Malawi gets tough on adoption before World Cup

Malawi has stepped up efforts to stop any international adoption attempts, at least until after the World Cup in South Africa.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) member state has, since September 2009, upped up its efforts to curb incidences of child trafficking, in the process putting the spanners in all adoption attempts in the hope that Malawian children would be safe.
Justice Edward Twea, a High Court judge and also Chairperson for the Juvenile Justice Forum, confirmed the development to Zachimalawi, saying, "As it were, the World Cup can only be described as a danger zone" for Malawian children.
"The thing is, we have just put in place mechanisms aimed at ensuring that our children are safe. As we approach the time of the World Cup (In June this year), we anticipate that there may be some people from the international community who may wish to traffic our children in the name of inter-country adoption. We are just on guard," said Twea.
He said there was need for Malawians to be careful with people who would wish to foll them into offering their children up for adoption when, in fact, they want to traffic them for commercial sex work in South Africa.
Child Justice Magistrate Esmie Tembenu concurred with Twea, saying the country anticipates an increased number of people wishing to adopt children from the country for purposes of trafficking and commercial sex work.
"Actually, we fear that our courts may be overstretched with such adoption attempts.The best we can do is wait until the World Cup is over," said Tembenu.
Malawi is yet to ratify international protocols on inter-country adoption, rendering the country ill-prepared.