President John Dramani Mahama has urged the United Nations and the global community to formally recognise the transatlantic slave trade and the racialised chattel enslavement of Africans as a grave crime against humanity, emphasizing the need for truth, justice, and reparatory measures.
Speaking at the United Nations High-Level Special Event on Reparatory Justice in New York on March 24, 2026, President Mahama stressed that language shapes history and consciousness. He explained that how we describe past atrocities matters, and that the word “slave” diminishes the humanity of those who suffered.
“There is no such thing as a slave. There were human beings who were trafficked and then enslaved by people who believed they could own them as property,” Mahama told delegates.
He highlighted that this distinction is essential to acknowledge the full scope of injustice inflicted upon millions of Africans over four centuries.
Mr. Mahama provided a detailed account of the transatlantic slave trade, noting the brutal conditions under which Africans were captured, transported, and forced into labor on plantations across the Americas, the Caribbean, and parts of South America.
He described how enslaved people were stripped of their names, identities, and dignity, often branded or subjected to extreme violence.
“The entire transatlantic slave trade was designed to deny African people their humanity, predicated on a false racial hierarchy that deemed whiteness superior and blackness inferior,” he said. He warned that historical revisionism, such as textbooks that describe enslaved Africans merely as “workers,” risks downplaying the brutality of these crimes and undermining efforts toward justice.
Mahama also raised concern over modern erasure, noting that some U.S. states have removed Black history content from school curricula, restricted discussions on slavery and racism, and banned books addressing these topics. “Violence begins with language. Erasing history allows injustice to continue in subtle ways,” he said.
He urged the UN to adopt a resolution that formally recognises the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as a crime against humanity. According to Mahama, this resolution would serve as a global acknowledgment of the suffering of approximately 18 million men, women, and children whose lives, families, and communities were stolen over centuries.
“This resolution is a pathway to healing, reparative justice, and a safeguard against forgetting,” Mahama said, calling on all nations to confront history honestly and preserve the dignity of the victims.
Concluding his address, Mahama emphasized the importance of reclaiming humanity for the victims and their descendants, saying that recognizing the full horror of the transatlantic slave trade is essential to building a just and equitable future for all.
