A historic court ruling that found Belgium guilty of crimes against humanity during its colonial rule of central Africa has been hailed as a turning point that could pave the way for compensation and other forms of justice.
Belgium’s court of appeal ruled last month that the “systematic kidnapping” of mixed-race children from their African mothers in Belgian-ruled Congo, Rwanda and Burundi was a crime against humanity. The case was brought by five women who were removed from their Congolese mothers as small children between 1948 and 1953, and who now live in Belgium and France. Each was awarded €50,000 (£42,000) in damages.
The colonial-era policy affected thousands more métis, children of African mothers and European fathers whom imperial Belgium deemed a threat to the white supremacist order. Many lost all contact with their mothers after being moved hundreds of miles away to live in uncaring religious institutions with meagre rations and inadequate education.
The president of the Association of Métis of Belgium, François Milliex, said decision “surely opens the door” to those seeking financial compensation for forced separation from their parents.
Milliex was moved to Belgium in 1960 aged 14, and was immediately sent to a children’s home with two of his brothers after being separated from his other siblings. The family was split although Milliex’s Rwandan mother and Belgian father were both alive, recognised and wanted to care for their children. He was stripped of his Belgian nationality the following year, leaving him stateless and unable to leave the country. As an adult he spent one month of salary in fees to regain Belgian nationality.
“Most métis who were moved to Belgium regret that the state never proposed financial compensation for the suffering, the pain,” he said. “There are people who continue to suffer today from this separation, this loss of identity, to understand why they were taken from their mother, why their father did not recognise them, 70 years later they are still, some of them, asking these questions. It is real pain that remains in the hearts of all the métis.”
Michèle Hirsch, the lawyer who represented the five women, said she thought the court ruling opened the door to reparations for those in a similar situation to her clients, but cast doubt on the prospect. “I think we are going to have to fight for it to happen,” she said.
Photograph: Francisco Seco/AP
Belgium’s then prime minister Charles Michel apologised on behalf of the state in 2019 for the kidnapping of mixed-race children, and the state launched an initiative later that year so victims could gain access to official archives that would help them trace their family origins. As colonial officials had unilaterally changed or misspelled names, many children had lost contact with their families.
But unlike other countries that have faced a reckoning for the similar treatment of Indigenous people, such as Australia and Canada, Belgium has resisted demands for financial compensation.
Résolution Métis, the state research body facilitating access to archives, is studying how many people were affected by the policy, but has said it is not currently possible to give a definitive answer.
Hundreds of mixed-race children are believed to have been forcibly moved to Belgium between 1960 and 1962, when Congo, Rwanda and Burundi gained independence, but the vast majority subjected to state kidnapping remained in central Africa.
Geneviève Kanindaof the NGO African Futures Lab, who works with victims of state kidnapping in present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi, said the Belgian had long overlooked them.
The court judgement “could constitute a turning point for the people in the Great Lakes region to be able, if they wish, to obtain justice,” she said. Victims of the policy, both mothers who lost their children and those who were taken, could use the court ruling in any attempt to obtain reparations from the Belgian government, she suggested.
The group is also seeking greater recognition of the women forced to give up their toddlers to the state. They were often teenagers, sometimes as young as 14 or 15, when they became pregnant by European colonialists, who were in their 30s, 40s or 50s. Some died without being reunited with their children, or even knowing where they had been taken.
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Kaninda said victims of the policy in the Great Lakes region also faced serious obstacles in researching their past, such as huge difficulties obtaining visas to go to Belgium for archival research or DNA tests. African Futures Lab argues that all mixed-race people put under Belgian state guardianship in colonial times should be able to obtain Belgian nationality if they wish.
The Belgian foreign ministry, which is handling the case, said: “The Belgian government has not yet decided on its position regarding the follow up it will take to this judgement of the court of appeal. This judgement is still being analysed.”
The government can appeal to the country’s supreme court, the court of cassation, but only on a point of law.
Jérémiah Vervoort, a legal scholar at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), said the court’s decision was historic in Belgium because “effectively it is the first time that the state has been condemned for colonial crimes”.
Belgium was hesitant about reparations he said, in contrast to other western countries. He said the state could follow the Australian treatment of its “stolen generations” by passing a law to compensate everyone affected by the policy.
Alternatively Belgium could wait for individuals to make claims, an approach that would disadvantage those who lacked documents, Vervoort said: “To prove that they actually suffered kidnappings and segregation will be difficult for those who have fewer documents at their disposal. Not all mixed-race people are equal in terms of the documentation that concerns them.”
The Association of Métis of Belgium hopes the court ruling will raise awareness of an episode of history it sees as still widely unknown. It is preparing a lesson kit of written material and video testimony for teachers that it hopes will be adopted in Belgian schools.
From Milliex’s experience of school visits, there is much to be done. “When you ask [pupils] what was the Congo and the colonies, they say ‘Belgium built big roads, schools and hospitals’ etc. Never, ever does anyone talk about the métis,” he said.
