On December 2, the Brussels Court of Appeal found the Belgian government guilty of crimes against humanity in Congo during Belgian colonial rule and ordered it to pay compensation as a form of reparation.
This landmark win for the reparations movement was achieved thanks to the tireless struggle for justice by five women of mixed African and Belgian descent, Marie-Josée Loshi, Noëlle Verbeken, Léa Tavares Mujinga, Simone Ngalula, and Monique Bintu Bingi, together with associations located in Belgium and Africa’s Great Lakes region.
The women, now in their 70s, were born between 1948 and 1952 in Congo, which was colonized by Belgium from 1908 to 1960. They collectively sued the Belgian government for forcibly abducting them as children. The court found that under Belgium’s colonial rule in the Great Lakes region, the systematic racial segregation of so-called Métis (“mixed-race”) children was inhumane and an act of persecution.
The practice deprived Métis children any contact to their families, their roots, and their identity. Following the end of colonization, they were abandoned by the Belgian state.
In 2019, then-Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel issued an official apology and Belgium’s federal parliament adopted the “Métis Resolution,” recognizing that Métis children had been victims of “targeted segregation” and “forced removals.” However, it fell short on calling for full reparations and accountability. In 2020, the five women decided to demand compensation in court.
The Belgian government denied its responsibility for crimes committed during colonization before the court. Similar to other European governments’ arguments against reparations, the Belgian government claimed that the colonial policy, which targeted mixed-descent children for being a threat to the white racial supremacy of the colonial order, had not been a crime at the time.
In November, Human Rights Watch, African Futures Lab, and Amnesty International organized a workshop on reparations to mark 140 years since the Berlin Africa Conference, which divided up the African continent among European colonizers. The workshop featured powerful testimony from a woman affected by Belgium’s colonial Métis policy, who supported the five women in their pursuit for justice and advocated wider remembrance in Belgium of these forgotten colonial crimes.
The case exemplifies the urgency and importance of colonial reckoning. European countries, including Belgium, should recognize the atrocities committed during colonization and their ongoing impacts on the lives of survivors and descendants today. That recognition includes the acknowledgment of a right to full reparations.
