Music News
Praise for Madonna & Richie as parents
Monday 5 November 2007
Shireen Ritchie was speaking on ITV1's GMTV programme, which is highlighting the thousands of children in the UK who need adoptive homes.
Madonna and her husband were granted temporary custody of toddler David Banda, then 13 months old, last October after his father placed him in an orphanage following the death of his mother.
The singer began the adoption process after she found David in the orphanage while in Malawi to launch a project to help the country's two million Aids orphans.
She has previously come under fire for allegedly attempting to bypass normal Malawian adoption rules, an allegation she has strenuously denied.
Mrs Ritchie, a Conservative councillor, is stepmother to Madonna's film director husband. She is Cabinet Member for Family and Children's Services for The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and was asked how the situation is going, having probably one of the most famous adopted grandsons in the world.
She said: "It is working very well. They are wonderful parents - loving and wonderful parents. "And he's a very lucky little boy."
Speaking generally, she said the children hardest to find adoptive parents for were sometimes sibling groups and older children.
Mrs Ritchie was asked about the myth that it is difficult to adopt in Britain, prompting people to look abroad. She said: "Adoption processes in other countries are different, that's true.
"But I mean I think what we have in Britain today is a very robust system which puts the child at the heart of the adoption system. It is the interests of the child, what is best for the child, that is considered the whole time."
She praised social workers, having to deal at the sharp end with difficult and tragic situations.
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