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News > Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Caricom Demands Justice for Years of Slavery

  • Caribbean Community Secretariat located in Georgetown, Guyana.

    Caribbean Community Secretariat located in Georgetown, Guyana. | Photo: Twitter / @BarbadosToday

Published 23 August 2020
Opinion

Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley highlighted that slavery reparations does not have to do with money but about justice being served.

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) demanded justice for its member countries, after years of slavery and racism perpetrated by various countries in Europe and North America.  

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Reparations in Focus as Caribbean Celebrates Emancipation Day

Marking the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, Caricom, and through its Reparations Commission (CRC), Caricom advocated for the compensation for damages caused to Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities of the Caribbean during the colonization period. 

Caricom is demanding countries like the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark to publicly apologize for the damages caused to the Caribbean people during slavery. 

In July, Caricom Chairman and Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, issued a statement marking Emancipation Day which read: “I urge all in CARICOM to focus on reparations for the enslavement of Africans on Emancipation Day, 2020. In our region, and elsewhere, we need to have a more thorough-going public education programme on the meaning and significance of reparatory justice for the Caribbean. Further, our governments must ramp up the political, diplomatic, and international legal struggle for reparations. All hands are required on deck as a matter of urgency!”

Apart from Caricom’s Reparations Commission, the organization set up a Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Reparatory Justice headed by the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, 

Gonsalves also urged governments in the region to develop better programs to educate people about the importance of slavery reparations in the Caribbean. 

For her part, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley highlighted that slavery reparations does not have to do with money but about justice being served. 

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