In a landmark case, a court ruled that the women, now in their 70s and 80s, who were taken from their parents in Belgian Congo, were victims of a crime against humanity.

A Belgium court has ordered the government to pay reparations to five mixed-race women who were forcibly removed from their families in the colonial-era Belgian Congo. The women, now in their 70s, were taken from their mothers when they were young children and placed in orphanages under a state policy.

The Belgian state was ordered Monday to pay reparations to five mixed-race women who were forcibly placed in an orphanage 70 years ago under a colonial-era practice that judges said constituted a crime against humanity.