Wide Horizons on Angelina's new baby

The story we linked to the other day about Angelina Jolie, and the question raised by an article in Star magazine as to whether the baby she recently adopted in Ethiopia has a grandmother who gave her up only because she was too destitute to keep her, has stirred a bit of controversy on Blogging Baby, especially as to whether the story in the source publication was true.

Blogging Baby has been working diligently to confirm or refute this story. We contacted Wide Horizons for Children, asking them to confirm the statement they reportedly made to People Magazine, to the effect that the woman shown and quoted in the Star Magazine article as Baby Zahara's grandmother is not related to the child. Here is Wide Horizon's response to our request:

We do not release information about a child’s individual background.  I can only confirm that the statements and photos published in that tabloid were not photos of the birthgrandmother of this child and all statements attributed to the woman in the photo have no connection to the adoption in question. 

I will go on record to say that poverty is certainly the most common reason for the international adoption of children from many countries around the world.  In many countries parents cannot afford the care of a child and the only hope for a good future is through relatives or through the adoption by a family who can meet that child’s needs.  In most cases,  international adoption gives children the opportunity for a future that they would not have in their country of birth. 

Vicki Peterson

Executive Director

Wide Horizons For Children

So, Wide Horizons confirms that the birth grandmother in the Star Magazine story is NOT the birth grandmother of the child Angelina Jolie adopted, but will not, for privacy reasons, go on record as to whether Zahara does or does not have living relatives who gave her up only for reasons of poverty.

Here’s my take. I think that, if this were any other child being adopted by any other person, no one would care whether the child had living relatives or not; if Zahara has living relatives, they chose to give her up for adoption, and presumably had reasons for doing so. Because Angelina Jolie is a celebrity with buckets of money, she is being criticized for adopting this child, with some people saying she should give the child back and support her family financially. If it was Average Citizen adopting Zahara, people would just say, “Oh, isn’t that great, you adopted this poor child and are giving her a better life.”

If our family adopted a child from Ethiopia, and I knew the child had living relatives who cared about her, I would still adopt her and give her a life here, but would, if the relatives so desired, at least keep in contact with them, and allow the child to have contact with her birth family, because some day she might be grateful to have not lost touch with where she came from. I think it’s safe to presume, at this point, that Star Magazine reported erroneously about the woman they supposedly interviewed being Zahara’s grandmother, and I don’t want to take attention away from the real story - the plight of these orphans in Ethiopia who, because of AIDS or poverty, are desperately  in need of adoption into families that will love them, as Angelina Jolie has done with Zahara.