The Belgian state condemned for the forced placement of mixed-race children in the Congo during colonization

The judgment of the Brussels Court of Appeal is “historic”, welcomed the lawyer for the five plaintiffs, now in their seventies.

The Belgian state was condemned, Monday, December 2, as the former colonial power in Congo (the current Democratic Republic of Congo) for the kidnapping from their mothers and the forced placement of five mixed-race girls before the independence of 1960. Overturning the first instance judgment handed down in 2021, the Brussels Court of Appeal found that the facts were not prescribed, and that these “systematic kidnappings” based on the origin constituted “a crime against humanity”in accordance with international law applicable in 1946, after the Second World War.

“We won, it’s a total victory”reacted to AFP Michèle Hirsch, the lawyer for these five women now in their seventies, Léa, Monique, Noëlle, Simone and Marie-José. “The judgment is historic, it is the first time that a colonial state, Belgium in this case, has been condemned for a crime committed during colonization qualified as a crime against humanity and therefore not time-barred”explained the lawyer.

The Belgian State is ordered to compensate the moral damage of the plaintiffs and to compensate them to the amount of 50,000 euros each, the sum claimed in the complaint which was filed in 2020. This trial was the first in Belgium to highlight the fate reserved for Métis born in the former Belgian colonies (Congo, Rwanda and Burundi). Most of them were not recognized by their fathers and should not mix with whites or Africans.