Ghana Calls for Tangible Reparations for Slavery

Ghana hosted a landmark global conference on Thursday, aiming to turn the growing political backing for slavery reparations into concrete actions for justice.

In March, the United Nations adopted a historic resolution that described the trans‑Atlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity.”

Since that resolution, the push for reparatory justice has gained “unprecedented momentum,” said Ghana’s Foreign Minister Samuel Ablakwa.

Although the resolution is non‑binding, it was championed by Ghanaian President John Mahama and goes beyond mere acknowledgment, urging nations involved in the slave trade to pursue restorative justice.

“We won the battle against slavery, we won the battle against colonialism, we won the battle against apartheid, and we are confident that we shall win the battle against reparatory injustice,” Ablakwa declared at the conference’s opening session.

The UN resolution received the strongest support yet from the international community, with 123 member states endorsing it.

Since then, French President Emmanuel Macron has backed the symbolic repeal of royal decrees that governed slavery in French colonies.

France was the third‑largest slave trader in Europe, after Britain and Portugal.

Pope Leo XIV issued an apology last month for the Catholic Church’s long delay in condemning slavery, describing it as “a wound in Christian memory.”

“The growing international support for these conversations demonstrates that reparatory justice is no longer a peripheral issue,” the foreign minister said at the conference’s outset.

Once a hub of trans‑Atlantic slavery, the West African nation is now “transitioning from being a crime scene to a sanctuary for healing and reparative justice,” Ablakwa added.

Ghana has led efforts to reconnect the diaspora with Africa, with more than 1,000 people recently claiming Ghanaian citizenship.

The three‑day event featured speakers from Barbados, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Namibia, and Liberia, as well as Nigerian Nobel laureate and rights activist Wole Soyinka.

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