LONDON -- Madonna said yesterday she had acted according to the law in taking custody of a one-year-old Malawian boy, responding for the first time to the fierce debate about the legality and morality of the planned adoption. The pop star's statement came after she was united with David Banda at her London mansion. Madonna said she hopes to make the adoption permanent following an 18-month evaluation period, imposed by Malawi authorities.
"We have gone about the adoption procedure according to the law, like anyone else who adopts a child. Reports to the contrary are totally inaccurate," Madonna said in the statement, issued via e-mail. Madonna said she and her husband, director Guy Ritchie, began the adoption process "many months prior to our trip to Malawi," but she had not disclosed their intentions because she wished to keep the matter private.
As child-protection groups challenged Madonna's custody order and photographers swarmed outside the singer's home, that appeared a vain hope. "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," she added.
David, who has spent most of his life in an orphanage in poverty-stricken Malawi, arrived before dawn at Heathrow Airport. He was bundled into a waiting Mercedes minivan and taken to the townhouse near Hyde Park that Madonna, 48, shares with her husband. Last week, Malawi's High Court granted Madonna and Ritchie an interim adoption order giving them custody of the boy for 18 months.
The order waived a Malawian law requiring would-be parents to live in the country for a year while social welfare officers investigate their ability to care for a child. Malawian officials said they had no objection to the adoption. Justin Dzonzi, a lawyer for a coalition of Malawian child advocacy organizations, said his group was concerned that no one explained the implications of the adoption to the child's father, Yohame Banda.
David's mother is dead. Banda yesterday accused the rights groups of being "jealous of my son." "What's their interest?
I want David to have a bright future, not to live in this poverty," he said.
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