LONDON Madonna defended her adoption of a 1-year old Malawian baby, David Banda, on Tuesday, rejecting a swirl of protest over her decision and insisting she had acted according to the law.
In her first public remarks about the adoption, the pop star said in a statement that she hoped to make the arrangement permanent after an l8- month evaluation period imposed by the Malawi authorities. "We have gone about the adoption procedure according to the law like anyone else who adopts a child," she said in the statement, issued via e-mail after she was united with the boy in London."Reports to the contrary are totally inaccurate." Madonna said that she and husband, the film director Guy Ritchie, had begun the adoption process "many months prior to our trip to Malawi."
"After learning that there were over one million orphans in Malawi, it was my wish to open up our home and help one child escape an extreme life of hardship, poverty and in many cases death, as well as expand our family," Madonna said."This was not a decision or commitment that my family or I take lightly," the pop star said.
David, who had spent most of his life in an orphanage in Malawi, arrived before dawn at Heathrow International Airport aboard a British Airways flight from Johannesburg. He was bundled into a waiting minivan in the arms of an aide. Photographers, reporters and camera crews clustered in the street as the van arrived at the Victorian townhouse near Hyde Park that Madonna, 48, shares with Ritchie, daughter Lourdes, 9, and son Rocco, 6. Last week, Malawi's High Court granted Madonna and Ritchie an interim adoption order. It waived a law requiring would-be parents to live in the country for a year while social welfare officers investigated their ability to care for a child. As David arrived in London, human rights and child protection groups were challenging the custody order in court in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe. David's father, Yohame Banda, a farmer, accused the rights groups of being "jealous of my son." "What's their interest?" he said. "I want David to have a bright future, not to live in this poverty.
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