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Monday March 30, 2009

Madonna landed in Malawi Sunday amid controversy surrounding her plans for a second adoption.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity because they’re not authorized to discuss the matter with reporters, Air traffic controllers confirmed the 50-year-old star had touched down in the African country.

Madonna has filed papers to adopt 3-year-old girl Mercy James, whose mother died soon after she was born, a welfare official and a person involved in the proceedings have said.

Mercy will be Madonna’s fourth child, and second child from the African country. David Banda, 3, was adopted in 2006. The Holiday hitmaker – who is also mom to son Rocco, 8, and daughter Lourdes, 12 – recently revealed her plans to adopt a second child.

“The adoption is going ahead,” said Malawi’s Director of Child Welfare Services, Penstone Kilembe.

Mercy is from the “Mchinji Home of Hope orphanage. She has no father and mother, they both died…We finished the assessment yesterday in readiness for the courts next week,” an official at the ministry of Gender and Child Development told the Reuters news agency.

A US government official confirmed that an adoption bid by Madonna was under way. The luxury lodge where Madge normally stays in Malawi has been fully booked and visitors are being turned away.

Madonna faced harsh criticism over David’s adoption. Children’s advocacy groups accused her of using her wealth and influence to circumvent Malawian law requiring an 18 to 24-month assessment period before adoption.

Austin Msowoya, legal researcher with Malawi’s Law Commission, played down concerns that a second adoption by the singer would violate any laws.

He said the best interests of the child needed to be taken into account – whether that was staying in an orphanage in Malawi or getting “an education with Madonna.”

“When you look at these two options, then perhaps it becomes in the best interests of the child to allow the adoption if the parents and the guardians consent to it,” he said Saturday.

Mercy’s grandmother, Lucy Chekechiwa, 61, has said, “Why doesn’t this singer pick other children? It is stealing. I want to go to court, I won’t let her go.”

When asked by a journalist for Britain’s ITV News if she could understand the reservations held by some over her fresh adoption bid, Madonna – who is in Malawi with Lourdes and David – retorted, “No. It’s none of their business.”