Pres. Mahama leads global call for reparatory justice, urges world to recognise humanity of enslaved Africans

President John Dramani Mahama has called on the international community to formally acknowledge the full horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, describing it as a deliberate denial of African humanity that continues to reverberate across the continent and the diaspora.

Speaking at the High-Level Special Event on Reparatory Justice at the United Nations Headquarters, on Tuesday, 24 March, President Mahama delivered a stirring address to United Nations representatives, diplomats, and global leaders, emphasising the enduring legacy of slavery and the need for truth, justice, and reparatory measures.

“Truth begins with language, with the power that words hold to shape consciousness and to shift perspectives, to propel an action or other. I therefore offer this truth as a starting point,” he said, urging participants to recognise that enslaved Africans were treated not as human beings, but as objects to be bought, sold, and exploited.

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President Mahama stressed that the atrocities of the transatlantic slave trade were rooted in a racial hierarchy designed to dehumanise African people. He highlighted that millions of Africans were trafficked and enslaved over four centuries, suffering brutal treatment during capture, transit, and forced labour.

“Violence begins with language, when words are weaponised or used to codify abuse,” he said, recounting the conditions endured by enslaved Africans during the Middle Passage, and the stripping away of their identities, names, and dignity upon arrival in the Americas and the Caribbean.

President Mahama cited the historical systems that perpetuated slavery, including the Barbados code of 1661 and the Virginian legal doctrine partus sequitur ventrem, which codified inherited enslavement and sanctioned sexual violence against enslaved women. He rejected attempts to normalise slavery in historical accounts, textbooks, and curricula, calling such erasure “a slow normalisation of forgetting.”

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He also emphasised Africa’s contributions to global development, noting that the wealth and infrastructure of Europe and the Americas were built on the labour, skill, and blood of Africans. “We have paved roads through mountains, laid railroad tracks, constructed buildings, cut sugar cane, picked cocoa and cotton, and descended into mines to unearth precious metals and stones. We have paid the price of admission with the blood of our ancestors, and still what greets us is silence,” he said.

The President called for the reclaiming of African humanity and the dignity of enslaved ancestors as a moral and collective responsibility. “Racial equality, the dignity of Africans, the humanity of our ancestors who were enslaved, and as a matter of course, our own humanity… Truth begins with language,” he said, urging global action to pass resolutions that acknowledge these injustices.

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He cited historical accounts of African civilisation, including the sophisticated urban planning of Benin and the stone constructions of Great Zimbabwe, to highlight the intellectual and cultural achievements of African societies before colonisation and slavery.

President Mahama concluded by stressing unity and compassion: “Our human compassion binds us the one to the other, not in pity or patronising, but as human beings who have learned how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future. We stand united as Africans, whether on the continent or across the diaspora, and in solidarity with people of conscience around the world to seek truth and justice and restore the dignity and humanity of victims of the slave trade.”

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The address framed reparatory justice not only as a historical obligation but also as a contemporary call to action, urging nations to acknowledge past transgressions and create a platform for restitution and healing.