African leaders are leading a growing global movement demanding compensation for the slave trade and colonial-era injustices. The African Union and its Caribbean counterpart discussed plans to address reparations.

“It is time for Africa — whose sons and daughters had their freedoms controlled and were sold into slavery — to also receive reparations,” said Ghana‘s President Nana Addo Akufo-Addo at a recent reparations conference held in Ghana’s capital, Accra.

Akufo-Addo’s demand for compensation for the millions of African people sold into slavery, and for other colonial-era injustices inflicted on the continent, are part of a growing world-wide push for compensation.

In the latest sign of the movement’s increasing momentum, delegates at the Accra Reparation Conference last week agreed to establish a global reparation fund.

The African Union (AU) and the 20-member Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM, are partnering to form what AU Commission Vice-Chair Monique Nsanzabaganwa called “a united front” to right historical injustices and ensure the payment of reparations.

Speaking at the conference, Nsanzabaganwa stressed that Africa had “borne the brunt of history’s injustices, and endured the ramifications of a past marked by slavery, colonization and exploitation.”

“We must acknowledge that these injustices have had a long-term impact, the consequences of which are still felt today,” she said.

“The demand for reparations is not an attempt to rewrite history or to continue the cycle of victimization. It’s a call to recognize the undeniable truth and right the wrongs that have gone unpunished for far too long and continue to thrive presently,” Nsanzabaganwa added.

Details on how the global fund would operate are still fuzzy.

Millions of kidnapped Africans