A/77/PV.63 General Assembly

In accordance with paragraph 4 of resolution 73/345 of 16 September 2019, the General Assembly will hold a commemorative meeting on the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Statement by the President

Today we gather in commemoration of the victims of one of history’s most horrific crimes against humanity, a crime that was perpetrated for more than 400 years and resulted in the forced deportation of more than 15 million men, women and children, a crime that was perpetrated in full view of the law. In most cases, in fact, it was supported by the law of the times — laws that allowed human beings to be kept as property. Robbing them of their homes, their bodies and their names, slavery sought to steal its victims’ very humanity. At the same time, in the societies built on slave labour, every day put in question the humanity of the enslavers themselves. (spoke in French) How many proud nations were built on the principles of equality and freedom while they practised racial slavery at the same time? What was the cost of freedom for some? It was innumerable lives lost and stolen, innumerable families torn apart and innumerable decades of trauma, forced labour and cruel and systemic violence. (spoke in English) A year ago, I had an opportunity to pay a visit to Cape Coast in Ghana, one of the former centres of the slave trade. It was a shocking experience to enter the prison cells and tunnels where human beings were imprisoned, turned into slaves and then exported to the slave markets of the New World. I do not think I will ever forget the feeling of horror felt there. While the transatlantic slave trade is over, the foundations on which it stood have not been fully dismantled. (spoke in Arabic) Disparities and the lack of global economic equality can lead to modern slavery. Racism continues, including anti-Black racism and discrimination. Those are persistent societal issues. Together, those scourges represent racial discrimination among peoples. (spoke in English) Many Africans and people of African descent continue to feel that they are fighting an uphill battle for the recognition of an assault on their rights that was neither repaired nor rectified. And are they wrong? We must declare that that crime against humanity was not an authorless one. We must acknowledge the responsibility of all the States, institutions, religious groups, businesses, banks, insurance companies and individuals who profited from slavery. (spoke in Russian) That is why the Day of Remembrance is so important; it creates an opportunity for reflection on a dark and shameful chapter of our common history. It is an opportunity to honour all those who fell victim to the transatlantic slave trade and to express our gratitude to all those who had the courage to fight against that trade. It also gives us the opportunity to look to the future. (spoke in English) George Orwell said that the most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history. For that reason, this year’s theme, “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”, is more than timely. As a global community, we have a duty of remembrance. History, the facts of which should not be distorted, must serve as a lesson for all of us in order to honour the victims and promote a culture of respect for their descendants. But for that duty of memory to truly be put in practice, we must reshape our education systems and curricula in order to foster a genuine sense of justice for the victims and alleviate the racial tensions that divide many of our societies. We should all learn the story of Olaudah Equiano’s survival of the Middle Passage; the significance of the 1791 uprising on the island of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti; Zumbi dos Palmares’ solidarity towards his enslaved comrades; the tale of the Garifunas; and the origins of Palenqueros and Papiamento. And we should also learn about the selfless struggle of the great abolitionists, from Frederick Douglass to Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman. They were good people who were brave enough to stand up against the dominant ideologies of their times. That is also our shared memory. Through education, we can confute any revisionism with undisputable facts. Through education, we can raise awareness of the dangers caused by misconceptions of supremacy  — whether past or present. Through education, we can ensure that no one will ever experience the hell lived by the 15 million people we commemorate today. In that way, the painful stories of racism can be transformed through education into a future of peace, a future that is rooted in justice, equality, respect and dignity. I now give the floor to Secretary-General António Guterres.

It is an honour to join you in commemorating the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The evil enterprise of enslavement lasted for more than 400 years. It was the largest legally sanctioned forced migration in human history. Millions of African children, women and men were kidnapped and trafficked across the Atlantic, ripped from their families and homelands. Their communities were torn apart, their bodies commodified and their humanity denied. The history of racialized chattel slavery is a history of suffering, crime, violence and exploitation. It is a history of colossal injustice. Just as the slave trade underwrote the wealth and prosperity of the colonizers, it devastated the African continent, thwarting its development for centuries. It is a history of cruelty and barbarity. From the slavers, ship captains and plantation owners to the banks, insurers and corporations that financed it, slavery shows humanity at its worst. But it is also a history of awe-inspiring courage that shows human beings at their best, starting with the enslaved people who rose up against impossible odds and extending to the abolitionists who spoke out against that atrocious crime. And yet, the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade haunts us to this day. We can draw a straight line from the era of colonial exploitation to the social and economic inequalities of today. The scars of slavery are still visible in the persistent disparities in wealth, income, health, education and opportunity. And we can recognize the racist tropes popularized to rationalize the inhumanity of the slave trade in the white supremacist hate that is resurgent today. The long shadow of slavery still looms over the lives of people of African descent, who carry with them the transgenerational trauma and continue to confront marginalization, exclusion and bigotry. It is incumbent on us all to fight slavery’s legacy of racism. The most powerful weapon in our arsenal is education, the theme of this year’s commemoration. Governments everywhere should introduce into their school curricula lessons on the causes, manifestations and far-reaching consequences of the transatlantic slave trade. Through our United Nations Remember Slavery programme and UNESCO’s Slave Route Project, we stand ready to assist Member States. We must learn and teach the horrific history of slavery. We must learn and teach the history of Africa and the African diaspora, whose peoples have enriched societies wherever they went and excelled in every field of human endeavour. And we must learn and teach the histories of righteous resistance, resilience and defiance. That includes the story of Queen Nanny of the Maroons in Jamaica, whose determined resistance efforts proved so successful that the British Empire had to sue for peace. That includes the successes of Queen Ana Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba in what is now Angola, whose deft diplomacy and military victories thwarted Portugal’s colonial ambitions and who inspired independence movements for centuries. It includes the courage of Sojourner Truth, who was born into slavery, fought for her own freedom and used her formidable powers to help others win theirs. It includes the heroism of Toussaint Louverture of Saint- Domingue, who transformed a fledgling slave rebellion into a revolutionary movement and who is known today as the father of Haiti. And it includes the reign in what is now Senegal, during the imamate of Futa Toro, of Abdul Kader Kan, who prohibited the slave trade nearly 100 years before it was abolished in the United States. By teaching the history of slavery, we help to guard against humankind’s most vicious impulses. By studying the prevailing assumptions and beliefs that allowed the practice to flourish for centuries, we unmask the racism of our own time. And by honouring the victims of slavery  — memorialized in the Ark of Return that stands in the plaza just outside this Hall  — we restore some measure of dignity to those who were so mercilessly stripped of it. (spoke in French) This International Day of Remembrance coincides with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 of the Declaration proclaims that “[n]o one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade are prohibited in all their forms”. Let us bring those words to life. Let us honour the victims of the slave trade by remembering their fight. Let us continue our commitment until each and every one of us can live in freedom, dignity and respect for human rights.

I thank the Secretary-General for his statement. Before proceeding further, and as indicated in my letters dated 7 February and 23 March 2023, I would like to consult members with a view to inviting the following speakers to address the Assembly at this meeting: Ms. Djamila Taís Ribeiro, winner of a Jabuti literary prize in 2020, and Ms. Taylor Cassidy, youth advocate. If there is no objection, may I take it that it is the wish of the General Assembly, and without setting a precedent, to invite these speakers to deliver statements at this meeting? It was so decided (decision 77/555).

I now give the floor to Ms. Ribeiro. Ms. Ribeiro: As a Brazilian woman, I am honoured to be here today in the General Assembly to commemorate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade through the theme “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”. “Leaving the past behind” is an expression commonly used by those who yearn for new beginnings. It gives them a sense that they do not have to cling to what has happened, that they can let go of the past and move on. Although I understand the hopeful meaning expressed in such cases, I would like to offer some other meanings that have a deeper relationship with our shared history and culture. In Brazil, my home country, the notion of leaving the past behind was used as an ideological strategy to overlook the country’s history of oppression and ignore the damage done to its Black population by nearly 400 years of slavery. It is important to remember that Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, and in the post-abolition period it imposed an ideology of racial democracy. Racial democracy is based on a romantic notion that racial conflict can be overcome by denying the existence of racism. When I was a child growing up in Brazil, it was very common for people to say, “Racism? That only happens in the United States and South Africa. Brazil is mixed raced and has overcome racism. We have left the past behind”. In fact, the ideology of racial democracy undermined Black people’s search for memory and truth, for a real understanding of the consequences of enslavement and enslaved societies. That understanding and the remedial actions for it, such as reparations policies, have been delayed for decades. It is the collective efforts of the Black civil rights movements and the work of critical intellectuals in Brazil that have refuted the ideology of racial democracy and exposed the wounds and hard truths of the past. We need to remember history so that today we can overcome and transform its consequences and build a more hopeful future. As Hannah Arendt said, we have to delve deeply into past narratives and confront the atrocities that were committed so that we do not run the risk of normalizing and repeating the evils of oppression. It is not a question of leaving the past behind. In the chronological sense, the past has already been left behind. What is needed is to bring the past into the light so that we can better understand and come to terms with the contradictions of the present. In her work Illusions, the Portuguese intellectual Grada Kilomba reinterprets Greek myths from an anti-colonial perspective. The story of Narcissus is reinterpreted to reflect the mirroring and self-absorption of the white racial group. The Brazilian intellectual and activist Cida Bento also used that metaphor in writing about the narcissistic pact of whiteness, a silent pact among white people who reward and protect themselves and boycott the idea of difference, seeing themselves reflected in the image of the colonizer as a universal political paradigm. Kilomba further analyses the figure of Echo, the nymph in love with the young hunter Narcissus who is condemned to forever repeat his last words. Inspired by those reflections, I would like to conduct an exercise with everyone here in the Assembly Hall in order to identify some echoes of the voice of Narcissus in slavery-system societies and who chants them. Echoes are chanted as the fragmented reproduction of a phrase that is repeatedly manifested. As we proceed with the exercise and consider the history of Brazil, we are confronted by structural inequalities that are perpetuated and that expose the repetition of neocolonial processes. Through her analysis of the structural remains of slavery and colonialism, Kilomba has determined that their histories are poorly resolved and function as ghosts in our midst. In traditional lore, ghosts are wandering spirits trapped in the earthly plane, disturbing and haunting the places we inhabit. There are ghosts as old as the caravels that still echo in our daily life, recalling the history of a country built on more than 300 years of slavery. Today the foundations of that economy continue to impoverish the Black population and their descendants. The echoes of that history exist in the memories of the abductions perpetrated in Africa by colonizers, in the memories of slave ships and the ports where bodies were turned into commodities, with their teeth and bones evaluated, in the memories of plantations and whips, the sirens of police vehicles, the high rates of female rape, in the hierarchy of lives and the residue of oppression that echoes in hate speech on social media. We can confront those personal and collective histories or avert our gaze. In that site of loneliness and recognition, we may acknowledge a diversity of people who now occupy the spaces of power and knowledge. We may call the women who serve our coffee by name. In my personal family history, before marrying my father, my mother was a maid, and I remember her speaking of the loneliness of the service elevator in which she stood, having to effusively thank the family she served when she was handed their old coats. I imagine the loneliness of not being seen, of spending years working in a place without people knowing your name. Telling the history of those who have been victims of human trafficking is an important step in confronting and acknowledging the past, so that the ghosts can no longer haunt us. We need to give them a different destination. We need to tell the history of slavery from the perspective of those who resisted and fought and those whose suffering was too hard to bear. I believe in the healing power of acknowledgement. To break with the colonizing gaze is to believe in the plurality of history, to ask and listen, to record the stories behind the sad eyes and to see the humanity of those who, owing to oppression, have been confined to places of subordination. Recognizing the consequences of the past must drive us to create a future of opportunities, which must include the creation of public policies that will ensure the emancipation of Black populations and victims of trafficking. Education plays a fundamental role in creating opportunities and broadening our world view. Education has the power to transform people and institutions. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire argued that education should be a practice of freedom, a movement that expands the understanding of our realities in order to transform them. Lately, much has been said about the importance of diversity and policy reform, but I think that conversation must be linked to the conversation about inequality. We need to talk about inequality as it was historically constructed during colonization. When we understand the consequences of that history, we become agents of transformation in our world. And that commitment must be non-negotiable.

I now give the floor to Ms. Cassidy. Ms. Cassidy: It is truly an honour to speak to the General Assembly today. My family is one of teachers. When I was seven years old, I once sat and watched my nana shuffle through countless notes, thank you cards, drawings and letters from a large bag. I asked her, “What are all of these?” I remember her replying, “Those are from my students.” At that point she had not taught in a classroom for years, so I wondered, “Why in the world would she still have those gifts after all this time?” To this day, my nana has them in pristine condition. As I have grown older, I now see that those gifts were the product of having a teacher who makes learning come alive, an educator whose teaching is transformative. As the daughter of a teacher, my mother was raised to prioritize reading, writing and “rithmetic”, as she calls it. The desire for education was passed down to her. I once asked her about the first time she learned Black history. She lit up and told me about her college days when she realized how little of her own history she knew. Even though she lived in a time after the civil rights movement, an era that demanded that the world face racism and confront the ugly truth of segregation and discrimination, she had grown up without a deep knowledge of Africa and the history of the people of the diaspora. She began to educate herself. She learned about the countless victories of our ancestors, their persistence and audacity to make their dreams come to fruition despite racism. What she found was powerful enough to give to her children. Lessons on figures such as outspoken civil rights journalist Ida B. Wells, or on the adventurous journey of the first Black woman to hold a pilot’s license, Bessie Coleman, became necessary knowledge in my household. Every week, we would study someone from our culture who struggled for equality and left a legacy of freedom. Knowledge of the past, both painful and joy-filled, was prioritized so that my sister and I would never forget what our ancestors and many others went through for freedom all over the world. I remember searching in my school history book for any of the histories my mom and nana taught so fervently. I found one single page on slavery in America. The single page described the 400-year long history of trauma, suffering and the faceless victims who happened to look like me, as if it were a brief footnote in the history of my country and the world. There was no effort to include the names, identities and victories of those who endured the pain of enslavement. It left me with a strong feeling of an education unfinished. I thought, “How could the past be so easily forgotten and condensed onto one poorly written piece of paper?” I came to appreciate the key to what made my mom’s lessons on Black history feel complete. She gave me the full knowledge of suffering, but she also revealed the tenacity of our people to grow, make do and become victorious. My mom became my guide through history, and that gave me a sense of hope and pride in my identity. My mother ignited the spark of learning in me. When I turned 17, I took up the torch. I suddenly felt a heavy responsibility to teach everyone around me about the history of the transatlantic slave trade and the future for which the victims had fought. As a young person, while it was an honour to teach about the atrocities of the past and exclaim proudly the victories of my people, it was lonely. It is crucial to invest in quality education. At a time in which racism still affects our laws, systems and the descendants of its victims, education is the key to countering injustice and moving forward. We honour the victims and heroes who came before us when young people are taught about both their pain and their joys. The next generation’s hope for the future is strengthened when those who were enslaved are presented as fully dimensional humans. When we invest in teachers such as my mom and my nana and in schooling and education about the transatlantic slave trade, we bolster the worldwide movement for freedom from fear and discrimination, and we strengthen young people as they work towards a world in which justice, dignity, equality and equity prevail. I once heard my mother talking to my nana about her teaching style. She said, “Not only did you tell your students that they were smart, you proved it.” My nana was a transformative teacher, not only in what she taught but in how she taught it. I have had two powerful role models in my life, and it is my honour to use what tools I can to educate my peers. It is also my duty to encourage the General Assembly to be a part of the transformative education movement and to honour the sacrifices our ancestors made for us.

I now give the floor to the representative of Sierra Leone, who will speak on behalf of the Group of African States.

I am honoured to speak on behalf of the Group of African States, as we commemorate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which is being held on the theme “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”. I would also like to thank Ms. Djamila Taís Ribeiro and Ms. Taylor Cassidy for their important statements. This annual commemorative meeting provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the progress made in our collective endeavour to eliminate the regrettable legacies of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance bequeathed by slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, one of the most horrific enterprises in human history. Commemorative days such as this stand as a reminder that we should never forget or cease to denounce all vestiges of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, along with the phenomenon of modern-day slavery, as we promote and ensure the understanding of the history and consequences of slavery and raise awareness about the current dangers of racism and prejudice and the lingering effects that continue to impact the descendants of victims today. The three primary elements of The Ark of Return, the permanent memorial honouring the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade at the United Nations — “Acknowledge the tragedy”, “Consider the legacy” and, last but not least, “Lest we forget” — not only compel us to honour the memory of the millions of the souls who were lost but are very instructive in ensuring that we fight slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education. Slavery and the transatlantic slave trade were indeed driven by an ideology, a false philosophy that holds one race superior and another inferior. The racist legacy of slavery and the slave trade has also been fuelled by the same ideology and false philosophy. In his address to the United Nations in 1963 (see A/PV.1229, para.27), Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia clairvoyantly urged that this false philosophy be permanently discredited and abandoned. He also urged for a world where the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes, where basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race and where bigotry, prejudice, malicious and inhuman self- interest are replaced by understanding, tolerance and goodwill. We therefore agree with the President’s theme for this meeting that “transformative education, which seeks to empower learners to see the social world critically and through an ethical lens to challenge and change the status quo as agents of change is essential to the work of teaching and learning about slavery in order to end racism and injustice and to build inclusive societies based on dignity and human rights for all people, everywhere”. The African Group commends the ongoing efforts of Member States, the continued support of the Secretary- General, the Department of Global Communications, UNESCO and other international organizations and agencies for their focus on transformative education as part of the approach to fighting slavery’s legacy of racism and prejudice. We applaud the establishment in August 2021 of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, and we look forward to its second session, to be held later this year in New York, as well as the results of its work, including with regard to formulating a United Nations declaration on promoting, protecting and fully respecting the human rights of people of African descent. We urge for raising awareness further on the impact and legacy of slavery, and once again call for advocacy and broadening the discussion on the ways in which the international community can tackle these complex historical, sociocultural and economic issues. We note that activities related to the Remember Slavery Programme have increased in both numbers and quality. There has also been an increase in the use of social media platforms and strengthened partnerships with Member States and civil society to raise awareness of the Ark of Return and the issues covered by the Outreach Programme on the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery. It is a travesty that more than a century after the abolition of the odious and nefarious enterprise that was the transatlantic slave trade, people of African descent continue to confront systemic and structural forms of hatred built on deeply entrenched mindsets and attitudes, denying them their human rights and dignity. We need Governments to act urgently to address those issues, which result in social exclusion and the perpetuation of racism, prejudice and discrimination. States should not be afraid to confront their role in slavery and the slave trade, and should take appropriate measures to redress and correct its lasting consequences, including through the non-biased teaching of history and making reparations to both individual descendants of slaves and to Africa, the continent of the slaves’ origin. In that regard, implementing the right to development and reforming the international economic and financial system with a view to fighting poverty and promoting the development of Africa would be encouraging steps in the right direction. We therefore welcomed the August 2022 report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on racial justice and equality for Africans and people of African descent (A/HRC/51/53), following the groundbreaking 2021 report on racial justice and equality (A/HRC/47/53) in response to the mandate of the Human Rights Council’s resolution 43/1. We note the 2022 report’s content, which highlights developments and initiatives undertaken by States and others to address manifestations of systemic racism against Africans and people of African descent, including in the area of law enforcement, and to advance accountability and redress for victims, including for legacies of enslavement, the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and colonialism. In conclusion, the African Group reiterates its call to States to scale up the implementation of the 20 actionable recommendations contained in the 2021 report’s agenda towards transformative change for racial justice and equality, noting that greater political will is needed to accelerate action that delivers prompt and concrete results for Africans and people of African descent. We urge for practical and pragmatic action to raise awareness through transformative education by reviewing school curricula to include lectures on slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, and through the conduct of field trips to historical slave sites, slavery art exhibitions, film screenings and the use of social media platforms as a powerful tool for education and transformation. I want to assure the Assembly of the unstinting commitment of the member States of the African Group in this fight.

I now give the floor to the representative of Solomon Islands, who will speak on behalf of the Asia-Pacific States.

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of Asia- Pacific States. At the outset, we would like to thank you, Mr. President, for convening this plenary meeting to commemorate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. We also wish to express our gratitude to the Secretary-General for his inspiring statement. We extend our profound gratitude and appreciation to Ms. Djamila Taís Ribeiro and Ms. Taylor Cassidy for their enlightening statements. On this occasion, the Group of Asia-Pacific States joins the Assembly today in solemnly remembering and honouring all who were enslaved and who succumbed to the transatlantic slave trade. We must never forget that the transatlantic slave trade marked one of the darkest chapters in human history. As we commemorate this year’s International Day on the theme “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”, let us not only remember and pay tribute to the victims of slavery but also contemplate and learn from the lessons of the past. We have the responsibility to raise awareness and educate future generations about the causes, consequences, lessons and legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. The Ark of Return is a permanent memorial reminding us to remain committed to our responsibility to promote tolerance, justice and human dignity. We must build on the momentum of ending all forms of racism and racial discrimination, human trafficking and any form of slavery in the world today. The Group of Asia-Pacific States remains concerned about the persistence of modern-day slavery, despite the progress made to prohibit it under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As of 2021, approximately 50 million people were estimated to remain entrapped by the scourge of modern slavery, either forced to work against their will or confined in a marriage they were forced into. The impact of the coronavirus disease pandemic, climate change and armed conflicts led to unprecedented levels of underemployment and unemployment and increases in extreme poverty and forced and unsafe migration, while displaced women and girls are reported to endure increasing violence. In that regard, we must take collective action to reduce inequalities, eliminate racial discrimination and end modern slavery. The global community must redouble its efforts to bring an end to that injustice. To not do so is to be complicit. We should ask why poverty and deep social stratification leading to human bondage persist. No adult or child should be subject to the barbaric practices of human trafficking for cheap labour, sexual purposes, organ transplants, ancestral debt bondage, bonded or forced labour, domestic servitude or the unlawful recruitment of child soldiers. The Asia-Pacific Group reaffirms its commitment under Sustainable Development Goal 8 and calls on the global community to take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking, secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour and end child labour in all its forms by 2050. As we remember the victims of slavery and the scars of the transatlantic slave trade, let us remind ourselves of our greater commitment to social justice and human dignity.

I now give the floor to the Permanent Representative of the Bahamas, who will speak on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States.

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (GRULAC). Please allow us to express our gratitude to the President for the convening of this important commemorative plenary meeting. It gives us and other Member States the unique honour of reinforcing the value of protecting the international community today and in the future from the wrongs of the past. We also wish to thank Ms. Djamila Ribeiro, representing the political activists fighting for racial equality, for her thoughtful commitment and her participation in this meeting. We also acknowledge the rich recollections by and the optimism of youth representative Taylor Cassidy and thank her for her remarks. Today we are called to reflect on the abolition of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, through the theme “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”. In doing so, we honour and remember the more than 13 million African women, men, young people and children who were forced from their homes, families, communities, countries and way of life. Today we address a global system of exploitation and dehumanization that engendered unprecedented wealth for many nations, begetting death and intergenerational trauma. May we also not forget the indigenous peoples who also suffered and lost their lives due to the immoral and unforgettable acts perpetrated during the transatlantic slave trade. The damage wrought by that institutionalized racist exploitation and torture continues today in the form of racism, hate speech and the malignant prejudices inherent in beliefs and actions, ranging from subtle to grotesque forms of violence and microaggression, which continue to adversely affect people of African descent across the world today. As this year’s theme suggests, transformative education is critical for deconstructing racial narratives, challenging assumptions and promoting diversity. The Ten True Stories of Dutch Colonial Slavery exhibition currently on display here at United Nations Headquarters not only reverberates with a call for transformative education but also underscores the power of telling the stories of our ancestors. We affirm the sentiments of the Secretary- General that “we must learn and teach the history of slavery; the crime against humanity; the unprecedented mass human trafficking; and the unspeakable human rights violations”. Much of who we are as a people and a society is owed to the generations of people of African descent in the Americas and the Caribbean who shaped the communities and formed the identities of the peoples of the Americas and the Caribbean. And today we pay tribute to their immeasurable contributions to our region. Despite the abolition of slavery, people of African descent across the Latin American and Caribbean region and the world at large continue to grapple with the racial, ethnic, gender, economic, social and political hierarchies constructed through slavery’s institutionalization. Even worse, numerous forms of slavery still exist, such as forced labour; domestic servitude; debt bondage; child, early and forced marriage; sexual slavery; the recruitment of child soldiers; and human trafficking, including the trafficking of persons for the removal of their organs. The most recent data of the International Labour Organization revealed that forced labour and forced marriage increased significantly in the last five years: 10 million more people were said to be in modern slavery in 2021 compared to the 2016 global estimates, bringing the total number of enslaved people worldwide to approximately 50 million. In addition, women and children remain disproportionately vulnerable to exploitation through modern forms of slavery. We must therefore take collective action to dismantle the transnational criminal structures that sustain those and other forms of exploitation and subjugation. The Group of Latin American and Caribbean States, along with the Group of African States, led the adoption of resolution 75/314, by which the General Assembly established the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent, a consultative mechanism for people of African descent and a platform for improving the safety and quality of life and livelihoods of people of African descent. GRULAC fully supports the Permanent Forum’s mandate, which includes contributing to the elaboration of a United Nations declaration on the promotion, protection and full respect of the human rights of people of African descent. We believe that such a declaration, the negotiation of which we hope to see concluded by 2024, can open new avenues to correct racial injustices and protect, promote and fulfil the human rights of people of African descent. We look forward to engaging in the second session of the Permanent Forum, which will be held for the first time in New York from 30 May to 2 June. There is still much work to be done to achieve full equity in our regional and global commitment. It is therefore imperative that we take progressive steps towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and the protection and promotion of human rights. The lessons of yesterday should urge each of us to address the evil of slavery today. And in doing so, may we always remember to honour the victims of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, while we also embrace this momentous occasion as a dynamic call to protect the vulnerable in our communities today.

I now give the floor to the representative of Luxembourg, who will speak on behalf of the Western European and other States.

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Group of Western European and other States on the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. I thank Ms. Djamila Taís Ribeiro and Ms. Taylor Cassidy for their testaments. The transatlantic slave trade is an unparalleled tragedy that persisted for more than four centuries and involved unspeakable atrocities and the cruel enslavement of more than 13 million African men, women and children, many of whom perished during the horrific journey across the Atlantic. The legacy of those centuries of enslavement and exploitation has been making itself felt to this day. It is our responsibility to share the countless stories and accounts of trauma of those who were forcibly taken from their homelands and sold as slaves. At the same time, we must also tell and honour the awe-inspiring stories of resilience and defiance of those who courageously fought their oppressors and the inhumane practices of slavery. In order to combat slavery’s persisting legacy of racism, we must continue to teach the history of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade and about their devastating consequences and long-term impact. This concerns all of us, young and old. Every one of us is an agent of change who can challenge and help to put an end to racism and injustice. Transformative education is key. In the same vein, it is critical that we also shed light on the heritage and important contributions of people of African descent and pay tribute to their many achievements. We must ensure that they fully enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms. Moreover, we have to acknowledge that racism directed at people of African descent is an enduring legacy of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. We are committed to addressing the root causes of racism and taking concrete action to prevent and eradicate racial discrimination and combat racism, xenophobia and related intolerance. Racial discrimination is an unacceptable affront to the human dignity of all persons, and we must therefore unequivocally condemn and eliminate racism whenever and wherever it occurs. We urgently need to address ongoing racial inequalities and injustices. To that end, it is essential to renew our commitment to the full and effective implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination and other relevant international human rights instruments on combating racism and racial discrimination. The practice of slavery meant the shameless repudiation of the human rights of millions of persons. Today’s observance should therefore also encourage all of us to act in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, whose seventy-fifth anniversary we celebrate this year. As the Secretary-General recalled this morning, article 4 of the Declaration clearly states that no one shall be held in slavery or servitude and that slavery and the slave trade are prohibited in all their forms. It is crucial to ensure that we comply with our obligations under international law, including the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery. We call on States that have not yet done so to ratify the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its Trafficking Protocol and to implement them effectively. Perpetrators continue to exploit and control adults and children today, profiting by subjecting them to human trafficking, slavery, sexual exploitation, forced labour, forced criminality and domestic servitude. We must step up our efforts to eradicate all forms of trafficking in persons and modern slavery as we committed to in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including by addressing the demand that fosters such crimes. It is only by tackling injustice and fighting discrimination that we can build inclusive societies based on dignity and human rights for everyone, everywhere.

I now give the floor to the representative of the United States, who will speak on behalf of the host country.

I would like to begin by thanking the Secretary-General for his participation in today’s sombre commemoration of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. I stand before the General Assembly as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and as a diplomat who proudly represents my country on the world stage. But I also stand before the Assembly as a descendant of a slave, someone whose ancestors were subject to the horrors of a system in which human beings were bought, trafficked, imprisoned, sold and owned as property in perpetuity. My great-grandmother, Mary Thomas, born in 1865, was the child of a slave. That is just three generations back from me. I feel a profound responsibility to continue to tell her story and stories from one of the darkest chapters in human history, stories of immense pain and cruelty, of struggle and perseverance, and stories of the unsung heroes who do not always show up in history books, but whose lives are nonetheless remarkable. They include people like Maria Stewart, one of the first American women of any race to speak in public about political issues. Maria was orphaned at an early age and received no formal education, but with courage and conviction she became a powerful force in the abolitionist movement and the fight for women’s rights. Her words still ring true today, especially her speeches that railed against the educational opportunities denied to Black women. She told an audience in Boston in 1832, “There are no chains so galling as the chains of ignorance”. We can honour women like Maria Stewart by continuing to teach young people the full, honest history of slavery. That is what makes the theme of this year’s commemoration, “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”, so important. For when we understand our history, we can start to untangle the lasting, shameful legacy of slavery and anti-Black racism. It is undeniable that that legacy is systemic and violent. And it is undeniable that that legacy continues to prevent people of African descent from reaching their full potential even today. We know that structural racism weakens societies; that it makes countries less prosperous, less stable and less equitable; that it undermines peace, democracy and the rule of law; and that it harms everyone. We must not rest until we root out the entrenched systems of racial injustice that exist around the world. The Biden Administration is deeply committed to the urgent work of expanding economic opportunities for Black families, supporting historically Black colleges and universities, improving health outcomes for Black communities and taking important steps to protect voting rights, advance police reform and enhance access to justice. That work also extends to our foreign policy, because racial discrimination and the legacy of slavery are global problems. That is why the United States continues to call for all countries to ratify and implement the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. That is also why we are proud champions of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. We were the only country that made a voluntary contribution to support the historic launch of the Permanent Forum last year. We look forward to the next session of the Forum, because here at the United Nations we must do our part to dismantle structural racism, to end discrimination and fight back against all forms of hate and to continue to elevate the stories of unsung heroes like Maria Stewart and all those who persevered, like my great-grandmother, in the face of persecution. Only by looking to our history  — and that goes for all of us  — and understanding that history can we shape a future that is more free, more tolerant and more just for our children and grandchildren.

I now give the floor to the Permanent Representative of Barbados, who will speak on behalf of the Caribbean Community.

I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the 14 member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). At the outset, CARICOM wishes to express its sincere appreciation to the President of the General Assembly for convening this commemorative plenary meeting to mark the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. We also thank Ms. Djamila Ribeiro and Ms. Taylor Cassidy for their contributions to this meeting. Today the United Nations honours the millions of lives lost and remembers the immense suffering caused by 400 years of chattel enslavement of Africans who were forcibly removed from their ancestral homeland. For a great many citizens of CARICOM member States who are people of African descent, we are faced with constant reminders of that terrible era, as the residual effects are manifested in our daily lives, including in the form of high national debt, persistent poverty, institutional deficiencies and inefficiencies, psychological and generational trauma and pernicious violence and crime. The theme of this year’s commemoration, “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”, is timely and appropriate for this moment. With the escalation of the thrust towards global sensitization to the inescapable and inconvenient truths about the history of slavery and the slave trade among the affected nations and partners, as well as in academia, we have recently seen hopeful, if tentative, efforts to right the many wrongs committed  — politically, institutionally and individually. The international community appears to be finally turning its mind to confronting the lingering injustice and immorality of slavery, by way of atonement and, in some individual cases, by way of financial compensation and reparations. CARICOM is therefore hopeful that the world is moving one step closer to the fulfilment of article 13 of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action in the acknowledgment “that slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been so, especially the transatlantic slave trade, and are among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance”. However, as we take this opportunity to reflect on those past tragedies and their legacy while assessing the efficacy of the International Decade for People of African Descent, CARICOM is challenged again to confront the issues boldly and to take action in accordance with the region’s 10-point plan, which will ultimately achieve our desired objectives. It is in that vein that, for the remainder of the decade and beyond, CARICOM will pursue the establishment of a mechanism for reparations within the context of the United Nations, as well as opportunities for its implementation and the promotion of the universal principle that for every wrong there must be a remedy. We therefore join others in welcoming the convening of the second session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in the coming months, at which we will begin to chart the way forward, and encourage the active participation of Member States. CARICOM is unwavering in its pursuit of reparatory justice for the egregious injury, loss and damage caused by slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. The perpetrators are known, and their descendants continue to experience the benefits derived from slavery and the slave trade. The victims are known, and their descendants are not only still around but continue to experience the deleterious effects of that sordid system. On this commemorative occasion, we recall that our ancestors emerged from those negative experiences as victors, more than as victims, through their own action. In doing so, they maintained their dignity, integrity and resilience, which they passed on to their descendants. It is in their name that we pursue reparations and claim the destiny of prosperity that their greatness and great sacrifice earned for us. It is in their name that we continue to call on the United Nations — and people of good conscience everywhere in the world  — to join in the acknowledgement of the deeply embedded, institutional and human emotional harm caused by slavery, and to promote remediation, enfranchisement and reparations for all people of African descent. Even as CARICOM countries face today’s challenges of small developing States, much of what we struggle to address are the direct and inescapable consequences of colonialism and its counterparts of slavery and the slave trade. We therefore pursue reparations to finally right those historical wrongs and ultimately achieve recognition, justice and development.

Ecuador aligns itself with the statement delivered by the representative of the Bahamas on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States. Ecuador is characterized by its plurinationality; it is a country whose social fabric is made up of Afro-descendants, indigenous peoples, mestizos and montubios. As such, commemorating this day takes on special meaning. In Ecuador, people of African descent have made substantive contributions to the formation of the nation-State and have fought to be present in every area of society. In recognition of that, we join in commemorating the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Some say that the African diaspora is the result of the dispossession and violent scattering of African descendants against their will, forcing them to reinvent themselves in foreign territories, and mustering an innate magical capacity to do just that. That is true, but it is only one way to see it. We might prefer to imagine that same diaspora through the lens of resilience, the perseverance that we have historically embodied and that has led to the writing of a thousand stories of dignity and survival in constantly adverse scenarios. The transatlantic slave trade, which took place between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, led to the violent uprooting of an uncertain number of Africans, an estimated 15 million people kidnapped from their continent and brought to various ports in Europe and in America. It was a shameful process for humankind that divided the history of the African continent into two parts, leaving the route of the enslaved steeped in humiliation, pain, uncertainty and dehumanization. The result was and continues to be the shaping of a new civilization of men and women who were forced to reinvent themselves in order to survive. In his sublime Poetics of Relation, Édouard Glissant beautifully describes a metaphor that allows us to understand the intricacies of the transatlantic slave trade. He says that the sons and daughters of Black Africa traversed three abysses, each of them linked through the fear induced by a common element — the unknown. The first was the dark belly of the ship, which he details with heart- breaking realism: “the belly of this boat dissolves you, precipitates you into a non-world from which you cry out. […] This boat is your womb, a matrix, and yet it expels you. […] pregnant with as many dead as living under sentence of death”. The second abyss Glissant describes was the open sea, infinite in its capacity to receive the chained bodies of the enslaved. This second abyss is cold, wet and suffocating. The excess of “merchandise”, the fear of attempts at rebellion or unforeseen weather conditions wreaked havoc on the boats, at which point the Africans were mercilessly thrown into the ocean. The seabed of this route of no return must be littered with the remains of the shackles and chains released from the lifeless bodies that they imprisoned, becoming irrefutable witnesses to the disgraceful transatlantic slave trade passage. The third avatar, as Glissant would say, is bittersweet, sour and unbearable for those who must have experienced it, but sweet for their descendants, the heirs of those who survived, those who, three centuries later, can sit down to imagine and write about the experience of our ancestors. The third abyss is deep and tragic, like those that came before it, but it is filled with the hope of having reached the New World alive. The African diaspora in the Americas is a collective body of those who survived the three abysses of the ship, the ocean and slavery. Africans were subjected to a forced selection process, and from there they recreated new identities and cultures, founded on the knowledge brought from Africa and in synergy with what they found in their new land. My delegation pays tribute to the victims of the transatlantic slave trade and their descendants, unstoppable in their journey through the impossible. Those who fought against an incomprehensible fate that threatened to take their lives and emerged successfully do not know the meaning of the word “impossible”. They understand patience, rebellion, struggle, resistance, resilience, alliances, strategies. But above all they understand freedom.

No one is born racist. Racism and intolerance are learned. Fortunately, no one is doomed to continue to reproduce racist behaviours. We can always make an effort to learn to be better individuals and to prevent racist behaviours from passing to future generations. Today, when we celebrate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the theme of the meeting, “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”, reminds us that education is vital to fighting racism. According to UNESCO’s definition, transformative education involves not only learning how to read, write and solve complex problems, but also how to collaborate, have empathy and establish connections to other human beings. Those soft skills help to combat racism, inasmuch as they avoid dehumanizing those who are different due to their race, ethnicity or the colour of their skin. As stressed by the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent in its latest report (A/76/302), children of African descent face additional barriers and challenges to their best interests, due to racism and discrimination, which constrain them from realizing their full potential. Furthermore, the coronavirus disease pandemic has negatively affected children’s health, education and economic transformation, with a disproportionate impact on the rights of children of African descent. In line with the discussion conducted by the Working Group, Brazil shares the concern about the large numbers of children and young people, particularly girls, among the victims of racism and racial discrimination. We also consider it important to incorporate special measures, in accordance with the principle of the best interests of the child, into programmes to combat racism and racial discrimination, in order to prioritize attention to the rights and situations of children and young people who are victims of those practices. For instance, in Brazil we teach African history and Afro- Brazilian culture, both provided for in federal law. Furthermore, on 20 November, the day of the death of Zumbi dos Palmares, an important enslaved leader in Brazilian history, we celebrate a national day of Black awareness. Both measures are important in combating stigmatization of people of African descent, especially in childhood. Another educational initiative is the federal Government’s recent decision to dedicate a site at the Valongo Wharf archaeological site, in Rio de Janeiro, to the history and memory of people of African descent. From 1811 onwards, an estimated 900,000 enslaved Africans reaching the South American continent disembarked at Valongo Wharf. According to UNESCO, that archaeological site is the most important physical trace of the arrival of African slaves on the American continent. In learning about the cultural, economic and political contribution given by African peoples, current and future generations will be given the opportunity to better appreciate their legacy. We are very pleased to have Ms. Djamila Ribeiro as the keynote speaker for this event. In 2020, her book Little Anti-Racist Manual  — in Portuguese the Pequeno Manual Antiracista  — received the Jabuti Award, the most important literary prize in Brazil. That book, which helps people realize racism disguised in apparently benign social behaviours and gives people an opportunity to change, is currently being used in schools in Brazil. Therefore, through her work, Ms. Ribeiro is effectively an ally in fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education. In that sense, we recall that, when visiting a school here in America in 1990, Nelson Mandela said that education is the most powerful weapon that one can use to change the world. Let us use education to build a better world free from racism.

The Haitian delegation is very honoured to speak at this commemorative meeting on the abolition of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, on the theme “Fighting slavery’s legacy of racism through transformative education”. My delegation endorses the statement made by the representative of Barbados on behalf of the Caribbean Community and by the representative of the Bahamas on behalf of the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States. This commemoration remains fundamental for Haiti, which has shown the whole world the path to emancipation from the slave system. Through its revolution, Haiti gave meaning to the notion of freedom, equality and the dignity of the human person, which constitutes what should be called the foundation and the ontological dimension of human rights. This meeting allows us, on the one hand, to honour the memory of the millions of people who suffered and died under the yoke of slavery and, on the other hand, to celebrate the fight led by Haitian revolutionaries to undermine the foundations of the slave system and those who followed that path. Haiti, like all countries in the world, has a past, a present and a future. Today this commemoration gives us an opportunity to look back on Haiti’s past — or I should say, its glorious history. For many here, the name Haiti perhaps, or surely, conjures up images of poverty, chronic political crises, natural disasters or miserable clichés, which have been repeated 1,000 times in a Western media that is interested in Haiti only in times of difficulty or when everything is going badly in the country. As the speakers who preceded me reminded us, in particular the Secretary-General, slavery is a system that has had a profound impact on the history of our world. For more than four centuries, millions of men, women and children were uprooted from their native land, sold like cattle and forced to work in inhumane conditions. They suffered the worst abuses, were separated from their families and their culture and were deprived of all rights and freedoms. It is obvious that enslavement continues to be one of the most serious crimes in the history of humankind, as also highlighted by previous speakers. It is important to remember that the slavery system was based on racist and criminal ideologies conveyed by philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, who asserted loud and clear the thesis of the superiority of the white race over other human races, in particular the Black race. That inhuman, retrograde conviction served as the foundation or instrument for legitimizing slavery as a sacred institution that even received the blessing of the Catholic Church. That monstrosity, legitimized by the Black Codes that turned the slave into property, unfortunately lasted for centuries. The Haitian revolution was a fierce struggle against French colonial rule. The slaves fought a war of liberation that lasted more than 10 years, with thousands of deaths on each side. That struggle ultimately resulted in Haiti’s independence on 1 January 1804 and showed the world that slaves could free themselves of their own volition. That revolution had a major historical impact, both for Haiti and for the whole world. It was the first successful slave revolt in modern history, resulting in the creation of an independent State led by former African slaves. Therefore, the Haitian Revolution constitutes a major turning point in the fight against slavery. Haiti was the only country in the world that was both anti-segregationist, anti-slavery and anti-colonialist. Slaves showed that the oppressed could defeat their oppressors. That Haitian victory inspired many national liberation movements and the fight against colonialism around the world, particularly in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. They showed that human rights should not be contingent on skin colour. Therefore, the consecration of Haiti as the first Black republic in the world constitutes an epistemological break with the dominant framework of the supremacy of the white race. It put an end to an entire system of exploitation based on racism and racial discrimination for centuries. The whole world owes Haiti a debt, a moral debt even, for having been what Abbé Grégoire calls “a beacon raised in the middle of the Caribbean Sea towards which masters and slaves turn their gaze, some roaring, others with a sigh”. Today the impact of slavery is visible in many countries in which inequalities and discrimination persist. But we must not forget that it was the oppressed peoples themselves who led the struggle for their own liberation. History shows us inspiring examples of courage and resilience, such as the Haitian revolution, which was the first and only slave revolution to succeed in abolishing slavery and establishing an independent State. In conclusion, the consequences of the slavery system remain present in our societies. We still have a lot to do to eradicate the economic, social and political inequalities that still persist for Afro-descendant populations. Haiti is very proud to have been a leader in the fight against slavery and oppression. It reaffirms its firm will to continue to fully play its role in building a fairer and more equitable world for all. We must fight together against all forms of racial discrimination, racism and oppression to create a world in which every person is respected and valued, regardless of race, religion and gender.

China aligns itself with the statement made by the representative of the Solomon Islands on the behalf of the Asia-Pacific States. The slave trade and slavery represent some of the worst human rights violations in human history, and the transatlantic slave trade is that evil history’s darkest and ugliest chapter. For about 400 years, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, tens of millions of African slaves, including women and children, were transported to the Americas across the Atlantic Ocean. Many died on the way and perished in the ocean. Once in the New World, they were treated as commodities and subjected to inhuman torture. The colonists, on the other hand, used the blood and tears of those slaves to complete their primitive accumulation of capital. The colonial countries became rich and powerful through the slave trade and forced labour. They went on to invade, colonize, plunder and oppress other countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In holding these commemorative activities today, we will remember history, learn lessons and hopefully prevent any recurrence of this kind of tragedy. We will honour the victims of the slave trade and at the same time pay tribute to the pioneers who resisted an evil system and fought for national freedom and independence. The transatlantic slave trade is history today, and the system of legal slavery has been abolished. But its legacy is far from eliminated and continues to plague human society and torture the human conscience. Slavery and the transatlantic slave trade are two of the main root causes of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related intolerance. As Secretary- General Guterres stated, we can draw a straight line from centuries of colonial exploitation to the social and economic inequities of today. To this day, ethnic minorities, including people of African descent, still suffer from systemic discrimination in some parts of the world, especially in those former colonial countries. Their average standard of living is often far lower than that of others, their unemployment rates are much higher, and it is much harder for them to access education, health care and other social services. What is even more distressing and alarming is that, in these regions and countries, there are many kinds of phobias that target specific countries, religions and races, including Islamophobia and anti-Asian hatred. These are all modern aspects of slavery and colonialism, and are the inevitable consequence of advocating the so-called superiority of particular civilizations and conflict between civilizations. To end the wide-ranging and profound impact of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, the international community must act together. It is all the more important for the countries that specifically engaged in and have benefited from slavery, the transatlantic slave trade and the cruel colonization of Asia, Africa and Latin America to show political will, squarely face that dark chapter in their history and shoulder their due historical responsibilities. We call on those countries to take concrete action to fully and effectively implement the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, eliminate all forms of racism and racial discrimination and truly implement the protection of human rights. In early March, President Xi Jingping first proposed his Global Civilization Initiative to the world. Its essential element is joint advocacy for respect for the diversity of the world’s civilizations, the promotion of the values that are common to all humankind, the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and robust international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation. China is willing to work with other countries to promote the implementation of the initiatives of global development, security and civilization, the complete elimination of racism and racial discrimination, the effective promotion and protection of human rights and support for building a community with a shared future for humankind.

My delegation thanks the President for the opportunity to take the floor for our commemoration of the abolition of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. We align ourselves with the statement made by the representative of Sierra Leone on behalf of the Group of African States. Exactly one week ago, in this same Hall, we commemorated the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (see A/77/PV.62), during which we deplored the persistence of racism, fear of the other and xenophobia, and highlighted the inextricable link between racism, colonization and the transatlantic slave trade. The mere mention of the slave trade is enough to raise one’s hackles. It also asks us to reflect on the heresy that made it possible to manifest the most complete and malignant expression of human genius. But above all, it enables us to welcome the vision, the thought, the courage and the determination of those who decided to row against the tide of what at the time was a structural paradigm of the international economic system, a normality that has at times been touted and supported by unjustifiable arguments and convoluted and racist theories. Yes, slavery was and remains the most pronounced insult done to humankind, inflicted on human beings by their fellows. It is a gaping wound that continues to confer stigma and to have consequences for the peoples who were dispossessed of their most robust, intelligent and industrious labourers, men and women who gave their sweat and blood elsewhere in order to produce wealth and prosperity there. Centuries later, those chosen migrants of the very first generation give the impression of hovering between heaven and earth. They have lost their bearings. They are not completely integrated into the place that received them and are completely ignorant of the road that leads to their origins, the land of their ancestors, which itself looks at them with curiosity and sometimes wonder. There is an ongoing suspicion, a continuing incomprehension in the relations between brothers that disperses the energies necessary to envisage the future. In 2023, we cannot imagine the tragedy of this forced migration of Africans to other continents. We cannot measure the extent of this heinous crime, which thanks to its exceptional scope and duration has no equivalent in history. Even if, as resolution 62/122 reminds us, very little is known about the slave trade, it is nevertheless important to remember the following key points. First, the slave trade was practiced for 400 years. Secondly, between 15 and 30 million Africans were the victims thereof. Thirdly, thousands of them lost their lives during their deportation. With regard to Cameroon in particular, whose coast was of major strategic importance due to its geographical location halfway between two major trading centres, the heavy toll paid to the slave trade can still be seen in the remains of the slave port of Bimbia. The tragedy of slavery should lead everyone to reflect on their relationships with others, with foreigners and with migrants, who sometimes have no choice but to leave. That concern is so topical that, centuries later, there seems to be a sort of collective amnesia among certain extremists who believe they can manipulate the collective memory into forgetting the torments of that very painful past and its consequences. That is all the more real as we note with great concern the mutation of slavery into something more pernicious, vicious and octopus-like. We see that slavery in our countries, in which men, women and children are sold like cattle, sometimes at auction. It is in our homes, whereby the people who work in them sometimes have no legal existence and are the property, so to speak, of their protector, who becomes the master and tormentor with all rights  — even the most surprising and which decency does not allow us to speak of here. Yes, slavery is also rampant in our production systems, in which migrants, especially those in an irregular situation, are exploited, enslaved, oppressed and bullied. That haunting drama that thrives under our noses is a new developing tragedy, one that we increasingly accept, sometimes out of ignorance but above all out of indifference and vice. Even if, as a contemporary said, we cannot change a society by decree, the dynamic of 1861 to 1865 must continue and be reshaped to fit its time. While repeated denunciation is good, it would be even better if each of us, individually and in our humanity, reflected on the meaning and the importance of human dignity, in accordance with the maxims of the categorical imperative stated with particular eloquence by Immanuel Kant. Let us recall that the other is me and that all that separates us is total and utter freedom. Like the great people who rose up in their time to denounce and put an end to that dehumanizing and despicable practice, today’s society is full of great men and women capable of taking up the challenge. Those great minds are sitting here in this Hall and must rectify the situation to remove the thorn that brings into question, despite scientific progress, the values and the evolution of post-modern humanity and its capacity for meaning. It is only in that way that we will write history, our common history, in a way that expresses our courage and determination to remedy the degradation of humanity. That story will inspire future generations as that of our forerunners speaks to us. We, the peoples of the United Nations, stood up to express that we had had enough of war by declaring it outlawed, and we did so in order to save future generations from that scourge, which twice in the space of a human lifetime inflicted untold suffering on humankind. We must, with the same force and enthusiasm, rise up to denounce and act in order to put an end to the untold suffering thereby inflicted on humankind, not in the space of a lifetime but on a daily basis. Like the founding fathers of the United Nations, let us proclaim once again and more than ever our faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women of all races and cultures, as well as of all nations, large and small. Let us create the conditions necessary to maintain justice, promote social progress and establish better conditions of life in greater freedom. That perspective, reminiscent of a Panglossian optimism that may make members of the General Assembly smile, raises the following questions, which are in fact a humble invitation to reflection. Can we envisage a unified and humanizing earthly community coexisting with the structures of a world system characterized by selfishness, extreme violence and the hegemonic influence of the global colonizing power of the current production system dominated by liberal pan capitalism? Better still, can a strong planetary consciousness have legitimate power without recourse to strategies capable of symbolically and strategically generating a fair and balanced regulation of the relationship of societies, cultures and civilizations to a co-managed and coordinated Earth? The immediate answer that comes to mind is “no”, for there is no earthly community without a law that guarantees the ideal of a shared Earth through a cross-sectional resocialization that opposes the Pantagruelism of global capital. Think about it. One may wonder about the asymmetry that structures the handling of reparations with regard to the question of the slave trade. The slave owners were compensated after the abolition of the slave trade, and the slave traders received compensation for the losses suffered following the end of their operations. But the slaves and/or their descendants are still waiting for the swallow that announces the spring, now more like a sea serpent. Africa, which has received no reparations, is increasingly concerned. Given that the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action recognizes slavery and the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity — which, from our point of view, have strongly contributed to marginalization, social exclusion and economic disparities, and therefore to poverty and underdevelopment  — the legal and financial consequences must be fully resolved. The effective implementation of the right to development, in particular as a collective right of States, as well as the reform of the international economic and financial system to promote the development of the continent, are among other avenues of redress that can be envisaged and recommended by the various mechanisms put in place at the international level. In conclusion, we remain convinced that reparations will complete the process of internal reconciliation, allowing the souls of our ancestors, who will have found peace in the bliss of the beyond, to help us to exorcise that evil. We must work to bring the deported peoples closer to Mother Earth and reconnect them to the African cosmogony, allowing this native land to find its child prodigies and sing in unison the rallying songs of that time that filled the evenings by the fire and allowed those who were caught up and taken far away to stand proud in the face of adversity, in spite of everything.

We have heard the last speaker in this commemorative meeting. The Assembly has thus concluded its commemorative meeting to mark the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. May I take it that it is the wish of the General Assembly to conclude its consideration of agenda item 122?