Furor over Madonna adoption could see law change in Malawi

Malawian rights organizations say their government needs help monitoring Madonna's planned adoption of a Malawian boy — and a child welfare official agrees that the southern African country's foreign adoption procedures need to be overhauled.

Already, Malawi's Child Welfare Services office has missed one planned visit to London to check on how David Banda is doing with his celebrity family. Penston Kilembe, the director of Malawi's Child Welfare Services, is personally overseeing the Madonna case and indicated in an interview this week that money was one of the reasons the trip originally scheduled in May had been postponed. He said he now hoped to go by the end of August.

"We have been unable to travel because of logistical problems," Kilembe said. "You know it requires some resources for me to travel ...."

Lawyer Justin Dzonzi, chairman of the coalition of rights groups, said it was unrealistic to expect Malawi to oversee the adoption without help, possibly from British child welfare authorities.

"We just don't have the resources and the expertise," Dzonzi said, adding Britain had a very comprehensive adoption review process.

Madonna and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, took custody of David, then 14 months old, last October. Malawian child welfare officials granted them initial custody of the boy, whose father, who is still living, had placed him in the orphanage where Madonna found him after the mother died following his birth. The welfare officials were expected to file a report on the suitability of Madonna and Ritchie as adoptive parents after two trips to their London residence. Originally, the trips were planned for May and December.

The singer has two other children, Lourdes, 9, and Rocco, 6.

While Malawi officials have not visited David, his adoption appears to fall under British laws providing for counseling of Madonna and Ritchie by British experts before they brought the boy home, and possibly monitoring since. British child welfare officials refused to comment on the Madonna case.

Critics had said Madonna, who met David while in Malawi to launch a project to help the country's 2 million AIDS orphans, used her celebrity status to circumvent Malawian adoption laws — allegations she denies. Malawian law is fuzzy on foreign adoptions. Regulations only stipulate that prospective parents undergo an 18-to-24 month assessment period in Malawi, a rule bent when Madonna was allowed to take David to London.