Madonna gets Malawi nod to adopt child

Madonna

LILONGWE, Malawi - Malawi authorities have granted Madonna an interim order to adopt a one-year-old boy from the impoverished African country, a senior court official said today.

The announcement brought to a climax Madonna's controversial week-long charity visit to the southern African country during which her aides denied earlier reports by government officials that she planned to adopt a child.

"Madonna was granted an interim order to adopt the child, which means that there's going to be a subsequent hearing by the same court to either allow her to adopt the child or not," the high court's deputy registrar Thomson Ligowe said.

Under Malawian law the hearing must take place within two years.

"This also means that she has been put on observer status to see how she will relate to the child, and people from social welfare will have to observe that. The court will depend upon their observations to make a final decision," Ligowe added.

The 48-year-old singer, a master self-promoter, has kept largely out of the limelight since arriving in Malawi on October 4, although she was seen wearing a safari hat and in a jovial mood on a visit to one orphanage.

Ligowe said Madonna was free to take the boy, David Banda, an orphan, when she leaves Malawi, most likely on Friday.

He added that there were conditions attached to the interim order but declined to give details, citing confidentiality provisions of the process.

Henderson Geza Dyedyereke, the headman of Lipunga, the boy's village near the Zambian border, confirmed the adoption plan on Wednesday.

He told Reuters he was informed of the adoption by Rev. Thomson Chipeta, the executive director of the Home of Hope Orphan Care Centre in Mchinji, where Banda is being cared for.

Trading places

Madonna and her filmmaker husband, Guy Ritchie, have homes in the United States and Britain, most unlikely settings for the young Banda, who has lived in a dilapidated orphanage since the death of his mother shortly after he was born.

A senior government official told Reuters that Malawi would use officials at its embassy in Washington to monitor how the child relates to his new environment and write reports that will form the basis of the court's next decision.

"Government in this instance will use our Washington office (embassy) to monitor the progress with the couple (Madonna and Ritchie)," said Andrina Mchiela, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

"And also government will appoint a welfare officer from Malawi to liaise with our Washington embassy and make visitations to where the child will be," she added.

Madonna, who has a son and daughter, has spent most of the past week visiting orphanages and meeting charity workers as part of a campaign to publicize the plight of some 900,000 orphans in the country of 13 million people, where AIDS has destroyed many families.

- REUTERS/VNU