At a reparations conference in Ghana, delegates decided to create a Global Reparation Fund to advocate for the long-overdue payment of reparations to the millions of Africans who were held as slaves during the transatlantic slave trade centuries ago.
Over 12 million Africans were forcibly abducted by European countries between the 16th and 19th centuries and sold into slavery on plantations that produced profit at the expense of suffering. The Accra Reparation Conference is adding to the mounting calls for compensation.
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People of African ancestry continue “to be victims of systemic racial discrimination and racist attacks” many centuries after the slave trade was abolished, according to a recent study by a special U.N. committee that backed reparations as “a cornerstone of justice in the 21st century.”
“It is time for Africa — whose sons and daughters had their freedoms controlled and sold into slavery — to also receive reparations,” stated Ghana’s President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo during the conference, which was attended by prominent African authorities as well as members of the diaspora.
Akufo-Addo criticized the British and other European countries that profited from the slave trade, saying that the subject of slave reparations is one that the world “must confront and can no longer ignore.” He added, “enslaved Africans themselves did not receive a penny.”
The details of how such a reparations fund would function were not disclosed by conference delegates in Accra. However, Gnaka Lagoke, an associate professor of pan-African studies and history, asserted that it needs to be applied to “correct the problems” that the continent is dealing with in every area of its economy.
The resolution known as The Accra Proclamation is founded on the “moral and legal rights and dignity of the people,” according to Ambassador Amr Aljowailey, strategic adviser to the deputy chairperson of the African Union Commission.
In addition, the A.U. Commission, working with African countries, will support the Global Reparation Fund through a committee of experts, “a special envoy will engage in campaigns as well as litigation and judicial efforts,” noted Aljowailey.
Reparations, according to activists, should encompass more than just cash transfers; they should also cover help for national development, the restoration of resources that were colonized, and the structural rectification of laws and policies that oppress people.
According to Nkechi Taifa, head of the Reparation Education Project in the United States, a “negotiated settlement (that will) benefit the masses” will determine the necessary amount of compensation.
