write, admitted he didn't fully understand what was happening when he went to court on Thursday in his best clothes to see for the first and only time the woman who was offering his 13-month-old son David a new life in the West.

All he knew, as he sat in his dirt-stained cotton trousers, a check shirt and his treasured black denim jacket at the High Court in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, was that the slight, blonde woman standing before him in a simple black dress and black knee-high boots was hoping to take his boy away.

Yohane's court ordeal will further intensify criticism that Madonna had flown into the poor African country and used her wealth and celebrity status to try to steamroller authorities into granting a fast-track adoption.

For despite the court issuing an interim custody order, it seems Madonna is yet to start the complicated legal proceedings necessary in Britain to adopt a child.

If she does not complete the procedures, she could face a jail sentence of 12 months.

In Malawi, where the law prohibits adoptions by non-residents, human rights groups have stepped up their campaign to prevent David being taken away.

The charity Malawi's Eye Of The Child will tomorrow seek an injunction opposing the adoption.

Meanwhile Yohane, 31, whose wife Marita, 28, died a week after their son was born, was left to reflect on the confusing events of his day in court with Madonna.

Speaking exclusively to The Mail on Sunday, he said: "She was smiling a lot. She told me, 'Your son is very beautiful and he makes me very happy. I promise to take very good care of him.'

"I looked directly into her eyes and said, 'Although I am giving you my son I want you to look after him well as he is the only one I possess. I want you to keep this boy, raise him, educate him - but you have to know he is my son and he is a Malawian.'

"Then she thanked me for surrendering my child into her care. She said: 'I could not have taken him if you had not wholeheartedly consented.'"

The 30-minute court hearing was conducted in English, with Yohane taking part through a translator.

"I sat directly opposite Madonna and we looked at each other face to face throughout the meeting," Yohane said.

"I was looking into her eyes and I could tell from them that she was a good lady."

He confessed he had been nervous and overawed by his surroundings, and bewildered by the speed at which his baby had been put up for adoption.

"It has all been very crazy. Everything has happened so fast. I can't believe what is happening."

But he added: "In court I did understand that I was agreeing to give the baby up for adoption."

Yohane, who left school at 12, said he had not been able to understand the nine-page document written in English which was presented to him in his village home by Reverend Thompson Chipeta, a retired preacher who runs the Home Of Hope Orphan Care Centre in Mchinji, a town near Malawi's Zambian border, where David lived.

Yohane told how David had been in the orphanage since his mother died. The intention was that he would one day return to live at home.

But it appears David was offered for adoption without his father's knowledge when his picture was sent, along with those of 12 other "suitable", boy babies, by e-mail to Madonna.

Yohane said the first he knew about the adoption was on September 30, when two officials from Malawi's Ministry of Gender and Child Welfare came to the village.

He said: "They told me a mzungu (white foreigner) had seen a picture of David and liked him very much.

"They said she wanted to adopt and take him to America. They said that she would give him a better life.

"At first I wasn't very sure. I asked if it meant that I would never see him again.

"They said I would be sent pictures and when David was older he would be able to visit the village."

"My family and I agreed that this was a very good opportunity for David to get an education and grow up healthy.

"There were some minor disagreements about his Malawian culture but we said yes."

Yohane had never heard of Madonna, or her raunchy songs. He was told only that she was "a very nice Christian lady".

It was never explained that Madonna is in fact deeply involved with the Kabbalah sect.

But it is clear that once she arrived in Malawi on October 4, when she hoped to collect David, Yohane felt swept up in what by then appeared to be a relentless process.

He said: "I had taken David to the orphanage because my wife had died and he was sick and we could not care for him. My other two sons had passed away from malaria while they were still young - one was almost three and one just over a year old. When David became very sick I didn't know how to cope.

"I am a single man with no experience of these things. My in-laws, who live in Zambia, did not want him and my extended family is too poor to take him in.

"I was scared he would die like my other children so I took him where he could be looked after properly. I felt very sore in my heart, but I could think of no other way.

"He was one month and seven days old. The orphanage made me sign a letter to show that I was handing him over to their charge, but I suppose deep in my heart I always imagined that when he was better, or I had got another wife, I would go and take him back. I did not think anyone would want to take him away.

"But I was persuaded by Rev Chipeta. He said that I was to hold fast and not waver in my decision.

"He said many people would come to the village and tell me things but that I should go ahead and let the woman have my son - that it was the best thing for David's future."

Even if Yohane had been able to read the documents relating to the proposed adoption, it is possible he would not have understood their legal implications.

A simple man, he spends his days tending a tiny vegetable garden, caring for a handful of scrawny goats and growing maize, which he sells in local markets.

To make extra money he carves wooden handles for hoses, axes and other tools used by subsistence farmers like himself. Around him run ragged children. Everyone here is poor beyond the imagination of most Westerners.

Yohane's 56-year-old mother, Athnet Mwale, explained: "No-one here could take care of David. He needed good milk and nutrition. We are too poor even to properly feed ourselves.

"When we sent him away it wasn't because we did not want him. It was because we could not look after him."

Now Yohande's younger brother Jeffrey and other family members have written a letter to the orphanage protesting that David could be taken out of the country by a "rich white donor".

It pleads that the baby must be brought up "knowing his Malawian culture".

It all leaves David the innocent victim of a legal stalemate. With Madonna unable to bring the baby home without the appropriate paperwork and the Malawian authorities unable to let him leave, he remains at the luxury Kumbali Lodge, where Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie stayed during their visit.

There is believed to be a wet nurse, a driver and a male bodyguard all in attendance and according to sources, a leading child psychologist flew into the country with Madonna and is still there with the child.

Meanwhile Yohane still struggles to come to terms with what he has done. He says he has received no money in connection with the adoption of his child, but there is a sense that this committed Christian, who sang with his late wife in the local church choir, has a niggling suspicion that what has happened is not right.

Certainly he has never behaved like a man who willingly abandoned his son.

For the past nine months he has visited his son whenever he could - regularly cycling the 25 miles from his home in the village to the orphanage along treacherous dirt and stone tracks more suited to rugged four wheel drive vehicles.

He said: "I would bring him food from my garden, then sit and play with him for a while. I wanted him to know that I was his father, that I love him very much.

"He is my only child still living and I think of him as a gift from God. He is also the best memory I have left of my wife."

David was one of around 100 babies being cared for at the Home of Hope. But it was he who Madonna selected to share her opulent lifestyle, taking only slightly longer to make her choice, according to one acerbic critic, "than she would to select a new handbag".

Sources at the orphanage told The Mail on Sunday that almost immediately after landing in Malawi, Madonna had rushed to see the child.

One said: "The first thing she did was move David and his nanny into a private room. She said she had been excited during her flight at the prospect of seeing him for the first time.

"She was so wrapped up in her baby. She said he had lovely hair and cooed over his dark skin. Guy was there, but he said nothing and kept in the background. He didn't hold the baby.

"Madonna carried David out in her arms and seemed very happy. Her smile was very big she said, 'Oh he's beautiful I just adore him'. I didn't see her husband hold him at all."

Staff at the luxury lodge reported that Madonna and her husband had slept in separate beds and would put the baby's cot between them at night during their stay.

Guy held the baby only occasionally, but Madonna was seen walking with him strapped to her back in a fabric sling, Malawian style.

Two days after Madonna arrived, Yohane received a message from the orphanage.

He said: "They wanted to know if I was still happy to go ahead as the lady donor who wanted David had come to take him.

"I said yes. The person said I should not leave the village as I needed to sign some papers."

The Rev Chipeta met Yohane on October 7 to explain what would happen next.

Yohane said: "He said I would have to go into Lilongwe and fill in some papers. I still didn't know the name of the woman.

"He just said she was a good Christian lady, who does a lot of charity work and also supported the orphanage.

"I asked if David could come to the village, one last time, so we could say goodbye.

"Rev Chipeta brought him the next day. It was Sunday and he was with his nanny.

"We killed a goat and had a small ceremony. There were tears and also happiness, because we feel he will come back to us one day."

It was only last Monday, after this newspaper was the first to track down Yohane at his remote village, that he learned the identity of his child's benefactor. He had never heard of her.

Perhaps it is not surprising. Lipunga, the village where he lives has no electricity or lavatories and baths are pits dug on the outskirts of the settlement.

Children, clad in rags, are covered in the red dirt that blows over the mountain range from Zambia, their faces smothered with the remains of dried food.

There are no obvious signs of hunger, but nor is there any indication that anyone here owns anything of any value.

Yohane said he wanted his son raised with Christian values. And he had been repeatedly reassured that everything was being done in David's best interests.

"I suppose that I don't have any say in what happens to him now," he said.

"But Madonna's lawyer told me at the court David would be brought at regular intervals for visits to Malawi.

"So I am sure I will see him. Maybe she will bring him to the village.

"He will always be in my heart. I hate to see him leave Malawi but I have come to accept the loss.

"The government people told me it would be a good thing for the country. He will come back educated and able to help us, that will be a good thing."

...

'Growing up in an alien environment'

Ethiopian poet, playwright and author Lemn Sissay, 39, was raised by a white family in the north of England. Here he tells how his life often felt like an experiment.


"When somebody takes a child from their native culture, that is in itself an act of aggression.

People will often say, love is all you need.

But that is not true. Love without understanding is a dangerous thing.

My mother came to England in 1967, which was a really high point in Ethiopian culture - Ethiopia was a prosperous place. She came during what was a comfortable time for Ethiopians.

But as she found out, it was not a comfortable time for race relations in the UK.

My mother, finding herself in difficulties, sought to have me fostered for a short time.

However, the care worker, who named me Norman after himself, told my foster family that it was a proper adoption.

I was with them for 11 years.

My mother and father

Although they were white I believed they were my father and mother.

I had seen black people in the street or maybe even said hello but until I was 17 years old I never actually knew another black person.

From this I picked up subconscious messages of a kind of lazy racism living in the north of England.

My life was a bit like being an experiment.

Like anyone looking back would feel about growing up in an alien environment - one which treated them as an alien.

I didn't have an afro comb until I was nine-years-old. My mother used to comb my hair with a metal comb that tore my head. When I was about nine, my parents took me to the doctor because they couldn't understand why my knees were grey.

I remember my mother often saying to me: "Don't look at me with those big brown eyes."

She probably never meant it negatively but it meant that I grew up with a fear of my own eyes.

Trojan horse

My parents were very religious. They told me that they had not decided to take me in, rather that it was God that had decided it for them.


I have been very lost, I've been very confused - but I've always searched for answers and the ultimate answer is that the buck stops with yourself
Lemn Sissay


When I was 11 they put me into care.

To them I had become a Trojan horse that symbolised evil. They said that I was bringing evil into their home, that there was this mighty struggle inside me and that God was losing.

To be honest I think it was because they had since had another child and were struggling to provide for us all.

They told me they would never write to me or see me again.

My foster mother contacted me only once to tell me that my granddad had died.

I had always thought that I was going to go back to them.

I knew on an intellectual level that I wasn't their child but on an emotional level I believed I was their child. I didn't know the difference between fostering and adoption.

I have got rid of my anger. It is something that you get through it.

I have been very lost. I've been very confused. But I've always searched for answers.

And the ultimate answer is that the buck stops with yourself.

Uneasy relationship

I met my proper mum when I was 21. It took me three years to find her.


To Western parents that want to adopt a child, I would say to people that money is not everything
Lemn Sissay

By that stage she worked for the UN in the Gambia.

I travelled out to see her. It was difficult because I looked just like my father had the last time she saw him.

My real mother is a survivor, very strong and respected by the people who know her but our relationship is not easy but then it was never going to be.

To Western parents that want to adopt a child, I would say to people that money is not everything, wealth does not matter.

Don't tell me that you're adopting child to give them a better life.

Is that child then owing to you? And what do they owe? Shall they pay you back in emotions?

And that your view of other cultures and how they may be poor is your view - it says more about you than the place you're looking to adopt from.

Do you want the child because you want a better life for yourself?

I am not invalidating the love that you want to give but I am putting the rights of the child first.

Understand that it is your own experience that leads you to want to take a child from its culture, and display that child as your own in an alien environment."


Golds from the stone

Golds from the stone
Oils from the earth
I yearned for my home
From the time of my birth

Strength of a mother's whisper
Shall carry me until
The hand of my lost sister
Joins onto my will

Root to the earth
Blood from the heart
Could never from earth
Be broken apart

Food from the platter
Water from the rain
The subject and the matter
I'm going home again

...
Lawyer launches adoption law challenge
Clayton Ruby says law that allows birth parents, adoptees to access information about each other is unconstitutional
Oct. 13, 2006. 05:55 PM
CANADIAN PRESS

An Ontario adoption law that allows birth parents and adoptees to access information about each other is "dumb," ``unconstitutional" and violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, lawyer Clayton Ruby said today.

Ruby, a noted Toronto civil liberties lawyer, is launching a constitutional challenge to the Adoption Information Disclosure Act, which passed third reading a year ago and is expected to be proclaimed next year.

"This is a personal choice and the government has failed to respect the personal nature of that choice," Ruby said.

"We say it's not only dumb, it's unconstitutional."

Marilyn Churley, a former Ontario New Democrat and "mother" of the bill, said she respects the opinions of those behind the challenge, but called Ruby's choice of words unfortunate and disappointing.

Ruby is filing the challenge on behalf of four Ontario residents, three adoptees and one who gave up a child for adoption. They say the legislation should have included a veto for anyone who wishes to remain anonymous.

The group maintains that people who entered into adoption under the promise of privacy should not have that security taken away.

"As adoptees, we feel that as adults, we should have control over who has access to our personally identifying information and that the right to privacy is fundamental," said Joy Cheskes, one of the applicants who was adopted at a young age.

But Churley said the feelings of young mothers who were forced to give up their children must be taken into account.

"I think it's cruel, absolutely cruel to keep a natural mother suffering without at least her being able to get the information even if the adult adoptee doesn't want contact," she said.

Eight years ago when Churley found the son she had given up as a teenager it was "indescribable," ending heartbreaking years of uncertainty, not knowing if he was alive and well.

"I never got to hold him," she said. "I only got to stare at him through glass and stare into his little, blue eyes and say, `One day I will find you.' And every year of my life until I found him I suffered because I didn't know what happened to him."

Ruby said British Columbia, Alberta and Newfoundland have passed similar legislation to Ontario's, but those provinces each require consent to disclose personal information.

That makes Ontario the only province to introduce an automatic disclosure policy.

If a birth parent or adopted person is seeking information about the other, the other party can file a non-contact order.

That would make contact illegal, but the personal information would still be known, which Cheskes and the other applicants say is still a violation of their right to privacy.

There is also a board people can go before to make an application for information to remain private, but exceptional circumstances must be proven.

Ruby said though contact is prohibited, the law doesn't prohibit secondary disclosure of identifying information to friends or family, or even making it public.

However, Ruby said he doubts the police would be effective in preventing contact."

Denbigh Patton, one of the applicants, said disclosure of information should be possible, but only when both parties consent.

"Many adoptees do decide that they want to find out this or that, they want to meet or they want to learn about their biological origins," he said.

"But they decide when they want to do that and it's a deep decision.

The office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario said when the bill was being considered, the commissioner was opposed to such legislation without provision for a disclosure veto.

However, the office would not comment on the constitutionality of the new policy now that it is legislation.

.....

Madonna adoption bid challenged

[This seems to be why "her people" have neither denied or refuted claims that she is trying to adopt a child]

A Malawian child rights group has said it wants to stop Madonna adopting a child from the African country.

The organisation, Eye of the Child, said it would seek a court injunction if the government did not halt its interim order approving the adoption.

"It's not like selling property," the group said in a statement.

Madonna is thought to have flown out of Malawi on Friday without the child, having filed adoption papers to adopt the one-year-old, called David Banda.

Passport wait

Eye of the Child said it was "about safeguarding the future of a human being who, because of age, cannot express an opinion".

Another Malawian human rights group, the Civil Liberties Committee, said it would back the Eye of the Child in its bid to stop the interim adoption approval.

Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie left Malawi without the child, a senior immigration officer told the Reuters news agency.

Madonna
Madonna recently finished her world Confessions tour

"The baby hasn't gone yet because immigration is still trying to process his passport," he said.

Malawian officials said they expected David to spend time with Madonna while waiting for final adoption approval - a process which could take up to two years.

Embassy officials will monitor how the child gets on, and a decision will be made based on their findings, according to a senior government official.

The child had been cared for at the Home of Hope Orphan Care Centre in a village close to the border with Zambia, after his mother died a month after his birth from related complications.

Concerns

The boy's father, Yohame Banda, has agreed to the adoption.

And the chief of Lipunga, the village where the child was born, said he also approved.

"If we didn't send David away to the orphanage we would have buried him," he said.

But the boy's uncle, Pofera Banda, said he wanted to know how the family would benefit if the adoption went through.

"We have seen other parents at the mission who have had their children adopted still living in their poverty.

"They have not seen their children - all they see is pictures sent to them. We don't want that to happen to this family," he said.

Madonna said she had travelled to the region with her husband, film-maker Guy Ritchie, to help fight poverty and the problem of HIV and Aids.

She has pledged to donate about $3m (£1.6m) to help 900,000 orphans in Malawi.

The 48-year-old already has two children, five-year-old son Rocco and nine-year-old daughter Lourdes.

-----------------

In addition to the concerns of her husband, Guy Ritche, reports that she was planning to adopt a Malawian child have prompted criticism from some quarters.

Eye of the Child, a private Malawian child advocacy group, issued an open letter to Madonna on Tuesday questioning whether foreign adoptions were in the best interests of children.

Maxwell Matewere, executive director of the group, told Reuters on Wednesday that the group was concerned that Malawi law, which prevents adoptions by foreigners, was being broken in Madonna's case.

"We are a little bit worried that our laws are being violated with this adoption," Matewere said. "I don't think violating the law is in the best interests of the child."

Government officials have said that they would consider giving Madonna a waiver or exemption allowing her to adopt a child.


----------------

TORONTO (CP) - The unkind have suggested celebrities like Madonna are now adopting African children to serve as a kind of living, breathing fashion accessory.

Canadian adoption experts also weighed in Thursday, describing the latest high-profile adoption by a superstar as a double-edged sword - it heightens awareness about the millions of Third World orphans, but also suggests preferential treatment for the wealthy and raises concerns about the emotional well-being of the children whose lives change dramatically once they move into the posh estates of their famous new families.

"Imagine yourself and how comfortable you'd be being permanently removed to another country and leaving everything behind: the sights, the smells, the sounds, the language, the food, everyone you know," Roberta Galbraith, executive director of the adoption agency Canadian Advocates for the Adoption of Children, or CAFAC, said Thursday from Minnedosa, Man.

"It's already disruptive enough to transition a child without all the hype, and my concern is these kids don't necessarily get to live a life that is normal."

The headline-grabbing news that Madonna has adopted a motherless year-old boy from Malawi is titillating not just to celebrity-watchers - people on adoption message boards are also talking about the Material Girl's newest acquisition.

"Some adult adopted children are joking: 'Why couldn't I have been adopted by Madonna?"' said Leceta Chisholm Guibault, a board member of the Adoption Council of Canada and the mother of two adopted children.

"Others are saying she got preferential treatment because of who she is. In my own opinion, I wonder if I'd have been approved to adopt a child if I'd published a sexually explicit book 10 years ago and said some of the outrageous things she's had to say over the years. I'm pretty sure that would have disqualified me. It just goes to show you the power that can come with being a celebrity."

JoAnne Conlin, an adoption licensee in Ottawa, said she has no fears that international adoptions by people like Angelina Jolie and Madonna will cause a run on Africa by would-be parents, simply because it's too expensive - it can cost as much as $50,000 to travel overseas and adopt a child, compared to about $12,000 to arrange a private adoption in Canada.

"This is largely something only the wealthy can afford to do," Conlin said. "Maybe it's a trendy thing for the rich and famous, but I hope not. Being a lifelong parent to a child of a different race is not easy, and hopefully they're getting lots of education and information on what's ahead for them. It's a lifelong journey, not a fashion trend."

Conlin points out another troubling fact: many people longing to be parents decide against adopting, for free, a ward of the Children's Aid Society once they learn of the child's background.

"So they choose to go the international route and they get absolutely no background, and in many cases it can be a much worse than the type of background you'd get here," she points out.

Chisholm Guibault wonders why Madonna didn't choose to put her immense wealth into providing for the family of the boy she's adopted, suggesting staying with his father and other family members in improved circumstances might have been better for him than removing him permanently from Malawi.

"Why not help the father support and raise his child and pour some money into improving the situation in Malawi - what a great gift that would have been," Chisholm Guibault said. "And then she could have adopted a true orphan, some child with absolutely no one and no prospects for a better life."

...

Madonna 'adopts child in Africa'


Madonna hopes to highlight the problem of Aids in Malawi

Pop star Madonna has adopted a one-year-old boy in Malawi, according to reports.

The boy's father, Yohane Banda, told the Associated Press: "I know he will be very happy in America."

Speculation the singer was planning to adopt began when she flew into Malawi and visited several orphanages.

Madonna's publicist initially denied the adoption reports but a spokeswoman has now said an official statement is expected within 48 hours.

Adoption papers

Mr Banda said: "I am the father of David, who has been adopted. I am very very happy because as you can see there is poverty in this village and I know he will be very well looked after in America."

He told reporters that his wife Marita died a month after the baby's birth from childbirth complications.

Since then the child had been cared for at the Home of Hope Orphan Care Centre in Mchinji, a village near the border with Zambia.



Who should adopt African babies?

Madonna said she had travelled to the region with her husband, film-maker Guy Ritchie, to help fight poverty and the problem of HIV and AIDS.

A government official in Malawi had claimed Madonna was due to file for adoption papers on arriving in the country last week.

The 48-year-old already has two children, five-year-old son Rocco and nine-year-old daughter Lourdes.

If the singer has gone ahead with the adoption she follows in the footsteps of Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie.

Jolie, who gave birth to Brad Pitt's child Shiloh Nouvel in Namibia, has also adopted children from Cambodia and Ethiopia.

------------

Guy Ritchie's adoption concerns


Monday, 9th October 2006, 12:28

LIFE STYLE EXTRA (UK) - Guy Ritchie is allegedly concerned that wife Madonna only wants to adopt a Malawi orphan to enhance her celebrity status.

The 'Hung Up' singer fuelled rumouView the profile for Angelina Jolie on Celebrity Spotlightrs she was planning to adopt an underprivileged child after visiting another orphanage on Saturday (07.10.06) during her tour of the African country.

Guy has first hand experience of adoption as his mother, Lady Amber, gave up her first baby and he is worried his wife has not fully thought through her plans.

A friend told Britain's The Sun newspaper: "Madonna is convinced it is the right thing to do but Guy has been very wary.

"It has led to some serious arguments and put a lot of pressure on their marriage.

"His family are very concerned Madonna wants an African baby as a celebrity status symbol, like Angelina Jolie.

"Guy has adoption issues in his family and is all too aware of the problems. He doesn't think Madonna has really thought View the profile for Madonna on Celebrity Spotlightit through."

Meanwhile, it has been reported that Madonna has already picked the orphan she plans to adopt, a one-year-old boy called Luca.

The pop superstar - who already has a nine-year-old daughter, Lourdes, from her relationship with fitness instructor Carlos Leon, and son Rocco, five, with Guy - first met the boy at the Mchinji Mission Orphanage last Wednesday (04.10.06) and on Saturday she returned to the home.

It is believed Madonna has hired a top lawyer, Alan Chinula, to help speed up the adoption process - which usually takes six weeks. She hopes to take Luca home with her when she leaves on Friday (13.10.06).

Chinula confirmed: "I am due to meet with a representative of Madonna concerning the adoption soon."

(c) BANG Media International.