Madonna and Child

The phrase, 'Madonna and Child' has, historically, acquired truly monumental global significance.
To anyone of a religious disposition, and of almost any faith, these words have the deepest reverence.

It is, then, bizarre to find an alternative application for this phrase - used in conjunction with the subject to which they are now applied.

The acquisition of a child, like a tourist souvenir, from a third world country, albeit a country suffering acute deprivation through civil war, genocide and famine, does not sit well with today's society.

The days when extremely affluent western inhabitants can simply acquire a native child like a holiday accessory and then return home with them, to be paraded in front of the world's media, were rightly abolished over 200 hundred years ago.

Children should not used as 'A' list celebrity accessories, nor as a means to achieving superficial credibility through the exposure of the world's media.

There are many ways of improving the impoverished lifestyle of people significantly less fortunate than obscenely rich western divas.

However, plucking children from the obscurity and poverty of a third world environment and using the unfortunate individuals as some sort of passport to gaining credibility with the public, was, to say the least, ill-advised.

To most people, it was both extremely offensive and unbelievably upsetting.