Grassroots reparations campaigners will meet this Sunday (27 October) to discuss how activists can move towards concrete policy solutions for reparations on a local, national and international scale.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) is set to host the second UK Reparations Conference at Friends House, Euston.
APPG-AR is a group of parliamentarians that seeks to bring together stakeholders to examine issues of reparations for people of African descent across the world and explores policy proposals on addressing the legacies of African enslavement and colonialism.
Building on the momentum and wide engagement of last year’s inaugural event, this year’s conference is entitled ‘From Acknowledgement to Action’ and will further discussion on reparations for the transatlantic slave trade, colonisation and the continued exploitation of peoples of African descent across the world.
The Conference comes as former British colonies call for the UK government to discuss reparations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting taking place in Samoa.
“Reparations are not about relitigating historic injustices, they are about remedying the deep-rooted inequalities that still shape our world today,” said Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP (Clapham & Brixton Hill), chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations.
“At a time when there is growing awareness of how racial hierarchies that endure to this day were constituted to justify the enslavement and colonisation of African peoples, state led action on reparations is sadly lacking.
“This year’s conference aims to change this by focusing on how we can build support for the policy solutions needed to effect reparative justice on a local, national and international scale.”
The Rt. Hon. Diane Abbott MP (Hackney North & Stoke Newington), conference co-chair said: “The descendants of African slaves and colonised peoples continue to suffer from the consequences generations later. Real reparations aren’t just about compensation, they’re a way of tackling colonialism’s damaging legacy of racism and inequality.
“They are about the total system change and repair needed to heal, empower and restore dignity. I welcome the chance to discuss these policies in proper detail with grassroots activists from across the reparations campaign.”
Esther Xosei, executive director of the Maangamizi Educational Trust, secretariat to the Afrikan Reparations APPG, said: "As one of the emerging political spaces for the globally escalating ‘Battles of Ideas’ being waged over Afrikan Reparations, our International Social Movement for Reparations and Peoples Reparations International Movement Grassroots welcome the opportunity that this conference, will provide for such ideological ‘battling’ with various state and non-state actors.
“We hope that this conference will create space to explore how the APPG can practically work towards realising the All-Party Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry for Truth and Reparatory Justice, as resolutions from Lambeth, Islington and Bristol City councils have already supported."
Equality and human rights campaigner Professor Gus John, who will be speaking at the event, said: “For reparations, think reparatory justice. Colonialism created sustainable generational wealth for the British ruling class, including the Monarchy and the Church, which is evident to this day.
“This is matched by cyclical poverty and vulnerability to climate change in the nations and among descendants of the people that created that wealth. Justice demands that there is restitution and rebalancing so that there is equity in the distribution of life chances.”
The UK Reparations Conference 2024 will run from 10:30am-5pm on Sunday 27 October, with registration open from 9:30am. Conference registration page.
Last year’s event marked 30 years since the first Pan-African Conference on Reparations was convened in Abjua, Nigeria in 1993. Last year’s event included participants from across Africa and the diaspora including Pan Africanist and journalist Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, who is credited as the architect behind the creation of Black History Month UK.
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