Politicians, campaigners, and community groups are uniting for the first time to make “a very distinct and clear call for reparative justice” at an inaugural reparations conference this weekend.
The all-party parliamentary group for Afrikan reparations (APPG-AR), a group of cross-party MPs, is hosting its first reparations conference in Euston in north London to collectively agree on a common statement with stakeholders and grassroots campaigners that can be used by MPs to push forward a policy for reparative justice in the House of Commons.
Reparative justice is not just about money, added Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the Streatham MP and chair of the APPG-AR. “We want commitments that go far beyond financial compensation,” she said. “Understandably, there may be some financial compensation payments to be made. [But] reparative justice has to go much further, it has to go towards equity, repairing all the damage that was done as a direct consequence of the trafficking and enslavement of Africans.”
The conference will also discuss the restitution of valuable stolen African artefacts and ancestral remains held in the collections of museums and other institutions in the UK.
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