By RFIPosted 04-04-2019Modified on 04-04-2019 at 22:33
"On behalf of the federal government, I apologize to the Métis from Belgian colonization and their families for the injustices and suffering they have suffered. This statement was made Thursday, April 4 by Prime Minister Charles Michel in front of the Belgian parliamentarians and in the presence of many half-breeds. These excuses concern children essentially born at the end of the colonial period.
With our Brussels office,
They are thousands of children born in the 1940s and 1950s of an African mother and a Belgian colonial father. Initially, these children were snatched from their mothers and placed in remote institutions, most often held by nuns.
The Church of Belgium herself apologized for this two years ago. Between 1959 and 1962, the last three years of the Belgian presence in Central Africa, these children were even sent in numbers to Belgium, placed in families or even orphanages.
" By setting up a system of targeted segregation against the half-breeds and their families in Belgian colonial Africa, the Belgian state has committed acts contrary to the respect of fundamental human rights, " said the Belgian Prime Minister. That is why, on behalf of the federal government, I recognize the targeted segregation of which the Métis were victims under the colonial administration of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi and the policy of forced kidnappings. "
According to the Belgian Prime Minister, Métis children were seen as dangerous elements, even as a threat to the colonial system. According to one of the founders of the Association des métis de Belgique, this is the first time that the kingdom is confronting its colonial memory.
On the same subject
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