Malawi rights group hits out at Madonna adoption law criticism

Malawi's state-sponsored rights group on Sunday hit out at recent comments by US pop diva Madonna, saying she was "putting it crudely" when she said the country had no adoption laws.

"She (Madonna) was putting it crudely. If we had no laws, how come she was asked to apply to the court to adopt a child. She used the same laws she is criticising to adopt David," Dorothy Nyasulu, chairperson of the state-sponsored Malawi rights commission, told AFP.

Nyasulu was reacting after the pop star told a news conference last week at the Cannes film festival in France that there were no adoption laws in Malawi, adding that she was the "template or role model, so to speak, for future adoptions."

Saying she was "happy to be the guinea pig", Madonna expressed hope that her full adoption of the African boy David Banda, whose final verdict will be made Wednesday, will make it easier for other people to adopt children in the impoverished country.

The commission, which gets its funding from the government, alongside the human rights consultative commmittee (HRCC), a coalition of 67 rights groups, are "friends of the courts" in a full review of an interim 18-month custody order granted to Madonna in 2006 to adopt David.

Nyasulu said Madonna was "not fair" in her remarks, insisting that Malawi had adoption laws, but not intra-country adoption.

"We want our adoption laws (to) conform to international human rights standards such as the convention on the rights of the child and the African charter on child rights," Nyasulu said.

Maxwell Matewere, a spokesman of the outspoken HRCC, earlier told AFP that his group expects Madonna to be subjected to "stringent regulations and procedures" in the full adoption of the toddler.

"Malawi needs to draw a clear picture and if not careful, we could lose some children in the process because other people might use the same laws to adopt children for illegal trafficking, sexual exploitation and child labour," Matewere said.

He said his commission was not "only looking at David, but other children who may be exposed to such adoptions and foreigners who will take advantage of the Madonna case to justify application and use the children for other vices."

Critics have accused Madonna of using her wealth to fast-track the adoption process.

The granting of the interim order, which enabled her to take David out of Malawi, sparked heated debate about adoption laws in a country where the number of orphans has hit the one million mark as a result of AIDS.