Madonna’s efforts to adopt Malawian child Chifundo (Mercy) James are at a pause. The court heard arguments in her appeal this past Monday but did not immediately set a date for the second hearing, at which a decision is expected to be made.
The situation keeps generating more information, some of it conflicting. (I wonder whether some of the information is being supplied to the media by Madonna’s PR people or by the various human rights groups who have filed court documents in the case.)
There are reports of threats from the child’s maternal grandparents to the birthfather, the preschooler sobbing when she did not go home with her “mum” Madonna and her children, and an orphanage staffer taking the child into hiding.
It would all make a heck of a movie (although if Madonna does become Mercy’s mother I hope she has better sense than to make a movie out of her daughter’s personal history).
Alan Chinula, Madonna’s lawyer, argues that the judge erred on seven unspecified points when she ruled that waiving the residency requirement for Madonna might lead to child trafficking. He also argues that Malawian law about child welfare would supersede the residency requirement if the adoption can be shown to be in the child’s best interest.
The judge at the initial adoption hearing, Esme Chondo, has said that she was tempted to allow Madonna to take the child, hoping the child would gain advantages unavailable to her in Malawi. She denied the petition, however, saying that waiving adoption laws might open the doors to child trafficking.
She also said that this case is different from that of David Banda, whom Madonna adopted from Malawi, in that David’s orphanage was planning to send him home within six months to a father who could not care for him, while Mercy’s orphanage is able and willing to provide adequate nutrition and care.
Madonna and several of her supporters in Malawi claim that the adoption laws are outdated and need changing. Madonna has been quoted as saying that she hopes her two adoption petitions have the effect of opening discussion and modernizing the laws.
The judge has said that it was not her place to make the laws.
After the initial adoption petition, Mercy’s birth father–who has never seen the child—-came forward to claim her, saying that “cultured women do not dance half-naked” and appealing to the court to “spare my Mercy all that”. (Apparently there is no etiquette preventing a cultured man from having a fourteen-year-old girlfriend and then abandoning her when she gets pregnant.)
The birthfather has said that he has never visited the child because his girlfriend’s parents were accusing him of killing their daughter (Mercy’s fourteen-year-old mother died from complications of childbirth shortly after giving birth to Mercy).
The government says that the man must take a DNA test to determine if he is really Mercy’s father. Officials said that as far as the government is concerned, Mercy’s maternal grandparents and aunt, who have consented to the adoption, are Mercy’s legal guardians.
Madonna’s spokeswoman says that the singer met Mercy at her orphanage while in the country to adopt her son David, and always hoped to go back and adopt the child. The orphanage director said that Mercy was distraught when Madonna and her children left without her. The director said she had played with her prospective siblings for several days and called Madonna “Mum”, and expected to go home with her. At least one report now says that an orphanage worker has accompanied the child into hiding. (The report seemed to imply that this was to keep the child from her purported birthfather, not from Madonna.)
Human rights and child welfare groups are also petitioning the court in the case. (One group supports the adoption; most are opposed.) In fact, Monday’s court proceedings were adjourned within 30 minutes of beginning, because Madonna’s lawyer claimed he had not seen any of the slew of documents being produced by one of the human rights groups. The proceedings reportedly resumed a few hours later, but it will be at a second court session that the appeal is decided.
In other celebrity adoption news, see Michelle Cheplic’s report in the Popular Culture Blog about adoptive mother Calista Flockhart’s desire to adopt again, this time with her steady beau Harrison Ford.
Please see these related blogs:
Adoption in the News this Week: from ER to Madonna to the Hague