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MALAWI-ORPHANS Nov-1-2006 (580 words) xxxi
Church official: Madonna's adoption plan shows Malawi's orphan woes
By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- The controversy over pop star Madonna's plan to adopt a Malawian boy highlights the need to find solutions for the growing number of orphans in the country, said a Catholic Church official.
Chris Chisoni, head of the National Assembly liaison project of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in the Malawian capital, Lilongwe, said, "We can't solve the problem of orphans until we confront the underlying cause, which is AIDS."
Half of Malawi's million orphans have lost one or both parents to AIDS, according to UNICEF. About 14 percent of the country's more than 12 million people are infected with HIV, which causes AIDS, said a UNAIDS report.
"Everyone knows why people are dying in Malawi, yet the waiting list for HIV-positive people to get antiretroviral drugs is about six months," Chisoni told Catholic News Service in an Oct. 27 telephone interview from Lilongwe.
"We need to provide these drugs when and as they are needed so that parents can live to raise their own children," he said.
Meanwhile, a judge in Malawi Oct. 27 postponed a hearing on Madonna's adoption of 1-year-old David Banda. An alliance of advocacy groups forming the Human Rights Consultative Committee filed the case, arguing that Malawi's government broke a law forbidding international adoption by granting rights to Madonna, who funds six orphanages in Malawi and is setting up another.
Yohane Banda, the father of the boy who was flown to London to join the American singer, went to the Lilongwe court to protest the legal moves to stop the adoption.
Chisoni said, "Raising the legality of this case when the baby is already in London is not going to help the well-being of this child."
He said that "no one running the campaign to stop the adoption has said that he or she will adopt this boy or other needy children."
Malawi's adoption laws are 30 years old and "need to be revisited" to take into account the "enormous increase in the number of orphans," Chisoni said. "We need to look at the issue within the wider perspective of poverty."
Almost half of Malawi's population lives on less than $1 a day.
However, he said the legal requirements for adoption should require residency in the country for 18 months. Chisoni said the government should also monitor orphanages.
According to a report from IRIN, a U.N. news agency, only 15 of Malawi's almost 1,000 orphanages are officially registered.
Chisoni said, "In the past, orphans were readily adopted by members of the extended family, but AIDS has had a direct impact" on families' ability and willingness to adopt orphans.
"Healthy people are now responsible for so many sick people. ... Those who do not have AIDS are struggling to survive and to raise their own children, which makes it difficult for them to adopt," he said.
But placing children in orphanages is not the solution, Chisoni said.
"Orphanages are becoming a thriving industry" in Malawi, providing jobs for those who run them, he said.
The Lusubilo Community-Based Orphan Care, sponsored by Catholic Relief Services and run by the church in Karonga, north of Lilongwe, is an "excellent model" of care for orphans, Chisoni said. CRS is the U.S. bishops' international relief and development agency.
The center "works toward the reintegration of orphans into their extended families, and the families are helped financially to enable them to do this," he said.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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