Despite all the hoopla that “In Touch” drummed up (and we repeated) about Zahara Jolie-Pitt’s adoption, Zahara isn’t going anywhere. To be fair, “In Touch” made it clear they didn’t think there was any way that Zahara’s birth mother could get her back. They just said that she was still alive, Zahara was not an AIDS orphan, and that the mother thought she’d be able to see Zahara again and was devastated that she couldn’t. Reading the article, your heart does go out to the birth mother. She was raped, became pregnant, and was dirt poor and unable to care for her child. The grandma who gave Zahara away is another story. Though she manages to come off like a victim too, she was a bit more duplicitous. She told the adoption agency that her daughter was dead after she ran away. It wasn’t really possible to tell from “In Touch’s” article if the grandmother really thought her daughter was dead, or just said that so Zahara could be adopted. But the grandmother produced three witnesses who also verified that her daughter was dead.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s 2005 adoption of daughter Zahara was “legal and irrevocable,” the head of adoption agency Wide Horizons for Children said Thursday, calling bunk claims that the girl’s birth family is seeking her return to Ethiopia. Tsegaye Berhe spoke out to clarify the legitimacy of Jolie and Pitt’s adoption in the wake of reports that members of two-year-old’s family, including her presumed-dead birth mother, want Zahara back.

Mentewab Dawit Lebiso, a 24-year-old Ethiopian native, made the challenge, claiming to In Touch Weekly she was Zahara’s birth mother. On the adoption papers filed two years ago, it indicated that Zahara’s birth mother had died of AIDS and that the identity of her birth father was not known. Both Lebiso and another woman claiming to be Zahara’s aunt also said they didn’t fully understand what it meant to put a child up for adoption and that they believed Jolie and Pitt would be bringing the child back for frequent family visits. Berhe said that even if their account were true, the stars would be under no obligation to keep in touch with the family.

“The court in Addis Ababa approved the adoption after studying the document her grandmother wrote…saying her daughter, the mother of Zahara, had died and she was too poor to bring her up… the grandmother brought three witnesses to court who testified that Zahara’s mother had died and that her father was unknown…The court also investigated the social status of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt before approving the adoption.”

[From E! News]

If nothing else, it sounds like Zahara’s birth mother had nothing to do with giving her up for adoption. It could be argued that by running away, she gave Zahara up. But you have to remember that she was a young woman who was (presumably) severely traumatized by a rape and a new baby. She was also dirt poor and struggling to feed her baby. Overwhelmed isn’t even the right word for how she must have felt. It really does seem like the mother has almost no legal recourse at this point, though I’m guessing she’s pretty upset at the grandmother for giving her daughter away. Hopefully she’ll get to meet Zahara someday, and they’ll both have good lives.