Pop icon Madonna failed in her bid to adopt a second child from Malawi after a court Friday rejected her application, warning that the case could open the door to trafficking in children.
Madonna did not attend the closed-door court hearing in the administrative capital Lilongwe, and her lawyer did not speak to reporters as he left.
Judge Esmie Chondo's ruling addressed widespread concerns that by facilitating international adoptions, Malawi's courts could inadertently expose the nation's children to the threat of human traffickers.
"I must confess that there's a gripping temptation to throw caution to the wind and grant an adoption in the hope that there will be a difference in the life of just one child," she said.
"By removing the very safeguard that is supposed to protect our children, the courts by their pronouncements could actually facilitate trafficking of children by some unscrupulous individuals," she added.
"I must have to decline to grant the application to Madonna," Chondo said.
The recently-divorced singer and actress jetted into the southern African state on Sunday accompanied by her 12-year-old daughter Lourdes and three-year-old David Banda, whom she adopted in 2006 after seeing him in a Malawian orphanage.
The following day she filed her application to adopt Chifundo "Mercy" James, sparking fresh controversy over foreign adoptions.
The judge also noted that Chifundo had been placed in one of Malawi's best orphanages, and no longer suffered the grinding poverty endured after her mother died in childbirth.
"It is evident that Chifundo James no longer is subject to the conditions of poverty at her place of birth, since her admission at Kondanani orphange," the ruling said.
"It should be borne in mind that inter-country adoptions may not be and are not the only solution," the judge added.
Rights groups, led by the Human Rights Consultative Committee, a coalition of 85 groups, have objected that the impoverished southern African state does not have a law on inter-country adoptions.
Normally anyone seeking to adopt in Malawi must have been resident in the country for at least 18 months -- a requirement that the judge called the "bedrock" of adoption petitions.
Madonna's lawyer Alan Chinula has insisted the law had been followed to the letter.
The celebrity, who was staying at the posh Kumbali Lodge outside Lilongwe, did not immediately indicate if she planned to appeal the ruling.
Malawi is one of the world's poorest nations, with more than half of the population of 12 million living on less than one dollar a day.
The world-renowned singer has a personal fortune estimated at several hundred million dollars.
Madonna has set up a charity in Malawi, Raising Malawi, which provides support for Malawi's orphans and vulnerable children.
She has already built a multi-purpose community centre at Mphandula village, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from Lilongwe, which looks after more than 8,000 orphans in scores of villages in the area.
During her current visit, David Banda met with his biological father, who had placed him in an orphanage where Madonna first met the child.
The singer, synonymous with hits "Material Girl" and "Like A Virgin", has been in the news recently because of her divorce from British film producer Guy Ritchie, with whom she has a son Rocco, now aged eight. Her daughter Lourdes comes from another relationship.
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
