Women taken from African mothers by Belgium seek reparation

BRUSSELS – Five biracial women calved successful Congo erstwhile the state was nether Belgian regularisation who were taken distant from their Black mothers and separated from their African roots are suing the Belgian authorities for crimes against humanity.

Lea Tavares Mujinga, Monique Bintu Bingi, Noelle Verbeken, Simone Ngalula and Marie-Jose Loshi anticipation Belgium volition yet admit its work successful the suffering endured by the thousands of mixed-race children, known arsenic “metis,″ who were snatched distant from families and placed successful spiritual institutions and homes by Belgian authorities that ruled implicit the country from 1908 to 1960.

Their case is being examined connected Thursday by a Brussels court.

The 5 women, each calved betwixt 1945 and 1950, filed their suit past twelvemonth amid increasing demands that Belgium reassess its assemblage past.

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In the aftermath of protests against radical inequality successful the United States, respective statues of erstwhile King Leopold II, who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium’s assemblage rule, person been vandalized successful Belgium, and immoderate person been removed.

In 2019, the Belgian authorities apologized for the state’s relation successful taking thousands of babies from their African mothers. And for the archetypal clip successful the country’s history, a reigning king expressed regret past twelvemonth for the unit carried retired by the erstwhile assemblage power.

The women's lawyers said they were aged betwixt 2 and 4 erstwhile they were taken distant astatine the petition of the Belgian assemblage administration, successful practice with the section Catholic religion authorities.

According to ineligible documents, successful each 5 cases the fathers did not workout parental authorization and the Belgian medication threatened the children’s Congolese families with reprisals if they refused to fto them go.

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The children were placed astatine a spiritual ngo successful Katende, successful the state of Kasai, with the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul. There, they lived with immoderate 20 different mixed-race girls and Indigenous orphans successful precise hard conditions.

According to the lawyer, the Belgian state’s strategy aimed astatine preventing interracial unions and isolating métis children, known arsenic the “children of shame,” to marque definite they would not assertion a nexus with Belgium aboriginal successful their lives.

After independence, the ineligible documents assertion that the children were near abandoned by some the State and the Church, and that immoderate of them were sexually molested by militia fighters. The women person requested compensation of 50,000 euros each.

“This is not for the money,” lawyer Michelle Hirsch said. “We privation a instrumentality that tin use to each truthful that the Belgian State recognizes the crimes committed and the suffering endured by métis children.”

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