Landmark ruling finds Belgium guilty of crimes against humanity in colonial Congo

The Court of Appeals in Brussels has ruled that Belgium must pay reparations to five women who were forcibly taken from their mothers and put in orphanages in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) when it was still a Belgian colony because they were victims of “systematic kidnapping” by state.
The appellate judges thus overturned an earlier decision by another court that too much time had elapsed for the state to be charged, ruling that although the abductions of the five mixed-race women happened 70 years ago, they constituted crimes against humanity and were, therefore, not subject to statutes 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 judgment read.
The five women fought a legal battle over some six years to make Belgium recognize responsibility for the suffering of thousands of mixed-race children. Known as “métis,” the children were snatched away from their families and placed in religious institutions and homes by Belgian authorities that ruled Congo from 1908 to 1960. While a lower court had first dismissed their challenge in 2021, they persisted and appealed the ruling. The five women, who are now in their 70s and 80s, filed their lawsuit in 2020 amid growing demands for Belgium to reassess its colonial past in Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.