Dec 7, 2024 Story by: Editor
A Belgian court has mandated the government to compensate five mixed-race women who were forcibly separated from their families during the colonial era in the Belgian Congo.
The women, now in their 70s, were taken from their mothers as young children and placed in orphanages under a state policy aimed at removing mixed-race children from their families.
According to the court, the government had implemented a “plan to systematically search for and abduct children born to a black mother and a white father.” On Monday, judges labeled this policy a “crime against humanity,” describing the forced separations as “an inhumane act of persecution.”
In 2019, Belgium formally apologized to approximately 20,000 victims of these forced family separations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi, and Rwanda. DR Congo was a Belgian colony from 1908 until 1960.
Decades-Long Struggle for Justice
The plaintiffs—Monique Bitu Bingi, Léa Tavares Mujinga, Noëlle Verbeken, Simone Ngalula, and Marie-José Loshi—initiated their legal battle for compensation in 2021. They were all taken by the state before the age of seven and placed in orphanages predominantly run by the Catholic Church.
Bitu Bingi previously told AFP: “We were destroyed. Apologies are easy, but when you do something you have to take responsibility for it.”
Their persistence paid off on Monday when the Brussels Court of Appeal overturned a prior ruling that had denied their claims on the grounds of excessive time having passed. The court’s determination that the actions constituted a crime against humanity nullified any statute of limitations.
“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 declared.
The women initially requested €50,000 (£41,400) in compensation.
Unveiling a Dark Chapter
This landmark case sheds light on the plight of an estimated 20,000 mixed-race children born to white settlers and local black women during the 1940s and 1950s. Most white fathers refused to acknowledge these children or grant them Belgian nationality, resulting in their placement in state care and Church-run orphanages. Many of these children reportedly faced further abuse while in care.
In 2017, the Catholic Church issued an apology for its role in the scandal. Two years later, the Belgian government followed suit, expressing regret for its involvement as part of a “step towards awareness and recognition of this part of our national history.”
This case marks the first in Belgium to address the historical injustices endured by mixed-race children forcibly separated from their families during the colonial era. Source: BBC
