A/RES/61/19
Recalling paragraphs 98 to 106 of the Durban Declaration,2 and emphasizing,
in particular, the importance of the “provision of effective remedies, recourse,
redress, and compensatory and other measures at the national, regional and
international levels”, aimed at countering the continued impact of slavery and the
slave trade,
Recognizing the knowledge gap that exists with regard to the consequences
created by the slave trade and slavery, and on the interactions, past and present,
generated among the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas, including
the Caribbean,
Welcoming the work of the International Scientific Committee for the Slave
Route Project of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, which aims to correct this knowledge gap, and looks forward to its
report in due course,
Recalling resolution 28 adopted by the General Conference of the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at its thirty-first session,
proclaiming 2004 the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against
Slavery and its Abolition, 3 and recalling also that 23 August is that Organization’s
International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition,
Noting that 2007 will mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition of
the transatlantic slave trade, which contributed significantly to the abolition of
slavery,
Decides to designate 25 March 2007 as the International Day for the
1.
Commemoration of the Two-hundredth Anniversary of the Abolition of the
Transatlantic Slave Trade;
Urges Member States that have not already done so to develop
2.
educational programmes, including through school curricula, designed to educate
and inculcate in future generations an understanding of the lessons, history and
consequences of slavery and the slave trade;
Decides to convene, on 26 March 2007, a special commemorative
3.
meeting of the General Assembly on the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition
of the transatlantic slave trade;
Requests the Secretary-General to establish a programme of outreach,
4.
with the involvement of Member States and civil society, including
non-governmental organizations, to appropriately commemorate the two-hundredth
anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade;
Also requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at
5.
its sixty-second session a special report on initiatives taken by States to implement
paragraphs 101 and 102 of the Durban Declaration aimed at countering the legacy of
slavery and contributing to the restoration of the dignity of the victims of slavery
and the slave trade.2
59th plenary meeting
28 November 2006
_______________
3
See United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Records of the General
Conference, Thirty-first Session, Paris, 15 October–3 November 2001, vol. 1 and corrigendum:
Resolutions, chap. V.
2