AFTER playing music to entertain fans around Africa and Europe, it’s Rokia Traore’s turn to face the music. Months after she defied a court order to hand her daughter to her estranged partner and weeks after she appealed to the EU Court to stop Italy, where she was arrested, from handing her over to Belgium, her efforts have failed. Italy is set to hand her over to Belgium, where she will face the music.
According to Reuters, renowned Malian singer and UN refugee agency goodwill ambassador Rokia Traore is set to be extradited to Belgium from Italy after Italy’s highest court rejected her appeal in an international child custody case.
Reuters reports that Traore, 50, was arrested on June 20 at Rome’s Fiumicino airport where she had travelled to perform a concert near the Colosseum. She has since been held in jail in Civitavecchia near Rome.
The custody dispute dates back several years, according to Reuters. Traore was first arrested in France in 2020 on a Belgian warrant after failing to comply with a court order to hand over her daughter to the child’s Belgian father, her former partner. After being conditionally released in France, she defied orders and flew to Mali on a private flight. Her daughter currently lives in Mali.
Reuters reports that Traore received a two-year prison sentence in Belgium in October 2023 related to the custody battle. Her lawyer, Maddalena Del Re, told Reuters that Italy’s Court of Cassation followed a European Court of Justice ruling favouring extradition.
“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” Del Re said in a statement to Reuters. The lawyer argued that the Belgian procedure contradicts Italian constitutional principles and international conventions because Traore was convicted in absentia.
