Madonna defends controversial African adoption

Oct 25, 2006, 17:03 GMT

Madonna. © Photorazzi

Los Angeles - In her first public comments since taking custody of a one-year-old boy from Malawi last week pop star Madonna fiercely defended the move in a television interview airing Wednesday.

Speaking in an interview with talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Madonna blamed the controversy on media 'manipulation' and said she feared the storm of criticism would harm the adoption of other needy African toddlers.

'I wanted to go into a third world country - I wasn't sure where - and give a life to a child who might not otherwise have had one,' the pop star said in a taped interview conducted from London via satellite.

'The media is doing a great disservice to all the orphans of Africa by turning it into such a negative thing,' she told Winfrey, who is known as the queen of daytime television.

Madonna, who lives in the UK with her film director husband Guy Ritchie, said that the boy, David, had already been embraced by her other two children Lourdes, 9, and Rocco, 6.

Madonna's move was heavily criticized by some child welfare organizations that accused her of 'baby buying' by donating millions of dollars to child projects in Malawi, which is one of the poorest countries in the world. They said that the motherless child would have been better off had Madonna donated money to allow him to stay near his family.

The boy's illiterate father added to the furore by claiming that he had not known that he was agreeing to have the child adopted rather than placed temporarily in Madonna's care.

'I thought it would be the same as keeping him at the orphanage, the only difference being that he will be kept by a rich, respectable lady and in America,' he told Time magazine. 'I never understood it as my child being taken for good.'

But peasant farmer Yohane Banda, 32, also said that he would not fight the adoption because his son would have a better life with the star.

'I don't want my child who is already gone to come back,' he said. 'I will be killing his future if I accept that.'