The Wire

With Madonna’s high profile Malawian family addition, children and adoption are once again in the spotlight. So is the move likely to prompt a flood of African adoptions down under? Well maybe not from Malawi. In fact, Ethiopia is the only African country that Australian parents can adopt from. For the children that now call Australia home, what is the impact of making the enormous transition from a country ravaged by disease and instability to the relative comfort of Australia? And with concerns of cultural imperialism dogging the minds of adoptives parents, can adopted children retain their cultural heritage. The Wire spoke to two families involved in Ethiopian adoptions.