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Senegal: Slave Trade - Gorée Island and the 'Fragility of Freedom'
IPS, 22 April 2025
Gorée Island, off the coast of Dakar, is a somber reminder of the transatlantic slave trade. Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it embodies both the duty to remember… Read more »
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Africa: UN Forum Tackles Slavery Reparations for Africa, People of African Descent
UN News, 15 April 2025
The calls for reparatory justice can no longer be ignored, speakers at the fourth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on African Descent in New York said on Tuesday. Read more »
Senegal's Gorée Island - Beneath Shadow of Trade in the Enslaved
Gorée Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site off Senegal's coast, stands as a powerful memorial to the transatlantic slave trade while balancing its role as a living community.
The island's main site, the Maison des Esclaves (The Slave House) and its museum, draws thousands of visitors, including many from across Africa. Museum curator Eloi Coly stresses the importance of evolving how the island's history is told, showcasing Africa's vibrant past before slavery.
An estimated 2,000 people live on the Island, where cars are not allowed. Its architectural landscape contains building styles representing different colonial occupations and eras from the Portuguese, the French, as well as the Dutch and English. Gorée aims to preserve its memory for future generations and maintain its role as a global site of conscience.
InFocus
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The Benin government has voted to offer nationality to "people with African ancestry deported as part of the slave trade". Many enslaved Africans were dispatched fr Read more »
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African-Americans are returning to countries like Ghana more than 400 years after their ancestors left Africa as slaves. Many say they want either to reconnect to history or ... Read more »
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The Marina Project is a vast memorial and tourist complex under construction in Ouidah, a coastal town in the Republic of Benin in West Africa. The country ... Read more »
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Senegal is the only African country that has a law criminalizing the Atlantic slave trade and the enslavement of African people. The law passed by the Senegalese Senate on 27 April ... Read more »
A visitor looks out of the “Door of No Return,” from where millions of Africans were forcibly taken from the continent.
