International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is an honor to join you for the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Thank you to everyone involved, in particular the Permanent Delegation of the African Union, for bringing us together.

To me, this day is associated with three things above all: first, an important moment of commemoration; second, a sense of gratitude; and third, a call to action.

First of all, commemoration.

The United Nations may have a short history. But we have a long memory.

Today, we remember the more than 15 million people abducted from their homes in Africa and taken by force to the Americas, bought and sold, exploited, robbed of their dignity, and often killed.

We recoil at the horrors of a crime that lasted over 400 years - a crime all the more reprehensible for the complicity of so many countries that conducted and condoned it in the name of “commerce”. These countries never paid a monetary price for the wealth they gained through slavery, but they incurred a terrible cost in the form of the entrenched racism we battle to this day.

And yet, today is also a day on which I feel gratitude.

Gratitude for the heroes who opposed, and ultimately vanquished, slavery.

Gratitude, too, for the enormous contributions of people of African descent to our world - in the sciences and the arts, in academia and sports, in politics, law, civil rights and international affairs.

One descendant of slaves made history at the United Nations itself: Ralph Bunche, the first African-American to win a Nobel Prize and one of the most respected international civil servants in the history of our Organization.

He once said that, “the world being as it is, there is no easy or quick or infallible approach to peace. It is only by patient, persistent, undismayed effort, by trial and error, that peace can be won.”

And in that spirit of persistent, undismayed effort, today is also a call for action.

For much as we celebrate the achievements of the past, we must never be blind to the suffering that persists.

We must not be blind to the poison of racism and hate that is spreading once again in too many of our societies.

We must not be blind to the enduring legacy of slavery that perpetuates itself through structural inequalities.

And we must not be blind to new forms of slavery that have emerged to blight our world, including human trafficking and forced and bonded labour.

Heeding the lessons of yesterday means fighting these ills today.

I thank you all for being with us today and for raising your voices for this noble cause.