Five multiracial ladies who were taken away from their Black moms and removed from their African roots while the Congo was under Belgian administration are suing the Belgian state for crimes against humanity.
Lea Tavares Mujinga, Monique Bintu Bingi, Noelle Verbeken, Simone Ngalula, and Marie-Jose Loshi hope that Belgium will finally acknowledge its role in the suffering of thousands of mixed-race children known as “metis” that were taken from their families and placed in religious institutions and homes by Belgian authorities who ruled the region from 1908 to 1960.
A Brussels court will review their case on Thursday.
The five women, all of whom were born between 1945 and 1950, launched their complaint last year in response to mounting pressure on Belgium to reconsider its colonial past.
Several sculptures of former King Leopold II, who is responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium’s colonial rule have been defaced in Belgium, and some have been dismantled, following rallies against racial inequity in the United States.
The Belgian government apologized in 2019 for the part it played in the abduction of thousands of newborns from their African mothers. Last year, a reigning king expressed contrition for the bloodshed perpetrated by the previous colonial authority for the first time in the country’s history.
According to the women’s lawyers, they were taken away when they were between the ages of 2 and 4 at the request of the Belgian Colonial administration, in collaboration with the local Catholic Church officials.
The fathers in all five cases did not exercise parental authority, according to legal documents, and the Belgian authorities threatened the children’s Congolese families with retaliation if they refused to let them go.
The youngsters were put with the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul in a religious mission in Katende, Kasai region. They shared a cramped room with about 20 other mixed-race females and Indigenous orphans.
The Belgian government’s plan, according to the lawyer, was intended at avoiding interracial marriages and isolating métis offspring, sometimes known as “children of shame,” so that they would not claim a connection to Belgium later in life.
The youngsters were abandoned by both the State and the Church after independence, according to the legal filings, and some of them were sexually raped by militia combatants. The women have asked for a monetary settlement of 50,000 euros apiece.
Michelle Hirsch, a lawyer, stated, “This is not for the money.” “We want a law that applies to everyone so that the Belgian government acknowledges the crimes perpetrated and the agony faced by métis children.”
