WBO Stands in Solidarity with the Request for Reparations from Black Movements
WBO Press release
April 19, 2024
The Washington Brazil Office (WBO) expresses its solidarity with the collective demand of its partners for full reparations, as a historic and necessary measure.
Joint Manifesto on the Position of the Portuguese Republic in the Debates at the Third United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent
We, Black Brazilian women, through this manifesto, reaffirm our profound disapproval in the face of the absolute lack of a position by the Portuguese Republic during the third session of the Permanent Forum for Populations of African Descent of the United Nations regarding concrete reparation measures for the Black population of Brazilian society for the profound damage caused by enslavement and transatlantic trafficking, which are serious crimes against humanity.
During the period in which the Portuguese slavery system was in force, more than a million people were kidnapped from different parts of the African continent and were immediately subjected to different forms of discrimination and violence. Today, the Brazilian Black population is the largest Black population in the diaspora precisely because of this process. Even after the formal abolition of slavery on May 13, 1888, the Black population remains deeply stigmatized and denied the ability to fully exercise several of their most fundamental rights.
Portuguese expansion is inseparable from slavery. It is essential that Portugal -- a State that benefited socially, economically, politically, and culturally from a colonial system of power and black exploitation -- takes responsibility and offers effective responses focused on memory, truth, justice, reparations, and the non-repetition of such acts.
In this sense, we demand that the Portuguese State:
Adopt concrete and intersectoral reparatory measures in response to the structural impacts of colonialism, slavery, and transatlantic trafficking on the Brazilian reality, including:
The creation of museums, memory, centers and other public facilities that recognize the impacts of colonization on the Afro-Brazilian population;
The inclusion in the official curriculum of the Portuguese educational system the mandatory theme “A History of the Harmful Impacts of Portuguese Colonialism for the Brazilian Context;”
A public commitment to adopting these measures;
The signing of effective pacts and collaboration agreements with Brazil -- as well as with other countries that were colonized by Portugal -- with the aim of promoting reparations through financial investments, safeguarding memories, reviewing nationality agreements and partnerships, and guaranteeing transit between countries;
The encouragement of all countries in Europe founded on colonial systems to adopt reparatory measures for countries in the Global South that were established based on colonial exploitation;
The adoption of effective measures to combat xenophobia and racism against the Afro-descendant population in Portugal.
Geneva, April 19, 2024.
Sign this manifesto:
Marielle Franco Institute
Odara Institute of Black Women
Maré Networks
Agbara Fund
Black Women Decide Movement
Observatory of Whiteness
CEERT - Center for the Study of Labor Relations and Inequalities
