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(DIR) Return to: Adoption in the Media
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#Post#: 28--------------------------------------------------
Madonna ‘cuts off’ father from adopted son
By: Montraviatommygun Date: March 4, 2011, 4:43 pm
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Madonna ‘cuts off’ father from adopted son
The father of the Malawian boy adopted by Madonna has accused
the pop star of severing contact between him and his son and
says he regrets ever putting the child up for adoption.
Yohane Banda, 33, said the singer had reneged on a promise to
allow him to maintain regular contact with his son David, whom
he last saw in 2006.
Banda, a peasant farmer, said he had not received any
correspondence since the three-year-old was taken to London by
Madonna and her husband, the film director Guy Ritchie.
Madonna, 49, began adoption proceedings after meeting the boy at
an orphanage in Malawi. At the time it was claimed that the
singer had used her celebrity status to fast-track the adoption,
an allegation she denies.
The adoption is due to be approved formally by a court in
Lilongwe, the Malawian capital, next month. Because the terms of
the agreement are secret under Malawian law, it is not clear
whether Banda’s intervention will jeopardise the adoption.
Banda, who first expressed his frustration at not being kept
informed about his son’s progress a year ago, said the star had
failed to address his concerns and he now regretted giving the
boy up.
“I feel robbed. I should be able to see my son and say hello,”
Banda said. “I don’t know how he is growing, what person he is
turning into. This pains me because it looks like he is not my
son any more.”
Banda, from Lipunga, a village 100 miles from Lilongwe, claims
Madonna promised to keep him updated about his son’s well-being
and his progress adapting to life with the celebrity couple and
their two children.
“I was promised by Madonna that I would be able to see my son,”
he said. “The government people that were coming to see me also
assured me that they would facilitate my meetings with my son. I
miss him so much because he is my only son, the only gift of
life from God – all others have died.
“I told her [Madonna] that although I was giving her my son she
should look after him well . . . I told her that she should
raise him, educate him and make sure that he does not forget me
and Malawi.
“Now I fear that my child will never know his roots and will not
know me. He is the only surviving child I have and I regret the
whole thing now. It’s so painful sometimes to realise that I
have been forgotten.”
Banda claims the star snubbed him during a visit to the country
in April last year. Madonna funds six orphanages through her
Raising Malawi charity and is setting up one for 4,000 children
in a village outside the capital.
“The last time Madonna came to Malawi, I didn’t know she was
here and that she visited the orphanage. [If I had known] I
would have been given a chance to see my son,” he said.
Banda said the only recent pictures he had seen of David were
shown to him by journalists and the orphanage where his son
lived before he was adopted. He added that he had not been
allowed to keep any of the photographs. Banda said he hoped he
would be given the opportunity to see his son again when
Madonna, who has been granted temporary custody of the boy,
returns to Malawi to conclude the adoption.
“I am praying that I have a chance to see him. All I want is for
them to maintain contact as promised, to teach him I am his real
father,” he said.
In a documentary premiered in America last week, the singer said
that when she first saw David, nobody knew the whereabouts of
his father. When she returned to see him three months later,
Madonna said he “had pneumonia, malaria and God knows what
else”.
The Malawian government has already recommended that the
adoption go ahead. A report by an official who visited the
singer’s London home last year concluded that the adoption was
“in the best interests” of the boy.
Justin Dzonzi, a lawyer and prominent critic of the adoption,
said both Madonna and the Malawian government had a moral duty
to maintain contact between Banda and his son.
His group, the Human Rights Consultative Committee, is calling
for a change in the law to ban adoptions by foreigners.
“If the government and Madonna promised, as is being claimed, to
keep the biological father updated on his child, then they have
to honour that for the sake of the poor man,” he said.
“By allowing the adoption of his child he clearly surrenders his
parental rights to Madonna and her husband but he still deserves
some news on his boy.”
Yohane Banda is no relation to Mabvuto Banda, the journalist who
wrote this article
(HTM) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article3822639.ece
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