The national flag of Belgium
By Gary Raynaldo – DIPLOMATIC TIMES
In a landmark ruling, a Belgian court this week ordered Belgium to pay reparations to five mixed-race women who were forcibly removed from their mothers in colonial-era Congo. The court also found the Belgian state guilty of crimes against humanity. The bi-racial women, known as “Métis”, accused Belgium of committing the crimes over a colonial-era practice in which they were ripped apart from their families and placed in institutions. In making its ruling, the Court of Appeal said that it was established that the five women “were taken from their respective mothers, without their consent, before the age of seven, by the Belgian State in execution of a plan to systematically search for and abduct children born to a black mother and a white father, raised by their mother in the Belgian Congo, solely because of their origins.”
The women, all born between 1945 and 1950, sued the Belgian state in 2020 for kidnapping, abuse, being separated from their families and having their identities taken away. They said the practice amounted to crimes against humanity. A court later dismissed the legal action which was appealed. The women said that at age 2 or 3 they were torn from their mothers and placed in an orphanage. They were then abandoned when the Belgian Congo gained independence. They were left behind while nuns and missionaries were evacuated to Europe. The women claimed they were sexually abused by militia fighters. They were among thousands of other mixed-raced children who were taken from mothers. The Congo is known today as Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The five women, Monique Bitu Bingi, Léa Tavares Mujinga, Noëlle Verbeken, Simone Ngalula and Marie-José Loshi, will each receive 50,000 euros from the Belgian government. In its court defense, the Belgian state denied any responsibility for crimes committed during the colonial era. The government claimed the colonial policy of forcibly removing mixed-racial children was not a crime at the time.
