Beth Duff-Brown

Born a Sin in Africa: Belgium’s Lost Children

Perhaps Monique, the illegitimate child of a Congolese mother and French father in a village ruled by the Belgians since the turn of the 19th century, was abducted by the Catholic Church. Premarital sex remains a sin in the eyes of the religion that still dominates the country today, but back then it was also against the law for Congolese men and women to sleep with white people. Her quest to find some answers led to me.