18/06/2026
Minister Grange Attending Ghana Conference on Reparations
Kingston, June 17 - The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, the Honourable Olivia Grange, representing the Prime Minister, Dr the Most Honourable Andrew Holness, is leading Jamaica’s delegation to a conference in Ghana to advance Africa’s push for reparatory justice after the adoption of the landmark United Nations (UN) resolution declaring the trafficking of enslaved Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.
Heads of states and governments, ministers, civil society representatives, historians, researchers and legal experts representing more than 80 countries are in the Ghanian, capital, Accra, for the three-day event, billed Next Steps, which started today, June 17 on Wednesday. It is the first major gathering on the issue since the resolution was adopted.
Minister Grange is accompanied by Jamaica’s Ambassador to Ghana, His Excellency Lincoln Downer, the Principal Director for Culture in the Ministry, Ms Jo-anne Archibald, the Co-Chair of the National Reparations Committee, Mrs Laleta Davis Mattis, and the Executive Director of the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission JCDC), Mr Lenford Salmon.
The Conference will offer a platform to translate international intention into actionable commitments through a broad stakeholder dialogue to advance historical justice and reparations for Africans and people of African descent.
It will further inaugurate dedicated expert panels on reparatory justice, the return of cultural artefacts, and legal pathways, mandated to provide sustained technical guidance in support of implementation.
On June 19 the Conference will feature an event at Osu Castle - a 17th-century fortress in the Accra - built by the Danish that served as a hub for the transatlantic slave trade. The event is to honour Juneteenth, (June 19) which marked the end of slavery in the United States. It specifically commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to announce that the Civil War had ended and that the enslaved were finally free - more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Conference comes nearly three months after the UN General Assembly voted to adopt a proposal by Ghana on behalf of African Union member states to recognise the trafficking of enslaved Africans and the racialised chattel enslavement of people from the continent as the gravest crime against humanity.
A total of 123 states voted in favour of the proposal while three – the US, Israel and Argentina – voted against it and 52, including the United Kingdom and all European Union member states, abstained.
The transatlantic slave trade lasted about 400 years – from the early 16th century to the late 19th century.
