ACCRA – Prime Minister Mia Mottley has renewed CARICOM’s demand for reparatory justice, urging global leaders in Ghana to move beyond acknowledgement of slavery and confront its lasting harm, declaring there should be “no retreat on repair”.
Addressing the NEXT STEPS 2026 High-Level Consultative Conference in Accra, the Ghanaian capital, on Thursday, Mottley urged the international community to move beyond acknowledging the horrors of slavery and take meaningful action to address its enduring effects.
Building on earlier CARICOM advocacy and UN resolutions, the Accra meeting brings together African and Caribbean policymakers, academics, civil society organisations and international partners to discuss the implementation of a landmark United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning the historic trafficking of enslaved Africans.
She noted that while societies today readily condemn many forms of wrongdoing, there has not been the same level of global consensus when it comes to slavery.
“We have not found the moral courage to state unanimously across humanity that this grave crime against humanity that persisted for centuries ought to be declared so by all.
“That others choose to remain silent is a reflection of them, not of us.”
Speaking on behalf of CARICOM, Mottley said the gathering represented an important moment in the push for reparatory justice.
“We in CARICOM have been fighting now for virtually a decade on this issue of reparations,” she said.
“We believe that this effort to bring all of our global partners here together in Accra will allow for this too to be regarded as a historic moment.”
The prime minister also reflected on Barbados’ own role in the history of slavery, noting that the island’s 1661 Slave Code predated France’s Code Noir by two decades and became a model for similar laws elsewhere.
“Regrettably, our parliament was the first parliament… to establish the 1661 Slave Code.
“That slave code came to be mimicked, copied exactly in some of the colonies of the United States of America and the Caribbean, and in others, used as a platform for their own slave laws.”
Mottley said the classification of enslaved Africans as property stripped them of their dignity and denied them the freedom to make choices about their own lives.
“It is the categorisation of us as subhuman. It is the categorisation of us as chattel, as property, that stripped us of our dignity first and foremost, but equally removed from us the choices that are necessary in life to truly express freedom.”
The prime minister stressed that calls for reparations were not rooted in hostility or division, but in the need for healing.
“There should be no retreat on repair,” she said.
“The language used from this platform this morning is not one of aggression, is not one of violence, but it is one of the necessities for healing for humanity.”
Mottley also highlighted CARICOM’s revised 10-point plan for reparatory justice, which she said had been shared with conference participants. The plan includes calls for a formal apology, cultural restitution, public health initiatives, education and training, debt relief and compensation for the enduring impacts of slavery and colonialism.
She urged African and Caribbean nations to remain united in pursuing those goals, warning against allowing divisions to undermine progress
“These committees, however, will only mean something if we can stay together united and not allow division yet again to be the anchor for those who want to win against us.”
Mottley added that reparations should not be viewed as charity but as a matter of justice:
“Once that process is started, then it becomes easier for us to engage, not as an act of charity, as you have heard from these platforms, but as an act of justice.”
She further called on participants to remain steadfast in the pursuit of accountability and repair:
“Our role is to ensure that there is no retreat from our requests and that we recognise that repair comes after recognition.
“For in all that we do in the rest of our lives where damage is perpetrated, repair is always required.”
(SM)
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