Madonna shut out of the export business
In her glorious, angel-blessed and wholly beneficent race to out-UN Angelina Jolie (she’s got some catching up to do) Madonna’s selfless effort to rescue a child from Africa has been dealt a serious blow by some nameless dude in Malawi. Well, I suppose he does have a name.
It starts with “Your Honor.”
A judge in Malawi has rejected pop singer Madonna’s application to adopt a second child in the country on residency grounds.
The judge, based in the capital of Lilongwe, stated that prospective parents must be a resident of Malawi for 18 to 24 months before they are able to adopt, a judge and lawyer told the Associated Press.
True, she got around that the first time by … being staggeringly rich and throwing her money around. She’s still staggeringly rich, but is it possible that someone’s decided Malawi’s children are not for export? How dare they! Surely if some Malawian nouveau riches descended upon foster homes all over North America, shopping for something cute to take back duty-free, we’d let them, if there were a playground or a Head Start center in it?
WHO WILL THINK OF THE CELEBRITIES???
Usually I’m in support of adoption (as long as you’re working with a reputable agency to make sure that you’re truly adopting orphaned or abandoned children, not stolen or bought ones…), but when someone has as much money as Madonna, I wish they would just donate a bunch of money to Malawi (the poorest country in Africa) rather than trying to bring home what, in my cynicism, I can only see as being a cute little ratings boost. She has several children at home already that she needs to be thinking about as well. Sigh… maybe I am too cynical and she just feels a great deal of compassion for Africa, but it could still be directed in a more useful fashion.
In a country that is one of the world’s poorest with one of the highest rate of AIDS, I would consider it a blessing to remove even one child (especially a girl child) from what will probably be a short and very difficult life. Her mother died at 14. Her mother’s brother approved the adoption. Hmmmm…Let’s see, adoption by a self serving but loving multi millionaire or less than 20 years of life in poverty, disease, and violence (the rape of girl children is common in several areas in Africa because of the belief that having sex with a virgin is a cure to AIDS). I would love to see every person of privilege adopt several such children. Perhaps that government could ask the adopter to pay for independent inspectors to visit and report to the government in question to verify the safety and well being of the child. Just a thought.
Think how much more good she’d do if she respected the law and lived there 18-24 months. She’d be spending money the whole time, presumably building schools or whatever. You know Madonna wouldn’t be sitting on her hands living in a hut the entire time.