THE BELGIUM government has been ordered by a court to pay reparations to five mixed-race women who were forcibly removed from their Black mothers in Congo during the colonial era.
The women, who are now all in their 70s, were taken from their Black mothers when they were young children and placed in orphanages under a state policy.
The Belgium court said the government had a “plan to systematically search for and abduct children born to a black mother and a white father”, according to the BBC.
“Their abduction is an inhumane and persecutory act constituting a crime against humanity under the principles of international law,” the court said in a press statement.
In 2019, the Belgium government first issued a formal apology for the brutal kidnapping thousands of mixed-race children from Congo between 1959 and 1962.
“In the name of the federal government, I present my apologies to the metis of the Belgian colonial era and their families for the injustices and the sufferings they have endured,” Prime Minister Charles Michel told Parliament at the time.
“I hope that this solemn moment will be an additional step toward an awareness and knowledge of this part of our national history.”
Thousands of victims
The apology was issued to an estimated 20,000 victims who were taken from their families in DR Congo, but also Rwanda and Burundi.
In 2021, the five women, Monique Bitu Bingi, Léa Tavares Mujinga, Noëlle Verbeken, Simone Ngalula and Marie-José Loshi launched a legal case for compensation for being separated from their families.
All of the women were taken by the state when they were under the age of seven and then placed in orphanages run by the Catholic Church.
Bitu Bingi had previously told AFP news agency: “We were destroyed. Apologies are easy, but when you do something you have to take responsibility for it.”
The Brussels Court of Appeal overturned an earlier court’s ruling which found too much time had passed for them to be eligible for reparations, the corporation reported.
The decision was made on Monday 2 December, as the court ruled the state’s actions a crime against humanity, which subsequently removed any statute of limitations.
‘Damage to their identity’
“The court orders the Belgian State to compensate the appellants for the moral damage resulting from the loss of their connection to their mother and the damage to their identity and their connection to their original environment,” the judges said.
The women had asked for an initial payment of €50,000 (£41,400).
According to the corporation, this is the first case in Belgium to have highlighted the estimated 20,000 children born to white settlers and local Black women who were forcibly removed from their families during the 1940s and 1950s.
Most white fathers refused to recognise their mixed-race children or acknowledge paternity, and the children also did not automatically receive Belgian nationality.
As such they were taken into state care and placed into the orphanages, where in many cases they endured further abuse.
In 2017, the Catholic church apologised to the victims for its part in the scandal.
