POLL: Should the UK pay reparations for slavery? | UK | News
The United Nations General Assembly voted to officially recognize the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity” and called for reparations as “a concrete step towards righting historical wrongs”. Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama introduced the resolution on behalf of the African Union, calling on the 193-member world organization to “pursue a path towards healing and restorative justice.” On Wednesday, 123 countries voted in favor, while the United States, Israel and Argentina opposed.
Another 52 countries, including the United Kingdom and European Union members, chose to abstain. Although the decisions taken at the General Assembly are not legally binding, they carry significant symbolic and political weight.
Speaking before the vote, Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama said: “Today, we come together in solemn solidarity to affirm the truth and follow the path towards healing and restorative justice.
“When history calls, let it be recorded that we did the right thing in memory of the millions who suffered the indignities of the slave trade and those who continue to suffer racial discrimination.
”The adoption of this decision serves as a guarantee against forgetting. “It also challenges the enduring scars of slavery.”
The resolution stated: “The trade in enslaved Africans and the racialized chattel slavery of Africans is the gravest crime against humanity because of its definitive rupture in world history, scale, duration, systemic nature, brutality, and enduring consequences that continue to structure the lives of all people through racialized regimes of labor, property, and capital.”
Countries such as the United Kingdom have consistently opposed compensation claims, arguing that today’s governments and institutions should not be held accountable for actions taken in the past.
Should the UK pay slavery reparations? Vote in our poll below.
The UK’s UN chargé d’affaires, James Kariuki, said Britain “continues to disagree with the fundamental premises of the text”. He added that Britain “is of the view that we should not create a hierarchy of historical atrocities”.
“No single set of atrocities should be considered more or less important than another.”
With a resolution adopted in December 2007, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated March 25 as the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
For 400 years, seven European countries, including Britain, enslaved and trafficked more than 15 million Africans across the Atlantic. It is estimated that 1.2 to 2.4 million people died during the “Middle Passage”, meaning the arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean.
