Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley unveils manifesto for slavery reparations

Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, has announced a new manifesto highlighting what she describes as the moral, ethical and legal case for reparations for slavery.

Mottley was speaking at a “historic” conference in Ghana to advance the push for reparatory justice after the United Nations officially adopted a resolution proposed by Ghana, declaring the slave trade as the gravest crime against humanity.

The manifesto is an update of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) 10-point plan for reparations from former colonisers. It introduces new elements, including the disproportionate impact of slavery on women and girls.

The document comes with a particular call for compensation for gender-based violence, outlining data that states “women represented approximately 30% of the estimated 20 million Africans forcefully transported across the Atlantic Ocean,” the Guardian reported.

The plan also refers to estimates that about 1.2 million enslaved women experienced sexual violence.

Speaking on the update, Mottley said that “the compensation for gender-based violence and assault on family” is “no different from the compensation that has been awarded to other nationalities such as the Japanese”.

According to the Guardian, the draft further suggests that climate justice and slavery reparations are “inextricably linked”, adding that there should be a plan to support Indigenous people who were in the Caribbean when Europeans arrived and were the subject of genocides.

“Caricom demands monetary compensation as reparations from enslaving nations, monarchies, churches, institutions, corporations and families, for loss of life and uncompensated labour, loss of liberty, personal injury, mental pain and anguish and gender-based violence, for the victims of Indigenous genocide, the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans and chattel enslavement of Africans, which constitute grave crimes against humanity,” the document states.

The document, which is yet to be endorsed by Caribbean governments, does not give specifics about the amount that Caribbean countries are demanding. It, however, says the plan is “a collective vision for an approach to the pursuit of reparatory justice”.

Mottley, who described the conference in Ghana as a “historic moment”, said, “We live in a world today where people call out people for everything, for misogyny, for sexual assault, for all kinds of behaviour.

But yet 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,” she said, according to the Guardian. “We have equally come to say that there should be no retreat on repair. 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.”

Caribbean governments have, since 2013, been calling for reparative justice from former colonizers.

In March, the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations as “a concrete step towards remedying historical wrongs.”

The resolution urges “the prompt and unhindered restitution” of cultural items such as artworks, monuments, museum pieces, documents and national archives, to their countries of origin without charge, the Associated Press reported.

The resolution passed with 123 member states voting in favour, 3 against, and 53 abstentions. Argentina, Israel and the United States were the three members who voted against the resolution. The UK and members of the EU abstained from the vote.