An­drew Gioan­net­ti

If peo­ple of African de­scent are grant­ed re­spect, pro­tec­tion and ful­fill­ment of all hu­man rights and fun­da­men­tal free­doms by 2024, the main ob­jec­tives of the Unit­ed Na­tions' In­ter­na­tion­al Decade of Peo­ple of African De­scent will be met.

The Decade of Peo­ple of African De­scent, which was for­mu­lat­ed through the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in De­cem­ber, 2013, came in­to ef­fect on the first day of this month and will con­clude on De­cem­ber 31, 2024. The theme is, Peo­ple of African De­scent: Recog­ni­tion, Jus­tice and De­vel­op­ment.

T&T's ob­ser­vance is be­ing pro­mot­ed by the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of T&T (ES­CTT), which held a na­tion­al launch at Li­ons Cul­tur­al Cen­tre, Fitzblack­man Dri­ve, Wood­brook on Jan­u­ary 21.

Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Camille Robin­son-Reg­is (on be­half of op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley), head of the Kendra Prachar Or­gan­i­sa­tion Shri Ravi Ji, re­gion­al am­bas­sadors, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Unit­ed Na­tions, lo­cal re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions, and the ES­CTT, wel­comed the com­mit­ment to end racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and pro­mote the con­tri­bu­tion of African cul­ture in T&T and glob­al­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to the ES­CTT, "As part of the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the pro­gramme of ac­tion to sup­port the decade, the In­ter­gov­ern­men­tal Work­ing Group has ar­gued that de­spite a num­ber of ad­vances at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el, racism and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, both di­rect and in­di­rect, de fac­to and de ju­re, con­tin­ue to man­i­fest them­selves in in­equal­i­ty and dis­ad­van­tage."

The ini­tia­tive is in­tend­ed to im­ple­ment the Dur­ban De­c­la­ra­tion and Pro­gramme of Ac­tion.

The de­c­la­ra­tion, au­thored in South Africa in 2001 "ac­knowl­edged that peo­ple of African de­scent were vic­tims of slav­ery, the slave trade and colo­nial­ism, and con­tin­ue to be vic­tims of their con­se­quences".

At the launch, UN co­or­di­na­tion an­a­lyst Naris­sa Seeg­u­lam, speak­ing on be­half of UN res­i­dent co­or­di­na­tor Richard Ble­witt, said the ini­tia­tive pre­sent­ed "an un­prece­dent­ed op­por­tu­ni­ty to pro­mote and pro­tect the hu­man rights of peo­ple of African de­scent and to un­der­line the con­tri­bu­tion made by them to so­ci­ety in the Amer­i­c­as and to pro­mote their full in­clu­sion in­to so­ci­ety."

She not­ed that with peo­ple of African de­scent con­sti­tut­ing "some of the poor­est and most mar­gin­alised groups" in the Amer­i­c­as, the T&T arm of the UN "will dis­sem­i­nate wide­ly the Dur­ban De­c­la­ra­tion and Pro­gramme of Ac­tion."

"We will raise aware­ness about the in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion on the elim­i­na­tion of all forms of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion; we will as­sist the state in the full and ef­fec­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion of the oblig­a­tions aris­ing un­der the in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tion on the elim­i­na­tion of all forms of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and in rat­i­fy­ing and ac­ced­ing to the con­ven­tion, with a view to at­tain­ing its uni­ver­sal rat­i­fi­ca­tion.

We will in­cor­po­rate hu­man rights in­to de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes in­clud­ing in the ar­eas of ac­cess to and en­joy­ment of the rights to ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment, health, hous­ing, land, and labour."

The UN rep­re­sen­ta­tive added: "We will sup­port ini­tia­tives and projects aimed at ho­n­our­ing and pre­serv­ing the his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry of the peo­ple of African de­scent. In striv­ing to at­tain over the next 10 years what we are set­ting out to achieve, let us lever­age the decade as an im­por­tant op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage with the peo­ple of African de­scent on ap­pro­pri­ate and ef­fec­tive mea­sures to halt and re­verse the last­ing con­se­quences of slav­ery, the slave trade, and the transat­lantic slave trade. To this end, we must en­sure that all ac­tion tak­en are as a re­sult of the broad par­tic­i­pa­to­ry process of con­sul­ta­tions with NGOs, oth­er stake­hold­ers and civ­il so­ci­ety at large."