International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery

Madam Chair of the Permanent Council, Ambassador María del Carmen Roquebert León; the Honourable Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro; the Honourable Assistant Secretary General, Nestor Mendez; esteemed fellow ambassadors.

The Dominican delegation wishes to thank Her Excellency Epsy Campbell Barr, Vice President of the Republic of Costa Rica; Mr. Luis Almagro, Secretary General of the OAS; Commissioner Margarette May Macaulay, Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons of African Descent and against Racial Discrimination of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR); Ms. Maricarmen Plata, Secretary for Access to Rights and Equity; and the other speakers for their presentations.

At the forty-sixth regular session of the General Assembly in 2016, our foreign ministers adopted the Plan of Action for the Decade for People of African Descent in the Americas (2016-2025), which sought, among other things, to foster greater awareness of the situation faced by people of African descent in the Americas and to guarantee their full participation in social, economic and political life. Later, in 2018, our Organization established by resolution the Inter-American Week for People of African Descent in the Americas as part of the activities to be carried out in the framework of social inclusion.

The primary objective of that resolution is to remember the legacy of slavery and the slave trade, and their consequences for the lives of people of African descent. It likewise raises awareness of the importance of the diversity of the heritage and culture of people of African descent in our region and of valuing their contributions to the development of society. Today, with all due solemnity, we hold this special meeting to commemorate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Madam Chair, for more than five hundred years, since the founding of Santo Domingo, the first city of the Americas, on what was then the island of Hispaniola, what is today the Dominican Republic has had an African presence. According to data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), close to 30% of the population of our continent is of African descent, and of these nearly half are children and adolescents under eighteen.

At present, close to 75% of our country’s population is of African descent or African heritage, with great diversity and a mixture of cultures linked also to the Spanish and indigenous populations, among others. The African component is therefore an important element of Dominican identity.

The contribution of the population of African descent reaches every element of social, political, economic and cultural life. In public life we have had several presidents and great political leaders of African descent, as well as recognized professionals in fields such as medicine, education, journalism, law, economics and communication, to name only a few; our music, our dance, our sport are all enriched by the contributions of this part of our heritage and cultural identity. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we recognize that, like the great majority of the countries of the Hemisphere, we face great challenges in ensuring that our inhabitants have ever greater social inclusion, education, health services, training and employment, to which end the Dominican Government works tirelessly.

We must keep striving to improve the living conditions of the populations of African descent on our continent, recognizing in many cases the intergenerational dimension of the chronic poverty that still affects this part of the population. Our Organization must continue to lead that process with events such as the Inter-American Week for People of African Descent in the Americas, so that they serve as a call to reflection and to action in order to reach higher levels of social inclusion of people of African descent in our region.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.