Is Madonna right to try and adopt a Malawi child?

[stewart38]

Was on one side of fence sat on it then moved to other very rare for me !

You have a child who lets face if he says in Malawi is likely to face a life of poverty and may as the ‘papers’ say die before he reaches 40

Alternatively a far better life over here

At first thought it was a publicity stunt but reading the preparation Madonna has done and the processes involved I think it cant be a bad idea and the boys own father supports it !

People saying its so wrong wont be around in 2 years time when its all ‘forgotten’ and the boy maybe starving out there ?

[David Bailey]

Ooh, a heated debate!

It's a tricky one - it's an area where the general and the personal collide.

• From a point of view of the individual child, it's probably safe to say that he'll have better prospects being brought up by Madonna, than by being brought up in a Malawian orphanage. And it would be a travesty if, after a series of expensive and time-consuming legal actions, the result was that the child was returned to the orphanage. I don't think he'd be too appreciative in later life of that.
• But from a general point of view, Madonna clearly bent a lot of the rules - unless she's been living in Malawi secretly for the last 18 months anyway - or had a lot of rules bent for her by the Malawian government. So the general message of "You can break the rules if you're rich and famous enough" is clearly a kick in the teeth for other people who are trying to adopt children from another country. It sets a bad precedent, in other words.

I think the best solution would be for Madonna to keep the child, but for both her and the Malawian government to admit that mistakes were made on both sides, and to clarify and refine the inter-country adoption process in general. But that's pie-in-the-sky stuff, mainly because powerful people never admit mistakes.

[TiggsTours]

Well, my views are that there are pros and cons to the situation.

Pros:

• The child will not have to spend their impoverished life starving in a Malawian orphanage
• The child will have the benefits of being brought up by one of the wealthiest people in the world
• The child will be able to obtain a good education
• The child will always know where they came from, and be fully aware of the plight of Malawi
• The child will still have a relationship with his real father
• The child will not grow up in a country with one of the highest HIV rates in the world, which has had to deal with the civil war of neighbouring countries for years
• The child will not grow up in a country where kidnap and trafficking for child slavery is rife
• The child, being so aware of his own lucky escape, may well become a stong influence in the human rights plight of other Malawian people
• Being such high level celebrities, Madonna and Guy Ritchie have raised the focus of the plight of the people of Malawi

Cons:

• It may be a publicity stunt
• A few rules may, or may not, have been slightly bent

Hmm, now let me think, which side of the fence shall I choose?

[TiggsTours]

I think the best solution would be for Madonna to keep the child, but for both her and the Malawian government to admit that mistakes were made on both sides, and to clarify and refine the inter-country adoption process in general.

Oh, and erm,

[Caro]

ok aside from the fact that the child is likely to have a better life if not raised in an orphanage, the slightly unconfortable thing for me is that Madonna promised 5 millions dollars to build a new orphanage in the country... and this is Malawi... did anybody else think 'corruption' ? (or is it just me seeing that everywhere since I live in Africa?)
Plus the fact that rules appears to have been bent for Madonna (that can't be uncorrelated to the fact she gave 5M) sends the message: if you're rich enough, you can 'buy' your child. And also the fact that she could choose between 12 or so childs...

I've been thinking a lot about adopting a child from a 'poor(er)' country with the hope to give a child a better life. (thinking about the concept for now, I feel far too young to think about a family)
And the some interrogations came up, like:
- can you choose your kid? aside from a preference girl/boy, how far would you go? Is it fair to dismiss kids with Aids for example (or even ask about their status)?
- if you make a donation at the same time: how do you do that without the feeling that you are in fact 'buying' a kid? How do you ensure that the money will benefit the people and not feed corruption?

Ok just to make it clear, those questions aside, I think this is a good thing done thanks to good intentions, and the fact that celebrities do that certainly helps putting adoption under the spotlights and hopefully might help more people think about it and go for it.

[David Bailey]

My God, I just looked up some information on Malawi...

• Life expectancy: 36.5 years (5 years lower than it was 50 years ago)
• Child mortality is 103/1,000.
• There are more than a million orphans, 700,000 of whom became orphans when their parents died of AIDS.
• According to Malawi government estimates, 14.2% of the population are HIV-positive, and 90,000 deaths in 2003 were due to AIDS.
• Unofficial estimates based on private hospital entries give a HIV infection percentage of 30%.

A million orphans, from a population of 12 million...

OK, put me firmly in the "Madonna was right" camp now.