Malawi's Human Rights Consultative Committee had tried to block the adoption
plans earlier today, claiming the singer had not adhered to the country's
strict inter-country adoption laws reports People Magazine.
Justin Dzonzi, HRCC's chairman, says the group wants to make sure Malawi's laws "are not bent" for the 48-year-old singer.
"The laws of Malawi are clear that if one wants to adopt a child one has to stay with the child for at least 18 months for assessment," he said.
On Monday the group applied to Malawi's High Court to be included as an "interested party," and then get a stay of the temporary order Justice Andrew Nyirenda granted Oct. 12 allowing Madonna and her husband Guy Ritchie to take the baby.
However, it has been reported that the custody process could have been
fast-tracked for the wealthy celebrity allowing her to side-step strict
regulations.
Sources believe Madonna may have used the flexible American legal system to
allow her to adopt the boy.
Boniface Mandere - a spokesman for Eye of the Child, a leading children's
rights group in Malawi - fumed: "The government haven't followed the law.
What has happened is a shortcut."
The issue has also been hotly debated on the streets, during radio phone-ins and by the local press reports BBC news.
"I wouldn't have my baby adopted by anybody, however rich they may be," said Angela, 18, who was sitting exams when the Madonna circus was in town.
"Planting a black boy from a poor background into a white rich family will have a disastrous effect on the baby's psyche later in life."
Elina, who was listening as the girls studied for the exams in the central district of Mchinji, where Baby David was "discovered" by the pop diva, disagrees.
"A one-year-old will not be affected by this," she reasoned.
"At that age he knows nothing. It would even be great if he does not come to know where they got him from."
Last week, Malawi's High Court granted Madonna and her husband, director Guy
Ritchie, an interim order allowing them to take custody of the child.
However, Madonna and Guy were forced to leave the Southern African country
last Friday (13.10.06) without David, who did not have a passport.
David's mother, Marita, died a month after the child was born. Since then he
had been living in the Home of Hope Orphan Care Centre in Mchinji, a village
close to the borders with Zambia.
Meanwhile in the UK, Critics dismiss Madonna as a selfish star who could do much more to ease world poverty.
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Comments
i find the whole thing disgraceful. madonna was able to take a shortcut, so what! the whole world is guilty of ignoring what happens in africa due to aids, poverty etc... madonna wants to adopt a little boy from an impoverished nation, no doubt to do something good, and all everyone can talk about is the shortcut. be careful, if madonna takes a shortcut, no doubt there will be millions of other people jumping on a plane to malawi to adopt children. in regards to buying a child, madonna is almost fifty years old, has two children and apparently has been trying to get pregnant for quite some time with no success. she most likely didn't jump into this. funny: angelina jolie, who i think is wonderful, gets together with brad pitt and in lightening speed, adopts a child, has another and expresses her desire to adopt more and yet no one says a word. people have a thing against madonna, even when there is no reason for it. okay, technically she broke some rules, but come on people, she's adopting a baby from a place where he had a bleak future at best.
Posted by: Billie | October 16, 2006 3:46 PM