Madonna to launch Malawi appeal
Madonna visited Malawi last month in her bid to adopt the little girl
With BBC story updated 10 AM AT
Madonna is reportedly getting her lawyers to appeal Malawi’s refusal of her adoption plans. Prince Edward Island senior social services officials are quietly pleased Madonna did not succeed.
“The child porn business was given a blow when Madonna could not waltz into Malawi and adopt a child despite the rules,” senior officials said. “The child porn trafficking relies on weak adoption rules that allow them to buy sex slaves as adopted children.”
“The Hague Convention prevents trafficking in children. There are people just waiting for Madonna to succeed so they can go into Malawi and scoop up children.”
The Hague Convention, signed in 1993, is an international agreement on adoption.
The Hague Convention’s main goals are to:
* protect the best interests of adopted children;
* standardize processes between countries; and
* prevent child abuse, such as trafficking in children. Citizenship and Immigration Canada
According to the BBC, it looks like Madonna is more than breaking the rules.
The child’s father in Malawi says he is against the adoption. It’s a typical western conceit and bigotry to believe we can impose our will on developing countries like Malawi.
Madonna is no better than the slave traders of 200 years ago. She has the money and wants to buy a child. Madonna’s assumption is that the rules are lax in Malawi.
If she qualifies to adopt a child, Madonna should follow the rules meant to protect children from predators. This is more selfishness from “The Material Girl.”
BBC: Madonna to launch Malawi appeal
Madonna visited Malawi last month in her bid to adopt the little girl
Lawyers for the pop star Madonna are set to return to court in Malawi to appeal against a ruling denying her request to adopt a child.
Last month, the court ruled that the singer could not adopt four year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James.
It said prospective parents had to be resident in the southern African state for 18 to 24 months.
The man believed to be the little girl’s father has also said that he opposes the adoption.
Madonna has already adopted a boy, David, from Malawi.
Chifundo James lives in the same orphanage from which Madonna adopted David in 2006.
She has been living there since her 18-year-old mother died shortly after giving birth.
James Kambewa, the man believed to be her father, has never met her.
But earlier this week he said he was capable of looking after the little girl and that he wanted her to be raised as a Malawian.
Brian England
Hi Stephen,
As someone close to the international adoption process, I feel I have to comment on your article. The message in your article seems to be that Malawi’s refusal to accept Madonna’s bypassing of the adoption rules is a good thing in that it protects children from predators in the sex/slave trade….and you have un-named senior sources in the PEI govt agreeing. So far so good.
Madonna is definitely guilty of using her fame and money to try to bypass painfully slow international adoption procedures…but she is certainly not a predator or anything like it. She is also not buying a child…that phrase is insulting to the hundreds of people from PEI in the international adoption process…and its degrading to the children to be referred to that way.
Did you know that both Madonna and Angelina Joli have spent millions of their own dollars developing and running orphanages for the children who are not lucky enough to be adopted? Africa has been ravaged by war and aids. There are, and I’m not exaggerating, tens of millions of orphan children in africa waiting to be adopted…many of whom have no-one caring for them. Nobody needs to buy a child in Africa, Stephen…there are more than 10,000,000 of them.
Clearly, I understand that the thrust of your article is that the implications of Madonna “skirting” the rules would put other children in jeopardy if some kind of legal precedent is set. My question to you and to your senior social services official is this….Do you really think that slave traders and child pornographers need to use the international adoption system to acquire their victims? It’s absurd to think that.
Madonna, and any other person attempting to adopt a child from Africa, is no bigot. I view her as someone with the resources to bring a needy child into her family and give them the love and nurturing any child should have. We can all say what we want about cultural differences and we can debate forever whether or not an African child is better off in a Canadian, British, or American home rather than an African one. What we can not forget is the millions upon millions of children living with no parents, little food, and no medical intervention or care. While we publish articles and sit around debating the ethical and cultural implications, these children are waiting. Many of them are getting sick..which often makes them un-adoptable. Many of them are literally dying of neglect day in and day out while we sit and ponder whether Madonna should be able to lift some of them out of this poverty.
There are people in this world, some with money some without, who are making a difference for these precious children. Sensational articles like this one stand in the way….you of all people know the power of the media, Stephen. If we aren’t going to lift a finger to help, then may I suggest we should pull our ignorant self righteous heads out of our arses and do our best to stay out of the way.
Brian England
Brian England
No…of couse I’m not suggesting there is anything innapropriate with the Hague Convention. I’m saying that trying to cut red tape is no crime and comparing this woman to a slave trader is hateful and ignorant. What do you know of the beaurocracy of international adoption? Do you know that it takes almost a year to get approval from the PEI govt before a person can even get on a waiting list in an African or any other country? Certianly you can see the unnecessary red tape in the beaurocratic process in Malawi. How many of the millions of orphans will be adopted if the adoptive parents need to leave their jobs, homes, and possibly other children for up to 2 years? These rules are not the Hague Convention…they vary from country to country and I can tell you that other countries do not have this rule.
Ever ask yourself why the father of Madonna’s potentially adopted baby does not look after the child himself? Why is this child in an orphonage? If he can’t look after the child, what moral, ethical, or legal right does he have to comment on his child’s future?
I invite you, Stephen, to learn a little more about how international adoption works. This story is about millions of innocent children and people and families that want to adopt them. There are injustices in the PEI political systen, Stephen. You’ve shown is that. What do you think its like in Malawi? There are bad guys out there, Stephen…there is no need to create bad guys out of international adoptive parents.
Brian
Ifo Ikede
I think its important that people stop and think about the long term effects of their actions, instead of continuing to have the racist assumption that people in the rest of the world, cant handle our own affairs.
Ignoring the fact that the western world is at the Root of our problems.
Ignoring the Canadian companies that are poisoning our lands, stealing our resource, and paying people to kill us, but make yourself feel good by abducting our children.
Forgetting to ask yourselve collectively, why it is that we did not have problems feeding our children until, after the europeans & Arabs came to *help us* a few centuries ago. Now fast forward to today, the nations of the western & Arab world have profited from our resources, and we are worse off than we were before they showed up.
While ignore the multitude of children that could be adopted here in Canada.
So i shall share with you the voices of the children who have now grown up after been adopted international, so that you can get a different point of view. It might make white people feel good that they are doing a good thing, similar to how setting up the residential schools in Canada seemed like a good idea at the time.
http://www.transracialabductees.org/index.html