The women were taken as children from their families in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and placed in orphanages. The court rejected a prior ruling that too much time had passed to prosecute the case, stating that such crimes are not subject to statutes of limitations.

“The court orders the Belgian state to compensate the appellants for the moral damage resulting from the loss of their connection to their mother and the damage to their identity and their connection to their original environment,” the judgement said.

The court described the separations as part of a deliberate policy targeting children born to black mothers and white fathers. The judgement stated that the Belgian colonial administration systematically searched for and abducted mixed-race children under seven years old, placing them under state guardianship in institutions often run by the Catholic church.

The five plaintiffs – Simone Ngalula, Monique Bitu Bingi, Lea Tavares Mujinga, Noelle Verbeeken and Marie-José Loshi – sought compensation of €50,000 each. “They called us ‘children of sin’,” said Mujinga, while Ngalula, recalled being called “café au lait” (coffee with milk) at school.

The women’s lawyer, Michele Hirsch, celebrated the ruling as a “total victory” and described it as historic. “This is the first time a country has been convicted on this legal basis for acts committed during colonisation,” she said.

Belgium has faced increasing scrutiny over its colonial history, particularly its rule over Congo, considered one of the harshest in Africa. Between 1885 and 1908, King Leopold II governed the country as his personal property, during which millions of Congolese people were killed or subjected to brutal treatment. The territory later became a Belgian colony until independence in 1960.

The case has also shed light on the plight of mixed-race children born in former Belgian colonies, including the DRC, Rwanda and Burundi. These children – estimated to number between 14,000 and 20,000 – were often ostracised, denied recognition by their fathers, and segregated from both white and black communities.