One of Africa’s best-known musicians – Malian singer Rokia Traoré – has reportedly been jailed in Belgium as part of an ongoing child custody dispute.
According to news agency AFP, the 50-year-old is being held after being extradited from Italy to face an outstanding two-year prison sentence.
The long-running story dates back to 2020, when Traoré was initially detained in France on a Belgian arrest warrant after she failed to comply with a court order to hand over her daughter to the girl’s Belgian father.
Months after being released on parole, Traoré flew to Mali on a private flight, defying a ban on leaving France until her extradition to Belgium.
Last October, Traoré was sentenced in absentia by a court in Belgium to two years in prison on charges of kidnapping by his parents for “failing to hand over a child to the person entitled to custody”.
In June, Traoré was arrested at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport while flying to Rome for a concert, due to the outstanding child custody conviction, for which there was a European arrest warrant. Two months later, a court in the Italian capital approved her extradition.
An appeal by the singer was rejected last week, paving the way for the extradition. Traoré has been in prison since her arrest, Reuters news agency reports.
Her daughter, who is now nine years old, has lived in Mali since she was four.
A lawyer for the child’s father, Traoré’s ex-partner Jan Goossens, is said to have had no contact with his daughter since then.
When she was first arrested in 2020, she had traveled from Mali to Brussels with the intention of appealing the custody ruling, her lawyers said.
The Malian government previously supported the singer and said she had a diplomatic passport.
Traoré’s lawyer, Vincent Lurquin, reportedly told AFP that the singer plans to appeal against the two-year prison sentence, which would trigger a new trial.
He also said that both Traoré and Goossens hoped to “find an agreement in the best interests of the child” that could avert another prison sentence.
AFP reported that the Public Prosecution Service in Belgium confirmed that Traoré would remain in custody during the retrial.
Traoré is one of Africa’s best-known singers. She has won several awards, including the BBC Award for World Music in 2004 and the 2009 World Music Album of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique, the French equivalent of the Grammys.
She is also known for her refugee advocacy and in 2015 became a goodwill ambassador for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in West and Central Africa.
