Belgian state convicted of systematic abduction of mixed-race children in colonial-era Congo
The appeal court in Brussels has condemned the Belgian state for the systematic abduction of mixed-race or "metis" children in Congo at the time when the country was a Belgian colony. The five people who sued the state will receive damages. The appeal court thereby overturned a decision in 2021 that declared the case time-barred.
The five women who sued the Belgian state were born between 1946 and 1950 in Congo, which was then still a Belgian colony. They were born from a relationship between a Belgian father and an African mother.
The Belgian state disapproved of these relationships and the children were taken away from their families and placed in orphanages. Any link with their mother and the country where they were born was severed. In Belgium, they were often denied Belgian nationality and faced administrative problems.
According to the court, this involved “systematic abductions” of children born from such a relationship. “These are crimes against humanity,” the court said. The plaintiffs have been awarded damages for the loss of the bond with their mother and the “attack on their identity and on the bond with their country of origin”.
Earlier decision overturned
The complaint is the first of its kind in Europe and was argued before the civil court in Brussels in 2021. That court rejected the demand of the five civil parties, on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired and the state could not be condemned for acts that were not punishable at the time they were committed.
However, the appeal court has now ruled otherwise. It finds that, based on international principles recognised by the United Nations, the case is not time-barred.
The Belgian Roman Catholic Church apologised for its role in the events in 2017. Two years later, then prime minister Charles Michel did so in the name of the Belgian state.
A hearing in the case of five Belgian-Congolese women against the Belgian state for crimes against humanity, 2021 © BELGA PHOTO HADRIEN DURE
Related news
