Geneva, Switzerland - The fifth session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent opened in Geneva on Tuesday with calls for reparations and accountability for the crimes of colonialism, enslavement, and systemic discrimination.

"The fight against racism is inseparable from the wider struggle for human rights and human dignity," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said via video message.

"We must recognize specific injustices endured by people of African descent, injustices rooted in centuries of enslavement, colonialism, and exploitation."

Speakers hailed the UN General Assembly’s recent adoption of a landmark resolution declaring the transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of African people the "gravest crime against humanity."

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President of the UN Human Rights Council Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro called the measure an important "step forward towards healing and justice," while High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said he "welcomed" its passage.

Speakers also emphasized that 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA), a comprehensive UN blueprint to address racism and systemic discrimination whose implementation faces ongoing hurdles.

"We must be honest about what this moment demands," said PFPAD member Michael McEachrane, noting that we continue to live in "a racially unequal global economy that grew out of a transatlantic economy built on chattel enslavement and that continues to be premised on cheap access to labor and natural resources in the Global South for the profit and overconsumption of the few, while driving our natural world the brink of collapse."

"Let us call on this session to move beyond incremental progress and the domestic rights of individuals and rekindle the decolonial spirit of Pan-Africanism and the DDPA," he urged.

During the opening session, many speakers highlighted the need for strengthened collaboration among African people on the continent and across the diaspora.

Outgoing PFPAD Chair Martin Kimani stressed that African people on the continent today live under centralized states, a system that resulted from colonialism. He called for acknowledgment of the harms to those communities which preceded the 54 African nation-states existing today.

"If we do not do this, we shall proceed with a language of reparations without an inner content of political independence and the strengthening of Africa from its root," Kimani insisted.

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"Without Africa repairing the fundamental cracks in its foundations, the diaspora will never be whole," he added.

The newly appointed chair of the forum, Gaynel Curry, outlined several primary goals of the current session. These include advocating for the implementation of the DDPA, advancing reparatory justice, speaking and listening to youth of African descent, and strengthening the forum itself.

In pursuing this agenda, Curry emphasized the centrality of Haiti, the first Black republic, insisting that it become the "north star to restitution and reparations for people of African descent."

"I believe the ancestors are watching. I believe the ancestors are not done with us yet," Curry said. "They want us to remain committed to the fight for justice for them. They want us to remain committed to the fight for dignity and equality for us and for those yet unborn."