The Court of Appeal in Brussels has found the Belgian state liable for the systematic abduction of children of mixed European and African descent from their mothers during the colonial era in the Belgian Congo.
The case was brought by five women who were forcibly separated from their mothers in the Belgian Congo before they were seven years old.
The court found that their abductions were part of a deliberate and systematic plan organised by the Belgian state to remove children born to black mothers and white fathers from their families.
“Their abductions are inhuman and constitute an act of persecution which constitutes a crime against humanity under the principles of international law,” the court said in a statement.
The Belgian state was ordered to compensate the applicants for the moral damage suffered, which includes their loss of contact with their mothers, the violation of their identity and the severance of their cultural heritage.
The ruling overturned a 2021 court decision which had found the case to be time-barred.
In 2019, Belgium issued its first official apology for the abduction of thousands of mixed-race children from the Congo between 1959 and 1962, acknowledging its role in a policy of segregation under which these children were transferred to Catholic schools and orphanages in Belgium, Beta writes.
