Officials Confirm Madonna Is Adopting 3-Year-Old Girl, Mercy (father alive)

Officials Confirm Madonna Is Adopting 3-Year-Old Girl, Mercy
Friday March 27, 2009

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images; Fame Pictures
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Officials have confirmed Madonna is adopting a 3-year-old girl, Mercy James, from Malawi.
"The adoption is going ahead," Malawi's Director of Child Welfare Services, Penstone Kilembe, tells Usmagazine.com. "It has been at an advanced stage for some time."
Mercy will be Madonna's fourth child, and second child from the African country. David Banda, 3, was adopted in 2006.
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Although the Associated Press reports that the girl's father is alive, an official at the ministry of Gender and Child Development told Reuters that she "has no father and mother, they both died...We finished the assessment yesterday in readiness for the courts next week."
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Madonna is due in court Monday. Her rep Liz Rosenberg has yet to comment.
Earlier this week, New York's Daily News reported that Madonna's attempts to adopt again could be hindered due to her love life.
"Our official policy is that we do not encourage our children to be sent into broken homes," a senior official from Malawi's Ministry of Women and Child Welfare Development said of the singer, who has romanced 22-year-old model Jesus Luz and Alex Rodriguez since divorcing Guy Ritchie last year. "Her relationships may negatively affect the adoption of Mercy."
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Madonna has expressed interest in wanting to adopt another child.
"Many people - especially our Malawian friends - say that David should have a Malawian brother or sister," she recently told Malawi's The Nation newspaper. "It's something I have been considering but would only do if I had the support of the Malawian people and the government."