To Hand Over Your Child To Another Parent. Just Like That!
- Category: Children
- Date 18-12-2006
- 1342 views
A thirteen-month baby, David Banda has been the axis of a recent fracas, soaking up worldwide media as regards whether he ought to have been given away to a well-to-do couple of the Western origin.
The boy’s mother, Marita died a month after she had given birth to him in their Mchinji village, in the Republic of Malawi. As a result, David remained with his pitiable father, Yohanne Banda but was essentially looked after by a charity - Home of Hope Orphanage Centre - located at the Zambian boarder.
American born singer, Madonna has been on a goodwill mission to Africa that culminated in her ten-day excursion into Malawi where she has pledged about three million dollars to help almost a million orphans in the country. This was part of her operation to help the society to combat poverty and the ravages of HIV and Aids, which is a major reason the number of orphans is escalating.
Nonetheless, the well-heeled pop star’s entire trip to Malawi has been reduced to a single adoption event, which has touched off a lively storm in the country. When Madonna decided to adopt the disconsolate infant named David, her decision drew quite a furore in Malawi and indeed African and the world.
She, along with her husband Mr. Guy Ritchie, was awarded a high court approval to adopt the orphan. This event however would not pass uncontested.
The human rights consultative committee of sixty-seven civil society organisations called the adoption illegal and sought a court injunction. Partly, they asserted that the adoption process was fast-tracked to circumvent the law, which forbids foreigners from adopting Malawian children, if they have not lived in the country and been assessed for at least eighteen months.
Public opinion was divided, therefore. Some people said that there are far too many orphans and other suffering children to share with other persons of goodwill, Africans or non-Africans. That Madonna could have taken as many children as she wanted, if to care for and give them the essentials of life to grow normally into useful individuals.
‘Adoption’ is a way of providing a new family for a child when living with its own family is not possible. For many children, adoption may be their only opportunity to experience family life. It involves some complexities though.
After a successful adoption, returning a child to its parent(s) is impossible because an Adoption Order severs all legal ties with a child’s birth family. It confers parental rights and responsibilities on the new adoptive family.
The birth parents no longer have any legal rights over the child, and they are not entitled to claim the child back. The child becomes a full member of the adopter’s family, often taking their surname and assuming the same rights and privileges, including the right of inheritance, as if they had been born to the family. This is the fact which the Malawian father of the adopted child just woke up to quite late.
He said, "I was never told that adoption means that David will no longer be my son... If I was told this, I would not have allowed the adoption.”
The key concern in adoption is if the adopter can provide a stable home for a child until adulthood and beyond. Courts normally view adoption from the child’s perspective. an Adoption Order will only be granted if it is viewed as being in the best interests of the child.
Was Madonna’s adoption of David warranted? This writer believes that hers was a humane deed which was wrongly executed and might set a bad precedent. There are innumerable bighearted persons in the world, but they cannot simply go about picking humans from their wretched habitats apparently to improve their conditions.
The resultant uproar among the Malawi civil society organisations was only a response to the underhand games that were played in giving away Baby David. And once such an adoption was upheld, it might enable future criminals, like human traffickers, to seize their victims through legal procedures.
By Venansio Ahabwe,
Source: Child-Link Magazine Vol. 11 No.3 Kampala