Location: Blue Gallery, New York, USA
Organizers: African Diaspora Council of Switzerland / TrustAfrica Foundation / African Foundation
for Migration and Development
Title: Africa in the Museum / Theme: Reparatory Justice for Africa Through Restitution
This side event at the 4th Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent served as a powerful platform for reclaiming identity, advocating for reparative justice, and interrogating the legacies of colonialism and transatlantic slavery. Prominent voices from the African Union, Diaspora communities, media, cultural and development institutions emphasized the urgent need to return looted African artifacts and to address the historical injustices that continue to shape global inequities today. Key themes addressed included the spiritual significance of looted objects, the need for policy frameworks across the African continent, and the hypocrisy of some former colonial powers attempting to “loan” sacred artifacts back to their rightful owners. Speakers from the African Union, the Nigerian General Consulate in New York, TrustAfrica Foundation, Dakar, Senegal, Teaching Artists Institute (TAI), Baltimore, USA, and the African Diaspora Council of Switzerland (ADCS) took turns to address this important topic. The event, which was moderated by a prominent journalist of the Washington Post, attracted several participants from the UN PFPAD, international organizations, policy makers, public and private sectors, the academy, as well as from civil society. It spotlighted the AU’s progress and Nigeria’s model partnership with Germany, progress made in Switzerland, while others called attention to the inadequacy of mere declarations without meaningful restitution and the need to extend the conversation to tracing and recovering the illicit financial flows from Africa. The dialogue underscored that Africa’s dignity cannot be negotiated—our identity is not a museum relic, but a living, breathing force that must be returned and restored.
Recommendations:
Advocacy Spaces: The dialogue advocates that future conferences addressing African restitution and justice, the Permanent Forum itself, should also be hosted on African soil. Continued participation in international fora outside the continent inadvertently redirects African wealth and labour towards non-African economies, thereby subjugating the African descendants to the perennial condescending visa processes. Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union, Nairobi, the African regional Headquarters of the UN, as well as other African, Caribbean and Latin American countries, are all eligible to host the PFPAD. Holistic Reparative Justice: Demands for reparations must extend beyond looted artifacts to the entire cultural heritage. We must claim justice for destroyed landscapes, dismantled infrastructures, and cultural erasures as well as recover illicit financial flows. The return of looted objects must not be negotiated under “loan agreements”. Models like the Nigerian-German restitution framework should be scaled-up and adopted across Europe. Immediate Debt Reassessment: It is a gross insult, scandalous and historical irony that formerly colonized nations—such as Haiti—are expected to pay former colonial powers for “gained independence” or infrastructure left behind. These infrastructures were built for exploitation with the free labour of the colonized; it is not empowerment! Africa’s historical debts must be reevaluated and unjust loan obligations retracted, as they perpetuate colonial domination in financial form.
Conclusion:
The call from the organizers is clear—Africa demands justice not as a plea, but as a right. The restitution of cultural heritage must go hand in hand with systemic economic redress. True reconciliation is impossible without the full return of what was looted and decimated—both tangible and intangible. Africa is not merely in the museum—it is the museum. Let us now restore its walls, its spirit, and its voice.
Prepared by: Myron Oyinkansola Sotunde-Adesina
International Civil Society Working Group for the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (ICSWG UNPFPAD) Youth Sub-Committee – Regional Lead Italy
