The Liège Court of Appeal has sentenced Julienne Mpemba, a 48-year-old Belgian woman of Congolese origin, to 14 years in prison and fined her €8,000 for kidnapping, human trafficking, fraud, forgery and hostage-taking. She was taken into custody immediately after the ruling. The case revealed a painful story that stretched from Belgium to Congo. Mpemba arranged the adoption of about a dozen young children who were presented to Belgian families as orphans. In reality, the children had been taken from their biological families in Congo. Many of them came from remote areas near Kinshasa and were

The Liège Court of Appeal has sentenced Julienne Mpemba, a 48-year-old Belgian woman of Congolese origin, to 14 years in prison and fined her €8,000 for kidnapping, human trafficking, fraud, forgery and hostage-taking. She was taken into custody immediately after the ruling.

The case revealed a painful story that stretched from Belgium to Congo. Mpemba arranged the adoption of about a dozen young children who were presented to Belgian families as orphans. In reality, the children had been taken from their biological families in Congo. Many of them came from remote areas near Kinshasa and were only between two and five years old when they arrived in Belgium in 2015.

According to the court, Mpemba managed an orphanage where some of the abducted children were placed before being offered for adoption. She reportedly demanded extra payments from adoptive families, claiming the money was necessary to complete the process. The families believed they were giving homes to children without parents, unaware that the children had been wrongfully separated from their families.

Mpemba had previously been sentenced to 10 years in prison by a lower court, but she appealed the decision. During the appeal, she tried several legal tactics to delay the proceedings. She spoke in court about the accusations but did not attend the final sentencing, saying she had medical reasons. However, a court-appointed forensic doctor determined that she was fit to appear.

With the new ruling, the court increased her prison sentence to 14 years, describing the crimes as serious violations that caused deep harm to the children and their families, both in Congo and in Belgium.

Source: The Brussels Times

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