For centuries, Africans were reduced to objects and properties in North and South America and the Caribbean. Approximately 12.5 million people were enslaved and taken from Africa, according to a widely accepted figure from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, although some estimates argue that as many as 20 million people were enslaved. To this day, the injurious legacies of slavery, the slave trade and colonialism are manifesting themselves in various forms within and outside the African continent. The impact and harm from the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism and its antecedents has had a lasting and present impact on the entire African continent. It’s resulted in exploitation of land and resources, human capital (brain drain), and cultural trauma (separation of families, etc.). The shape and size of almost every African country is the legacy of slavery or colonialism. ATJLF’s role, therefore, is critical because less explored is the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on inter-African relations. The legacy of colonialism has had a deleterious effect amongst and between groups (e.g. Rwanda, Cameroon, etc) and reparative justice is a critical component to any plan for Africa to reach its potential. 

The continent and its people in the diaspora are at a unique historical juncture in which the impetus for reparative justice is stronger than ever. It is therefore a crucial objective of this programme to facilitate the creation of a platform that will enable African Union to firstly acknowledge its important role in this campaign and then take a leadership stance in the ongoing advocacy efforts. This strand of the programme will support a combination of approaches including purposeful research and landscaping of potentially useful continental reparations initiatives. This aspect of the project is also intended to facilitate a dialogic process for collective advocacy and the co-creation of an action plan on reparation. This will be done through grant-making and convenings; knowledge production and redistribution, as well as narrative-setting and building. The campaign under this strand will seek to foster an acknowledgement, by perpetrators, for crimes committed during slavery, slave trade and colonialism; and will support solidarity initiatives among victims of harms suffered during slave trade and colonialism. Through a comprehensive  mapping of specific forms of reparation initiatives, this aspect of the programme will promote narratives that are best suited for restoring dignity and remedying injustices on impacted populations in Africa and diaspora communities.  The ATJLF will also seize momentum of the growing interest in reparations in the US, Europe, the Caribbean and other parts of the world, to support the growing movements in Africa in advocating for reparations from a trans-continental perspective.