Brussels (Brussels Morning) – Five Congolese women are taking Belgium to court over the forced abduction and segregation of mixed-race children during colonial rule. This landmark civil case challenges Belgium’s historical racial policies in Congo.
The Belgian State has been called to appear in court to answer for the racial policy it followed when it had guardianship over the Congo (current Democratic Republic of the Congo) between 1908 and 1960.
Why Are Five Women Suing Belgium Over Colonial Policies?
Five women, who were targets of the abduction and segregation of very young mixed-race children in the Congo, have conveyed civil action against the Belgian State. The legal procedure questions the Belgian State for having organised this damaging system of racial discrimination, which had deep consequences for their lives.
The case, which is the first of its type in Europe, was first attended in 2021 by the Brussels Civil Court, which denied the claim by the five plaintiffs. An appeal was thereafter lodged.
How Did Belgium Organize Racial Discrimination in Congo?
Internationally, Belgium is well-known for the horrors of its then-King Leopold II and later the State engaged in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) under colonial administration. Strikingly, many Belgian children are not (properly) oriented about this in schools.
The country now known as the DRC was under the individual rule of Leopold II who pushed the native population to harvest and process rubber – a course characterised by atrocities and frequent brutality, including torture, murder, kidnapping, and the amputation of the hands of men, women, and children whose quota of rubber was not met.
The five women, who were born in Congo between 1946 and 1950, are suing the Belgian State for civil liability for offences against humanity. They are asserting damages for the serious damage caused to them when they were seized and segregated.
Who Were the Targets of Belgium’s Racial Discrimination in Congo?
The women are the children of Belgian males and Congolese women conceived when the Congo was a Belgian territory. They were brought from their home and forcibly put in orphanages, like most very young mixed-race children. According to official records from the colonial archives, kidnappings of mixed-race children were managed by officers of the Belgian State and carried out with the service of the Church.
Officials of the colonising state were required to organise the abduction of children from diverse marriages by forcing their mothers to disconnect from them. The children were put in Catholic missions in the Belgian Congo and in Rwanda, far from their houses.
From a very young age –in some examples just a few months, and up to five years – mixed-race children were pulled from their mothers and their native villages using intimidation, threats, or deception.
In 2018, then-Prime Minister Charles Michel issued an apology on behalf of the Belgian State for the coerced abduction and targeted segregation of mixed-race children in Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. The complainants are now seeking efforts to remedy the damage.
