Madonna's adoption of a baby from Malawi has sparked a debate about intercountry adoption, writes Joe Humphreys
Until this week, Malawi's best known export was tobacco. Now it is David Banda, a 13-month-old addition to pop star Madonna Ritchie's household. Celebrity adoptions always attract mixed emotions but this latest example has proved especially contentious. Leave aside the question of whether film director Guy Ritchie (38) and his trend-hopping wife (48) are suitable parents for the motherless child. The manner in which the boy was uprooted from the former British colony - a one-time hub of slave trading - has struck a jarring note.
After a somewhat arbitrary selection process, David was placed in the couple's temporary custody and whisked out of the country under a hooded cloak. Malawian child welfare groups claim the process defied residency restrictions - Madonna having stayed in the country for just nine days as opposed to the stipulated minimum of 18 months for an adopting parent.
Similar concerns were echoed across the subcontinent with one South African non-governmental organisation claiming that the case had sent a message to child traffickers that Malawi was "open for business".
In a statement this week, Madonna said she had acted "according to the law like anyone else who adopts a child". But few believe that her money and her status didn't influence events.
"I know of people who wanted to adopt in Malawi but were prevented from doing so because they weren't resident there," says Kerry woman Mags Riordan, who spends up to five months a year in the country doing charity work. "The people I've spoken to in Malawi have a fairly jaundiced view of the whole thing. They see the law as being flouted."
Riordan knows the country well, having set up a health clinic there three years ago in memory of her son Billy who died in a local swimming accident. "I am not against intercountry adoptions," she remarks. "But I'm not in favour of wealthy people whisking away a single child overseas when that child and his whole village could be helped instead with a fraction of the money."
She notes that many orphans in Malawi end up in care not because they have been abandoned but because of financial pressures. "The Malawians are very relative-oriented. They don't just slam their kids into an orphanage and forget about them. The vast majority of extended family would try to remain in contact with a child in care."
David's father is a case in point, reportedly cycling 40km each week in order to see him. A peasant farmer whose wife died shortly after giving birth, Yohane Banda said he had hoped to give the boy a new home once he had remarried. "I hate to see him leave Malawi but I have come to accept the loss," he was quoted as saying in Britain's Mail on Sunday. "The government people told me it would be a good thing for the country. He will come back educated and able to help us."
He later told the Guardian that he was "very close to my child. Whenever I left the orphanage, David would cry." And he added: "My interest is in the child's best chance for health and education. It was a hard choice to make, but when it seemed likely that David would have a better life with a new family, I could not say no."
He also denied a claim - reported to have been made by his brother - that he had been pressured into the decision.
The Malawian Human Rights Consultative Committee, a local umbrella group representing various child welfare organisations, has protested against the move, threatening to go to the courts to stop the Ritchies from gaining adoption rights after a planned 18-month monitoring period. The committee's chairman, Justin Dzonzi, said the custody application was illegal under Malawian law and he suggested the residency conditions had been waived because of Madonna's commitment to set up a $3 million (€2.4 million) shelter for orphans (to whom, incidentally, she plans to preach the mystical Jewish faith of Kabbalah - to which she is a recent convert).
Concern about possible political interference was also raised by Malawi's main newspaper, the Daily Times, which asked in an editorial whether the government's "quest for world fame" had prompted it "to bend the rules and treat Madonna as a special case".
Describing the episode as a "comedy", the newspaper added: "We know Madonna has promised a lot for the country's orphans and the thinking could be that if we ask her to follow rigorous procedures of adoption she may give up, but this should not be our worry. Madonna, actually will respect us more if we show that our poverty is not extended to the brain."
Reactions were less muted in other African states where many regard the episode unsavoury and somewhat humiliating - with its connotations of black babies for sale.
Various South African child welfare groups said the process flouted international norms, including the Hague Convention, which stipulates that fostering options should be sought locally first before considering an intercountry adoption.
Malawi is not a signatory to the Hague Convention but its laws in the area are recognised by the Adoption Authority of Ireland, which registers intercountry adoptions in the Republic. There has been only one registered adoption from Malawi to Ireland in the past five years. In contrast, there were almost 40 registered adoptions to Ireland from Ethiopia, by far the most popular African state for Irish parents seeking to adopt abroad.
The International Adoption Association, which represents Irish families that have adopted from Africa, said it couldn't "condemn nor condone" the Ritchies "as their application to adopt was not made under the Irish system". The group added: "We do not know if their application to adopt was subject to the standardised framework for intercountry adoption, which is the rigorous, lengthy process followed by Irish residents who want to undertake an intercountry adoption."
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the celebrities' actions, those with a longer-term interest in Malawi hope there will be a silver lining for a country ranked as one of the poorest in the world.
On Thursday, just 48 hours after baby David was flown to London via Johannesburg, a group of 70 figures from the world of GAA arrived in the Malawian capital of Lilongwe to promote one of the many Irish charities operating in the country.
Speaking on the road to the southern city of Zomba, RTÉ sports presenter Tracy Piggott - who co-ordinated the trip for her charity Playing for Life - said: "There are so many Aids orphans here (more than 500,000 at the last count) it's horrible. If nothing else the adoption case will help to highlight their situation."