Award-winning Malian singer Rokia Traoré was set to perform at the Rome Colosseum last Sunday, but instead she was arrested by border police when she entered Italy.
The arrest was made based on an international warrant issued on grounds of “parental abduction”. The warrant originates from a Belgium criminal court that convicted Rokia in absentia and sentenced her to two years in prison. This criminal conviction stems from a violation of a Family Court order giving custody to the father, who the child says molested her.
One of the most inventive female singer/songwriters, Rokia has performed all over Europe, as well as Africa. She’s won many awards, including the BBC Award for World Music and the Victoires de la Musique (French Grammy’s) World Music Album of the Year.
Rokia is also a lifelong humanitarian activist. She presently serves as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Refugee Agency.
But this incredibly talented and accomplished woman sits in an Italian jail today awaiting extradition to Belgium, where she will serve her two-year sentence. This draconian punishment is being meted out to her because she dared interfere with the age-old male prerogative to take and sexually abuse his own child—as enforced by Family Court and abetted by Criminal Court.
There was no investigation of the sexual abuse, or at least nothing close to a proper one. The Family Court judge disregarded her daughter’s disclosures, discredited her testimony, and ordered joint physical custody with the credibly accused molester father.
But the father was given legal custody. This is a tactic to silence the child. It gave him the power to determine which therapist the daughter could see or not, depending on who would go along with the cover up of his abuse.
When it was time to hand her daughter over for a month-long visit in the summer of 2019, Rokia fled. She escaped to her home country of Mali!
She and her daughter were safe.
When they arrived in Mali, Rokia presented the evidence of sexual abuse to the Mali court. Apparently they did a proper investigation and she was granted sole custody. The problem with that is Belgium claims jurisdiction and does not recognize the Mali judgment.
Rokia is just one of millions of women who’ve had their children taken from them and given to abusive and self-serving exes in family courts around the world. This is unacceptable in the third millennium when women are supposedly equal and free.
Source: Renowned Singer Imprisoned for “Abducting” Child from Molester Father