There's no Mercy for Madonna as court blocks adoption

Judge rules star should have lived in country for at least 18 months.

• Madonna’s ambition to adopt a second African orphan has been blocked by a court in Malawi. The decision suggests that the impoverished African state has heeded warnings that another high-profile adoption could encourage child-traffickers to scour the country’s orphanages looking for children they could sell to Westerners.
• The American superstar had offered a permanent home for a three-year-old girl, Chifundo James (her first name translates as Mercy), who has lost both parents. The child is from the orphanage that previously cared for David Banda, the boy Madonna adopted in 2006. Her application was rejected yesterday by a judge, Esmie Chondo, at a private hearing in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.
• The judge is understood to have ruled that Madonna does not fulfill a requirement that prospective adopters should have lived in Malawi for 18 to 24 months, a rule that was waived when she made her previous application in front of a different judge three years ago.
• The singer flew into Malawi last weekend, apparently confident that her application would succeed. Her lawyer, Allan Chinula, was quoted in the Ngasa Times as saying: “I am not sleeping sleepless nights over this. I don’t see any law in Malawi that can stop this adoption.”
• This view seemed to be reinforced by Malawi’s Information Minister, Patricia Kaliati, who said before the court hearing: “Madonna has been good to us. She is supporting over 25,000 orphans in this country. We support her adoption process.”
• The singer was not present at yesterday’s hearing. Her spokeswoman made no comment afterwards but her lawyer announced she would appeal. The adoption was opposed by the child’s extended family, who want her to stay in Malawi, and by others who have accused Madonna of using her money to circumvent Malawi’s adoption laws in a way that does nothing to help the other million orphans in the country.
• Malawi’s Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) warned that if Malawi’s adoption laws were relaxed for a second time for Madonna’s benefit, it might draw commercial child-traffickers to Malawi.
• “This is a triumph for the children of Malawi,” Mavuto Bamusi, HRCC’s national co-ordinator, said. “Inter-country adoption is not the best way of providing protection to children. They should grow up in familiar cultural and religious surroundings.”
• David Banda, who is now three, was adopted by Madonna after his mother had died and his father had placed him in an orphanage. The singer also has a daughter, Lourdes, and a son, Rocco.
• She argued in court papers made public yesterday that Chifundo’s grandmother was not able to care for her. She undertook “to securely provide for Chifundo James and make her a permanent and established member of my family”. She added: “To deny Chifundo James the opportunity to be adopted by me could expose her to hardship and emotional trauma which is otherwise avoidable.”
• Her publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said: “She is not skirting any legal issues in her application to adopt this child and is looking to provide a loving family environment and the best education and health care possible for a child who has been in an orphanage since her birth.”
• Landlocked Malawi, in south-east Africa and formerly known as Nyasaland, is one of the least-developed countries, with about 85 per cent of its near-14 million population living off the land. Life expectancy is less than 45, largely because of the high death toll from HIV/Aids.