After weeks of talk and much criticism for her attempts at adopting a second child from Malawi, a judge rejected Madonna's bid to do just that. It was based on a residency requirement that was apparently overlooked/bypassed when she adopted her first Malawian child.
Protests from human rights activists, the media, and a lot of the general public had been ringing loudly for the past number of weeks, since it was reported that Madonna was attempting to adopt a second child from Malawi. Much talk has been about how there are so many children in need of adoption in the United States that could be her "targeted" children. Also, the topic of taking the children away from their own cultures into other countries has been another issue. Madonna has been vocal in bringing the problems of poverty, AIDS, and other troubling issues in Malawi into focus.
While it is most definitely true that there are children in other countries who are also very much in need of adoption, it is hard to understand why so many people would be outraged that Madonna is attempting to adopt this 4 year-old girl from Malawi. I would agree with the rejection of her bid to adopt the child on the grounds that she didn't meet the residency requirement, but that's about it. For someone to take a child out of an orphanage, to provide that child with a home and love and try to improve that child's life, is really an amazing thing. It's true that Madonna could just send the family money to assist, but so could so many of the people protesting her adoption. She wanted to give of herself to the child, though, providing much more than the child can probably ever have otherwise. Her bid to adopt this young girl having been rejected means that the child will continue to live in an orphanage. Of course it would be nice if this child were taken care of by her own family or someone else locally, but this is not happening. The family cannot afford to raise her and local residents aren't clamoring to adopt children in what is one of the poorest countries in the world. It's an unfortunate situation all around. While I don't think that Madonna should use who she is to bully her way around into adopting a child, I don't think that she ever had any intentions but to love this child and provide a home and family that aren't there now.
Friday, April 03, 2009
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2 comments:
The citizenry of Malawi have developed orphanages to care for a child's physical needs without burdening relatives living in poverty. A child is visited by family and attends family and community functions. The children of Malawi do not need to be removed from their community, they do not need to be rescued one at a time by being taken to a western country. This is reverse colonization. Americans in general think of other times and other countries in terms of their personal time and place as being the only right way, as if everything else is wrong. And that is just not true. This is an emotional issue and the dialogue has been emotional and thus a dead end for discussion and enlightenment.
Unfortunately, I'm somewhat torn on this issue, while still feeling that it could be for the best for this child. If this were happening in Tonga, where my family is from and many in my family still reside, I would undoubtedly be protesting this very loudly. I would argue that the child or children needed to be surrounded by their own culture and I would be looking at it more emotionally, but the conditions, though poor, are not nearly as dire as they are in Malawi. It's hard for me to tell, though, if much of my own view in this example is because the facts and conditions are different or just because of close personal ties and a lack thereof. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. Added to that is the fact that AIDS is rampant there with an estimated well over 10% (adult infection rate over 14%) of citizens being infected with HIV. Orphanages are at full capacity and unfortunately, only those orphans that have faced severe neglect are eligible to be placed in children's homes now. The great increases in numbers of children orphaned by losing one or both parents to AIDS has put much greater strains on children's homes and also on foster homes. The Malawi government cannot handle the number of orphans in the country and donations, financial aid, and non-profit organizations are heavily relied upon to assist. While I'm not thinking in terms of taking Malawian children to western countries, I am thinking in terms of many more than one in ten individuals carrying HIV, a life expectancy rate of under 40, and a country who can't afford to take care of all of its orphans. I don't think that all the children of Malawi need to be removed from their own communities, but I do believe that perhaps some could be removed from their current situations into better places for them, even if they are in different countries.
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