In honour of the International Day for People of African Descent, the CARICOM Reparations Commission has issued the following Statement:

“The CARICOM Reparations Commission welcomes the opportunity to join the global community in observing the United Nations International Day for People of African Descent and to highlight the ongoing need for the international community to respect the human rights and recognize the invaluable contributions of People of African Descent to humanity.

In the context of its Tenth Anniversary, the Commission expresses its continued commitment to  global advocacy on behalf of continental Africans and those in the diaspora to press for structural transformation of the world economy, social and economic justice, the dismantling of structural racism, and reparations for the crimes against humanity of the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans and African enslavement.

People of African Descent continue to endure structures of inequality, racism and underdevelopment, born out of a history of slavery, apartheid, Jim Crow, historical and contemporary colonialism, that continue to retard their advancement and deny the full enjoyment of their human rights. The CARICOM Reparations Commission continues to call on the relevant Western nations to acknowledge responsibility and implement comprehensive programmes of redress. The Commission recognizes the significant progress made in the just call for reparatory justice for African descendants in the context of the International Decade for People of African Descent which is now in its ninth year of observance (2015 – 2024).

The CARICOM Reparations Commission further calls on the United Nations to observe a Second International Decade with the requisite funding, to ensure that People of African Descent receive the recognition, justice and development they are justly due.

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CONTACT: CARICOM Secretariat