Elton John Has no Right to Adopt

So Elton John and his "partner" David Furniture (on account of him being a poof) want to adopt a little Ukrainian boy.

What unholy box (one careful female owner) has the gyrating pop star, Anti-Madonna, opened by scouring the dark continent for children?

Are children in "poorer" countries really to fear the swoosh of jet planes for fear that yet another American or European "star" is set to land with their giant child-catcher net and the world's media in tow?

Sold into slavery, er... I mean adopted by a celeb in return for a cash injection into the local economy, these children are being collected like lucky charms on an Argos bracelet. Do these children face a more worrying future by growing up speaking an alien language, in an alien culture, surrounded by people busily snorting coke, casual sex and obscene wealth creating a sense of insecurity kept in check by inflated egos.

Will they be happier in their own culture, perhaps materially poorer, but freely mixing with their own people in their own communities?

I think they will.

To me it is a form of people trafficking for these rich celebs to cherry-pick children of different races and cultures. It smacks of a form of racial, cultural and material "supremacy" -- i.e. we can offer them far more than they could ever get in their own homeland, amongst their own people.

We must stop these myopic millionaires from ruining lives and starting a ridiculous craze, like all the Hollywood celebs before them who have adopted foreigners (one thinks of the arch-weirdo Woody Allen).

If they want to help, then let them pay for orphanages, let them pay for schools, let them pay for agricultural colleges and everything that would truly help poor communities in Africa, Eastern Europe, Asia or anywhere else.

We don't need any more messed-up children of celebs hitting the nightclubs in a dozen or so years, and these publicity stunts will do nothing in the long term to help alleviate any genuine poverty in any region.

Besides which, the bottom line should be that the children of Africa, the Ukraine, China or anywhere else from Timbuktu to Montevideo should not be the baubles, the playthings or the trading cards of millionaires, however well-meaning or otherwise.

To coin a phrase, children aren't trophies.