ShareThisBy MONICA HAYNES
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
When Cheryl Carter-Shotts brought her adopted son home from Ethiopia, there were no paparazzi at the airport, no reporters staking out her home and definitely no appearance on Oprah.
The year was 1985, and his name was Mohammed.
She'd seen him for all of 18 seconds in an TV interview conducted by Diane Sawyer.
"I will never know why, I just absolutely fell in love," Carter-Shotts said. "My husband and I brought him to America and started healing him."
Mohammed is now a 34-year-old graduate of Georgetown University who helps find adoptive parents for other African youngsters.
Madonna's adoption of a child from Malawi has thrust the subject of international adoption into the media spotlight.
While other celebrities such as actresses Angelina Jolie and Mia Farrow have adopted children from other countries, Madonna's foray into international adoption has prompted a number of questions.
Did she skirt Malawi's adoption laws to secure 13-month-old David Banda? Did his father realize what would occur when Madonna adopted his child? Will the controversy discourage others from adopting internationally? Will it affect the children in the United States who are waiting to be adopted?
Carter-Shotts, founder and managing director of Americans for African Adoption, has her own take on the Madonna adoption.
"I think she probably had to be doing everything correctly on the U.K. side, because the U.K. is very, very strict," she said. If not, Madonna would not have been able to bring the baby into the United Kingdom, where she has dual citizenship.
However, she's not sure the child's father, Yohane Banda, a poor farmer, realized that the child would legally become Madonna's son. "The man indicated he had no education and he certainly didn't understand English," she said.
"Putting a child in an African orphanage absolutely does not mean the child is available for adoption," she said.
Carter-Shotts, who's been to 12 African countries, said she's seen time and again fathers placing their infants in orphanages so they can receive milk. When the children are old enough to eat table food, the fathers retrieve them.
But, she said, an illiterate farmer is no match for well-educated social workers, judges and lawyers. She believes that Yohane Banda probably thought about taking his son back, especially when he realized that the child would be leaving the country and would no longer have his name.
However, she said, he didn't want to deny him the opportunity for a better life.
She said Madonna could have offered financial assistance so the father could have raised the child.
Sara Dorman, co-author of the book "So You Want to Adopt _ Now What," encourages domestic adoptions before international ones.
There are 100,000 children available for adoption in the United States, she said.
Still, she sees Madonna as a hero.
"I think she should be applauded rather than crucified, frankly," Dorman said.
"I think this has been blown way out of proportion for the media," she said, adding that all the criticism may discourage people from adopting.
Experts agree, whether undertaking a domestic or an international adoption, it's not something that can done on a whim.
Laws vary from state to state domestically and from country to country internationally.
Carter-Shotts said she concluded from her research of adoption laws in Malawi that it would be impossible for anyone who is not a citizen of the country to adopt a child there without having lived in Malawi for 18 months.
Since 2002, there have been only seven U.S. immigrant visas issued for Malawian orphans, most likely to U.S. missionaries.
Most of the African children she's placed for adoption have been from Ethiopia or Sierra Leone.
The wait for African children depends on a number of factors: age, gender and health of the child. An adoptive parent could get an HIV/AIDS child in three months; a healthy baby girl could take 12-18 months.
Regardless of whether one adopts domestically or internationally, a home study must be completed, which can take four weeks to six months.
It includes interviews with prospective parents, FBI and criminal background checks, income tax returns, a physical, proof of insurance, letters of recommendation and home visits.
(Monica Haynes can be reached at mhaynes(at)post-gazette.com. )
