The Tribune

ON December 17, 2025, the Second International Decade for People of African Descent was proclaimed by the United Nations. Barbara Reynolds, Chair of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent noted that the first decade raised awareness of anti-black racism, and the second decade must bring action.

“It is now time to turn the rhetoric into reality, the acknowledgment into answers and the apologies into action to address the unfinished business of racial justice,” she said. “For reparatory justice to right historical wrongs. For environmental justice, for sustainable development, and for digital justice to assure the future of all peoples.”

The three core objectives of the first International Decade for People of African Descent were:

• To strengthen national, regional and international action and cooperation in relation to the full enjoyment of economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights by people of African descent and their full and equal participation in all aspects of society;
• To promote a greater knowledge of and respect for the diverse heritage, culture and contribution of people of African descent to the development of societies;
• To adopt and strengthen national, regional and international legal frameworks in accordance with the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and to ensure their full and effective implementation.

In the first decade, the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent was established through the August 2021 resolution 75/314. The resolution describes the Permanent Forum as “a consultative mechanism for people of African descent and other relevant stakeholders as a platform for improving the safety and quality of life and livelihoods of people of African descent, as well as an advisory body to the Human Rights Council[…] of the programme of activities for the implementation of the International Decade for People of African Descent.”

Bahamian Chair of the Permanent Forum for People of African Descent

In 2022, Bahamian human rights expert Gaynel Curry was appointed to the United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. Earlier this month, Ms. Curry was appointed Chair of the Permanent Forum. In her statement, she said, “As Chair of the Permanent Forum for People of African Descent, I will strive to ensure that the Forum continues to place the aspirations and human rights concerns of people of African descent at the centre of all its work. I will work to ensure that our efforts continue to meaningfully reflect and bring visibility to the challenges faced by vulnerable and marginalized groups of our constituency. In particular, women and girls of African descent, persons with disabilities, children, youth, the elderly, migrants, and the economically disenfranchised.

“These socio-economic inequalities that plague communities of African descent are deeply rooted in the legacies of enslavement and colonialism and require collective, intentional, transformational responses across continents,” Ms Curry said. “To this end, I will sincerely engage and seek meaningful opportunities to strengthen ties between Africans on the continent and people and people of African descent.”

Statement from Bahamas National Reparations Committee

At the session at the United Nations in Geneva, Chair of The Bahamas National Reparations Committee Niambi Hall Campbell Dean made a session. “Giving honour to the great ancestors whose shoulders we stand on,” she said, “the Bahamas National Reparations Committee congratulates our very own Gaynel Curry on her appointment as chair of this Forum. From an archipelagic nation of more than 700 islands and cays, but fewer than 400,00 people, Gaynel Curry is an example of the great impact that small island developing states can have on the world.”

Hall Campbell Dean continued, “Conversely, the threat of erasure through intensifying hurricanes and rising seas is a demonstration of the devastating impact that industrial economies built upon our enslaved ancestors' backs are now having on us. We were trafficked to these lands and forced to forget our names. Now we live under the constant threat of being forgotten. We are the valuables that were stolen, and our identity is the culture that must be restored.

“We do not call on the 52 countries that remain neutral in moments of truth, but gaslight us by pledging support to this Forum to do this work. To them and those who flat out refuse to acknowledge the gravest crimes against humanity: You will pay us. You will pay.

“We appreciate the structure provided by meeting in these hallowed halls, but note that Pompey, Bookman, Queen Nanny, and Zumbi dos Palmares strategized in da bush. We must ultimately seek our own spaces, free from the funding whims of those invested in our degradation.

“We cannot use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house when we only speak the colonizer's languages. We recommend the forum invest in African language programs throughout the diaspora so we can one day speak to each other without interpretation. We fully support the development of a Global Reparations Fund that values the voice of SIDS, includes African epistemologies, and recognizes your words, Dr Soomer, that, as the wombs of African descendant women birthed capitalism, the hands of African descendant people will kill it at least in its current form.”

“Finally and repeatedly,” she powerfully closed, “Haiti is our north star. If there are no reparations for Haiti, there are no reparations. Reparations now!”

Recommendations

Spit White Lime. This dup exhibition with work by KEEYA and Angelika Wallace Whitfield opens at The Current Gallery in Baha Mar on Thursday, April 16 at 6pm. “Rooted in the cadence of Bahamian oral tradition, this exhibition reflects on storytelling as a vessel for cultural memory, survival, and transformation. Through mixed media practices, KEEYA and Wallace Whitfield reimagine inherited narratives—activating them as living forces that shape identity, community, and place. These works speak to the power of stories carried in the body and shared across generations, reminding us that what we preserve continues to define us.”

Nature Matters: Vital Poems from the Global Majority. This anthology of nature poetry, edited by Mona Arshi and Karen McCarthy Woolf, is the Feminist Book Club pick for this month. The collection calls us to “reconsider nature poetry from global-majority perspectives” and its themes include the climate crisis and the Anthropocene, urban nature, solitude and alienation, protest and radical empathy, and Indigenous wisdom and alternative histories.” Bernadine Evaristo called it “an exquisitely profound and groundbreaking testament to our natural world by many of the most powerful poetic voices of our times.” Olive Senior and Kei Miller are among the Caribbean poets whose work appears in Nature Matters. Join the discussion at 6pm at Poinciana Paper Press, 12 Parkgate Road. For Feminist Book Club updates, register at tiny.cc/fbc2026.