President John Mahama has asserted that the transatlantic slave trade was used as a means to strip Africans of their humanity.
He maintained that the system was built on false notions of racial superiority.
The Ghanaian leader made the remarks at a United Nations event on slavery at the United Nations Headquarters on Tuesday, March 24, 2026.
In his address, the president stated that the historical framing of slavery must be reconsidered, beginning with the language used to describe it.
He indicated that the use of the term “slave” itself risks erasing the identity and dignity of those who were subjected to the system.
“The entire transatlantic slave trade was designed to deny African people their humanity,” he said, explaining that the system was rooted in a racial hierarchy “with no basis in fact or science” that placed whiteness above blackness.
“There is no such thing as a slave. There were human beings who were trafficked and then enslaved,” he said.
“Not if you acknowledge an individual’s humanity and respect their basic rights to dignity.”
According to him, the inhumane treatments committed during the period and the inequalities that followed were made possible because enslaved Africans were viewed as property rather than people.
“The injustices that were born of slavery and carried forward into successive social systems took place because those persons were considered objects, not human beings,” he added.
“When discussing slavery and its consequences, we must always start by reclaiming the dignity of Africans, the humanity of our ancestors who were enslaved, and, as a matter of course, our own humanity,” he said.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
