Every year on March 25, the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade offers the opportunity to honor and remember those who suffered and died at the hands of the brutal slavery system.

Slave Auction Advertisement

• The transatlantic slave trade resulted in a vast and still unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside America.
• Approximately 1.2 – 2.4 million Africans died during transport. More died soon upon their arrival.
• The number of lives lost in the procurement of slaves in raids and forced marches to port remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the number who survived to be enslaved.
• The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th through to the 19th centuries.
• The vast majority of those enslaved were West Africans from the central and western parts of the continent sold by other western Africans to western European slave traders, with a small minority being captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids, and brought to the Americas.
• The numbers were so great that Africans who came by way of the slave trade became the most numerous Old World immigrants in both North and South America before the late 18th century. Far more slaves were taken to South America than to the north.
• The UN General Assembly through a resolution on 17 December 2007 declared 25 March as the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade to commemorate the memory of the victims. It is observed every year.
• The resolution also called for the establishment of an outreach programme to mobilize educational institutions, civil society and other organizations to inculcate in future generations the causes, consequences and lessons of the transatlantic slave trade, and to communicate the dangers of racism and prejudice.