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  Madonna Wants Mercy: Or, Psst, Wanna Buy a Baby?

  Posted Tuesday, March 31, 2009 5:13 PM | By E.J. Graff
  Madonna wants to adopt another Malawian child. And according to news reports, she's picked Mercy James—or maybe she was offered the little girl by a country grateful for the millions Madonna donates to care for other needy children. 

  Here's the problem: Mercy's grandmother wants to bring her home too, according to the London Times, which reports: 

  Lucy Chekechiwa, 61, Mercy's grandmother, described Madonna's interest in her granddaughter as "stealing". "Why doesn't this singer pick other children? It is stealing. I want to go to court, I won't let her go," she said. Mercy has been living in an orphanage and Mrs Chekechiwa claimed it had been agreed the child would go to her when she reaches the age of six. Mercy's 18-year-old mother died five days after her birth, according to The Sun.

  Orphanage is the confusing word here. Few Westerners understand that in much of Africa and Asia, what we call "orphanages" are actually boarding schools for poor children—places where extremely poor families in temporary distress drop their children off for food, education, and shelter, and then they bring the children home when things get better. Offering to house these children temporarily and then selling them for international adoption (er, "accepting donations" in exchange for adoption) is one of the common ways of defrauding poor birth families out of their children. (Need I say that not all internationally adopted children are illicitly acquired? But hundreds, and more likely thousands, are—and however large or small the proportion of the total, it's too many. Find more documentation on the extent of the problem here.)

  Is it OK to swoop into a country and take someone else's child just because you're rich? Is wealth all it takes to have a "better life" ... or might it matter that you get to stay with the family you already know and love? Madonna's not alone in what she's doing, although she is unusual in knowing there's a family that wants Mercy back. Save the Children and other human rights groups want her to back off. She is setting a dangerous example, leading more Westerners into a "humanitarian" mission that is anything but.

  Ethica, an American nonprofit that advocates for ethics in adoption, has launched a fundraising campaign to help Mercy stay home with her family. According to Ethica, Malawi's average annual income is $160. Ethica's goal is to raise $2,240—an annual salary for her grandmother until Mercy reaches adulthood—so that she can stay home. You can donate here.

  Filed under: adoption, Madonna

About E.J. Graff

• E.J. Graff is associate director and senior researcher at Brandeis University's Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism, where she directs the Gender & Justice Project. She is a resident scholar at the Brandeis Women's Studies Research Center. As a journalist and author, her work has appeared in such venues as The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy magazine, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Good Housekeeping, The Nation, The New Republic, and in more than a dozen anthologies. She collaborated on former Massachusetts Lt. Governor Evelyn Murphy's book Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men--and What To Do About It (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Her first book, What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution, has been widely cited in legal journals, reprinted for academic use, entered as courtroom exhibits, and quoted by government policymaking bodies.

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