Madonna files adoption papers in Malawi

LILONGWE—Madonna filed adoption papers at a Malawi court Thursday, and a judge issued an interim order allowing the celebrity couple to go home with a motherless 1-year-old boy.
Assistant High Court Register Thomson Ligowe said Judge Andrew Nyirenda: "has just given out an interim order" that would allow Madonna to take David. The father, Yohame Banda, said he was happy for his son and pleased with the celebrity couple who want to be his parents.
Madonna has made no comment to reporters since her arrival in this impoverished earlier this month, though she has made several public appearances in support of projects she supports here to care for AIDS orphans. Her publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said in an e-mailed statement Wednesday: "I am unable to make any official statement at this time" on the adoption reports.
Penston Kilimbe, director of child welfare services in the Ministry of Gender, Child Welfare and Community Services, had said earlier that Madonna and her film director husband Guy Ritchie filed adoption papers before a judge at the Lilongwe High Court.
"They have followed the normal processes. This has been going on for some time. Now this is the completion point," he said.
Banda said he met Madonna and Ritchie at the court as part of the formalities. While they talked, Madonna, who has two children, carried the baby boy.
"They are a lovely couple," Banda said. "She asked me many questions. She and her husband seem happy with David. I am happy for him. Madonna promised me that as the child grows she will bring him back to visit."
Madonna and Ritchie have a son, Rocco, 5, and the singer also has a daughter, Lourdes, 9.
Madonna arrived in the impoverished African nation Oct. 4 on a mission to helps AIDS orphans and amid rumors that she was to adopt a child.
Tuesday, 32-year-old Banda told The Associated Press: "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 said his wife Marita died a month after the baby's birth from childbirth complications and the child had been cared for at the Home of Hope Orphan Care Center in Mchinji, a village near the Zambian border.
Banda said his son left the orphanage on Monday and was taken to the capital, Lilongwe. Madonna has visited the orphanage at least once during her visit. Its director, the Rev. Thompson John Chipeta, has refused to speak to the media.
Madonna's charity Raising Malawi is setting up an orphan care center to provide food, education and shelter for up to 4,000 children. It will have projects based on Kabbalah, Judaism's mystical sect, which counts the 48-year-old singer among its devotees.
Malawi is among the poorest countries in the world, with rampant disease and hunger, aggravated by periodic droughts and crop failure. Some 14 percent of its 12 million people are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and an estimated 1 million children have been orphaned. In many villages, grandparents or older siblings struggle to feed orphans.
In an open letter to Madonna released Tuesday, the private Malawian child advocacy group Eye of the Child welcomed her concern for Malawian children, but questioned whether foreign adoptions were in the best interests of children.
Jackie Schoeman, executive director Cotlands, a South African organization that cares for children affected by HIV, said the first choice for orphans should be a place in a local family. In Africa, orphans usually are take in by their extended families, but AIDS has affected many of the people who might have traditionally provided support.
"If the only other option is for them to be in a long-term institutional then we would consider international adoption," Schoeman said.—Agencies