Lilongwe, Malawi - On the eve of a court ruling in the controversial adoption by US pop star Madonna of a baby boy from Malawi many inhabitants of the impoverished African nation were calling for reform of the country's strict adoption laws. On Thursday the High Court in Malawi's capital Lilongwe is expected to confirm Madonna's adoption of two-year-old David Banda, ending 19 months of controversy over the case that shone a light on the plight of the country's nearly 1 million orphans.
The 49-year-old star will not be in court for the ruling because of "other engagements", it emerged Wednesday.
But Malawi's ministry of women and child development, which will report back to the court on Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie's care of David at their London home since October 2006, is known to favour them retaining the two-year-old.
The Malawian government in October 2006 bypassed its own laws banning adoptions by foreigners in granting the couple custody of David, then 13 months, who was given up for adoption by his father on the death of the boy's mother.
An official in the ministry, Penson Kailembe, said in an interview earlier this year that the government saw no problem with the adoption.
Two Malawian rights groups had opposed the breach of procedure but many Malawians are calling for the doors of the country's teeming orphanages to be prised open.
"When such an opportunity to be adopted by a rich western family arises who can say no to it?" asked Mzitchayi Mzunga, an unemployed woman, in Malawi's commercial capital of Blantyre.
"We have been independent for over 40 years and people still lack essential commodities. Government and donors should do something to fight poverty first before barring people of goodwill from adopting orphans and poor children."
"There are more pressing issues such as politics and good governance that we can exert our energies on than fighting (foreign) adoption cases," says Undule Mwakasungura, director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation. "To me it's a waste of time and resources."
Justin Dzonzi, chairman of the Malawi Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), one of the rights groups that opposed the adoption, called for new adoption laws that prioritized the rights of children.
"We should not simply repeal the laws. All we need is a law that guide the adoption process," he said.
Malawi's orphans are estimated in the hundreds of thousands for a population of 11 million. Many have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS and have themselves contracted the virus through mother-to- child transmission.
Others have been orphaned by poverty.
Half of all citizens of the landlocked country live below the poverty line, leading some parents like Banda to feel their children are better off in an orphanage.
