Madonna’s adoption plans delayed

It will not be before Friday this week when Madonna will hear whether she can adopt her second child from Malawi. The 50-year old pop star was in the African country to know about the judge’s decision about her adoption application. She appeared in court Monday (March 30), in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. However, her adoption plans have to wait. A judge declared that the ruling on the matter will be held till Friday. The child Madonna wants to adopt is a 4-year old girl whose unmarried mother had died soon after her birth. Last year, she had adopted her 3-year-old son David from an orphanage in Malawi.

Criticisms have made the matter a sensitive issue. Children’s advocacy groups have held Madonna guilty of using her wealth to make the adoption possible and rush it. According to Malawian law, it is necessary for a foreign adopter to live in the country with the child for more than a year before adoption. The judge, however, has the discretion to let Madonna have the child immediately. UK charity group Save the Children have said Madonna is sending a wrong message through the second adoption, and that it encourages impoverished parents “to abandon children in the hope that they will have a better life.”

Some of the Malawians support the adoption. An onlooker outside the court on Monday stated “We are blessed for what Madonna is doing here,” adding “That baby is going to have the advantages of going to school and of becoming someone. Here it is very difficult.” One of the poorest nations in the world, Malawi has 14% of its adults infected withthe virus that causes AIDS.

Madonna first visited Malawi in 2006 for charity work, and for her documentary “I Am Because We Are,” a film on poverty and AIDS in Malawi. She also helps run Raising Malawi, a non-profit group which helps the poor people of Malawi. If the adoption takes place, then Madonna will be a single mother of four.