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Ghanaian President John Mahama will, on March 25, 2026, table a United Nations resolution formally declaring the Transatlantic Slave Trade the gravest crime against humanity.
The draft resolution, Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialised Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity, is scheduled for consideration and adoption by the UN General Assembly on March 25.
Ghana is leading the cause as the African Union (AU) Champion on Reparations, in collaboration with the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) and all people of African descent.
According to the Ghanaian Foreign Minister, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, the West African country has a moral obligation to pursue justice, reparatory restoration and healing as the country with the highest number of slave forts and castles where over 12 million ebslaved Africans were trafficked, killed and endured abuse.
The resolution will be considered on the 2026 International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the Ghanaian Foreign Ministry described the draft resolution as a historic one that marks a recognition of a “truth long known across the world”.
President Mahama is ready to lead Africa and all people of African descent to table a historic UN Resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity on March 25, 2026.
As the country with the highest number of slave forts and castles where… pic.twitter.com/RByYO6CrOM
— Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa (@S_OkudzetoAblak) March 19, 2026
It added that naming the Transatlantic Slave Trade the gravest crime in history is not only symbolic but the “beginning of a reckoning with the structural inequalities that underpin debt asymmetries, development gaps, climate vulnerability and global financial governance”.
“The resolution would formally declare the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialised Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity by reason of the definitive break in world history, scale, duration, systemic nature, brutality and enduring consequences that continue to shape socio-economic realities and structural inequalities across the world,” the statement read in part.
The African Union has endorsed the rsolution would be the first comprehensive resolution on Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the 80-year history of the United Nations.
Ghanaian Foreign Ministry added that the country will continue to advance multilateral efforts on reparatory justice within the framework of the African Union’s Decade of Action on Reparations and African Heritage (2026-2036) following the adoption of the resolution.
A High-Level Event on Reparatory Justice for the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialised Chattel Enslavement will follow at UN Conference Room 3 at 10:00 am the same day.
