Belgium loses case over babies stolen in former colonies – DW – 12/02/2024
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The Court of Appeals has ruled that Brussels must pay reparations to women who were taken from their mothers and put in orphanages. The court found that the forced separations were crimes against humanity.

Summary

Belgium’s Court of Appeals has ruled that the state must pay reparations to five women forcibly taken from their mothers in the Democratic Republic of Congo during colonial rule, declaring the separations crimes against humanity.

The women, born between 1946 and 1950 to African mothers and white fathers, were placed in Catholic orphanages under a systemic policy of racial persecution.

This landmark case, the first of its kind, sheds light on Belgium’s colonial history, with an estimated 15,000 children affected by such practices across its former African colonies.