Renowned Singer Imprisoned for "Abducting" Child from Molester Father
Sentenced to Two Years in Prison
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 an accomplished composer, author, actress, and producer. Notably, she wrote the music for the Toni Morrison play Desdemona. She was also designated a Cannes Film Festival judge in 2015 and she is quite well-known in the European arts community.
Rokia was included in the 2012 campaign “30 Songs/30 Days” where female musicians from around the world performed, inspired by journalist Nicholas Kristof and wife Sheryl WuDunn’s book: Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. This title references the Chinese saying “Women hold up half the sky”. The book posits the oppression of women worldwide is the paramount moral challenge of the present era, much as the fight against slavery was. However, the oppression written and sung about alludes to women’s oppression in third world countries. Little did Rokia know as she sang in that concert that she would soon become a victim of severe oppression in a first world country.
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.
Amazingly, this is the second time Rokia’s been caught and arrested. The first time she was lucky. Has her luck run out?
ROKIA’S STORY
Rokia was born and raised in Mali, a democratic country in northwest Africa. Her father was an ambassador and she traveled the world with her parents, having multi-cultural experiences which would shape her future. She went to University in Belgium where she studied Anthropology, Journalism, and Music.
As her music career took off, she spent much time in Europe and was granted French citizenship. She crossed paths with her ex in 2013, as he is a Belgian playwright and artistic director interested in cross-cultural arts. They began a romantic relationship.
In 2015, their daughter was born. They never married and their relationship ended after 5 years.
Rokia filed petitions for protection against her ex for the sexual abuse of their daughter—in Mali, Belgium, and France.
There was no proper investigation of the abuse in Belgium, where her ex filed for custody. The Family Court judge disregarded her daughter’s disclosures, discredited Rokia’s testimony, and granted joint physical custody, but the father was given legal custody. This is a common tactic to silence the child. It gave him the power to determine which doctors and therapists the daughter could see, depending on who would go along with the cover up of his abuse.
Rokia wrote on social media:
When will measures be taken so that justice stops forcing mothers
to hand over their children to alleged predators? It is time to stop this injustice!
Meanwhile, Rokia was granted sole custody in Mali where she has lived with her daughter since she was a baby. The problem with that is Belgium claims jurisdiction and does not recognize the Mali custody judgment.
FIRST ARREST
When it was time to hand her daughter over for a month-long visit in the summer of 2019, Rokia refused. This led to an international arrest warrant for “abduction” being issued on the grounds of violation of the Belgium custody order.
In 2020, upon arrival at an airport in Paris, Rokia was arrested for the first time. As soon as she was incarcerated, Rokia went on a hunger strike. She refused to eat anything in protest of her unjust confinement.
Friends, fellow musicians, and activists from all over the world (including a professor from UCLA) protested her incarceration. They launched a very public campaign calling for her release with the hashtag #FreeRokia. Her arrest also sparked diplomatic tensions with the Mali government. They highlighted her diplomatic passport and claimed she has diplomatic immunity.
The French judge, due to the public and diplomatic pressure, and the marked deterioration in Rokia’s health after nearly two weeks of eating nothing, released her on her own recognizance. She was ordered to return to Belgium until the custody case was resolved.
But Rokia knew if she went to Belgium, they would surely incarcerate her until she handed her daughter over to the molester father. She was smart and took a private flight back to Mali, defying the order. But now she was in violation of a French order on top of the Belgium order.
CONVICTION IN ABSENTIA
In October of last year, Belgium prosecutors conducted a criminal trial without Rokia present. She was convicted in absentia of “parental abduction” and sentenced to two years in prison.
Up until this point, Rokia’s case was a rare success: a mother had escaped the jaws of Family Court—twice! For every single day of the last 5 years, she and her daughter have been safe and happy in Mali. Much to the chagrin of the patriarchy.
Until last week. When the patriarchy got another win. Rokia was caught and arrested at an airport in Rome, where she was scheduled to perform at a week-long music festival.
It is unclear why Rokia thought she could get away with returning to Europe again without getting caught. Maybe she just did not realize how huge the international cover up and entitling of men to take and abuse their children after separation is.
Well, she is now at the stage of her Crisis that she must understand how this issue of Custody is on the top of men’s list in their fight to maintain power over “their” women after divorce—how it is men’s last stand in their domination of women. And how they will stop at nothing to disempower, punish and silence women who interfere with that power.
And she will see that all the systems related to custody of children aid and abet Family Court. And that men’s power over children continues until the child is an adult, and often even beyond, due to the effects of the brainwashing and trauma bonding of children to the perpetrator father enabled via Family Court.
Most women do not get this bigger picture until it is too late. It is simply inconceivable to most that systems in place to provide justice and protection would be rigged to oppress loving mothers and enable abusive fathers. Not to mention the inconceivability of judges forcing innocent children to live with child molesters.
TAKEAWAYS
Notice the fact Rokia and her ex never married made no difference in the power to keep and protect. The sperm donor gets custody regardless of marriage status and even if there is no previous participation in parenting.
Rokia’s case is a good example of how the criminal court system aids and abets Family Court in the torture and disempowering of mothers. The criminal justice system power to incarcerate women for much longer than civil contempt is terrorizing. It ups the ante—using a mother’s freedom to extort her compliance. It also works preventatively to silence both mother and child about paternal abuse.
Rokia’s case follows the predictable pattern of Custody Crisis cases, but it is eerily similar to Dr. Elizabeth Morgan’s case, one in our “History of the Crisis” series. Dr. Morgan was also a famous, much loved professional (physician) who refused to give her daughter to the molesting father. She orchestrated her parents disappearance into hiding with her daughter while she sat in prison for two years, refusing to disclose her location. It took an Act of Congress to release Dr. Morgan.
Another interesting example Rokia’s case provides is that after a mother escapes, her case transitions from a simple Family Court cover up of the father’s abuse to a cover up of the cover up. This raises the stakes for the judge, who is then even more motivated and invested in catching and silencing the mom and child, and who, consequently involves the criminal justice system.
Because, as long as the mother remains free, the child can remember and talk about (and heal from) the abuse. The necessity to silence them becomes more intense, hence the otherwise inexplicable, intensive, international manhunts (womanhunts) that resemble tracking down a serial killer on the Most Wanted List kick in when a petite, protective mother escapes.
WHAT’S NEXT
As we speak, Rokia is sitting in a prison outside of Rome. The next step in the process is her extradition from Italy to Belgium. The extradition hearing is on July 11th. She will contest the indictment, but since she has been convicted in Belgium, she will likely be transferred directly to a woman’s prison there. She will likely appeal but it is unlikely she will be released pending judgment since she previously fled.
Unless, perhaps, she agrees to give her daughter to the molesting father. Then they will likely release her. Because that is what they really want: to get the child back under the father’s control so he can silence her. But Rokia will likely be restricted to supervised visitation for the rest of her child’s life if she does that.
If Rokia chooses to serve out her term, there is also the possibility that the daughter will be picked up anyway without Rokia there to protect her. Hopefully, family and Mali officials will not allow that to happen.
So, imprisonment is the price of a woman simply protecting her child from her ex. Will Rokia capitulate to this terroristic extortion and give up her daughter, or will she choose to serve out her sentence in Belgium and keep her daughter safe in Mali?
Or maybe there is a third possibility: Women of the World will Rise Up and demand her release. Rokia is famous and loved internationally and many of her friends and fans are activists! Last time they organized to demand her release. We at Women’s Coalition International will join them if they protest again.
#FreeRokia!
ONE OF MILLIONS
We must let everyone know that 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. It must end.
Join The Women’s Coalition to take back our power to keep and protect our kids!
NOTE: MSM is not getting the truth out, so please share this post far and wide! You can attach a link in comments. It is also posted on Facebook.
IN OTHER NEWS
SISTERS IN SOLIDARITY
Our next Sisters in Solidarity forum will be Saturday, July 20th at 1pm Pacific; 4pm Eastern; 8pm GMT; 9pm UTC; 7am (the next morning) in Sydney, Australia.
If you’d like to join SIS, please fill out this form. More info here. You will receive an invitation to the zoom a few days before [check alternate inboxes].
CHAPTER 21 IS OUT!
“The Beginnings of the Bureau of Loss” is Chapter 21 of Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother. [This chapter is too long for a newsletter so the second part will be posted next week.]
In this chapter, Herry files for divorce behind Legion’s back and she is the last to know, which disgusts and angers her immensely. Looking back she sees the ending of her marriage was just “the beginnings of the bureau of loss”—the wreckage that would be her entire life—just as Herry had vengefully plotted. One major loss she realizes is that taking years off to be a full-time mother to her boys has destroyed her career prospects.
In the last chapter, Legion is busy with the boys’ activities in their new school year while Herry is secretly plotting with Family Court attorneys to get sole custody of her boys and be able to blame her for the divorce. She stumbles across his AA notes in which he admits to molesting his sisters and engaging in bestiality. She is sickened and learns his father and brother also molested the girls and begins to worry about her boys being alone with him.
Dr. Blue’s novel is based on her own experience of the Custody Crisis. It uniquely conveys how Family Court judges are “mother-fucking” women—a form of systemic oppression and violence directed at ex-wives—as protagonist Legion is systematically and methodically deprived of her children and money and reduced to “one fucked mother”.
Chapters are stand-alone interesting so you can begin reading anywhere. A Cast of Characters follows to help readers at any point [on the web page]. All published chapters are included in the Section: “Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of the home page of Women’s Coalition News & Views. Sequential chapters are published every Wednesday and subscribers will find them in their inboxes, so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!
TEASERS
Loss I was to become very well acquainted with; but about the amount of which, the sheer volume of loss to come, just the mere concept of it in life and family aspects, I was, even by 40 years of age, still so, so naïve. I was staring at not only a lost house because of an already lost husband and lost marriage; but, though it wasn’t crystal clear to me at all yet, I was also about to give up my entire career as a veterinarian and as a professor of veterinary microbiology.
You can always work it, work it, work at it later, Woman! Be the ma now that you’ve always wanted to be—and just go out and get another position later on when the Boys are near grown and the fun of their being around home with you is gone…I was dwelling, instead, soooo in the bliss of willful ignorance, I was.
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This happened to awaken women to the power that is theirs as protectors of children and to show the pedophiles and their supporters that we do not accept their agenda. Women it’s time to take back our rightful place in society, we have always been superior when it comes to the care of children, from the moment of conception, we carry them and it is OUR bodies that infuse life into them for nine months. After they are born, it is OUR bodies that provide perfect nourishment to give our children the best start in life . OUR bodies have this ingenious design, NOT theirs. Just as we are the source of life to our children, it is our right to protect our children. We are superior in so many other ways with intuition and spirituality, both hemispheres of our brains work together at higher levels. Males know this and perhaps that’s why for centuries they have behaved out of fear trying to enslave us with their corrupt system. Fear results in a need to control. Women rise and stand in our power, our feminine energy that will usher in a new system based on LOVE and the best interests of our children. It is time. LOVE holds more power than fear ever will. It is up to us to create the world that we desire and it IS possible.
Family court judges abuse their power. They have the power to take and endanger children. Family court judges often give child custody to males that request it. It doesn't matter if they're abusive, have untreated psychiatric issues, are the biological father, are citizens and/or are rapists. Facts and evidence don't make a difference. New laws and training sessions don't matter. The best interests of the child don't make a difference. Systemic male entitlement fuels family court. Children are treated like male property. Male and female family court judges knowingly give child custody to abusive males. They are rewarded with increased status. Family court judges are then further empowered to harm women and children. These judges face no consequences. Their opinion is all that matters. Family court judges enable abusers and seal records. They falsely call good mothers bad and/or crazy. These judges often treat women like criminals for trying to protect their children. Family court judges allow abusers to traumatize children. Brainwashed children often bond with their abusers. The mother-child bond is damaged. Loving mothers and their children are frequently separated in family court. They are forced to suffer. Patriarchy dominates family court. Family court judges have the power to harm women and children. These judges must no longer have the power to do so. Juries offer some hope for justice. Children deserve to be safe. Women must continue to unite and fight for a new system. Family court judges must be disempowered. They must no longer have the power to hurt mothers and their children. Family court must end.