Vice President Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang has called for a major rethink of how the history of the transatlantic slave trade is taught, insisting that young people must understand both the devastation it caused and the resistance of Africans.

She said that the history must be accurately reflected in education systems and linked to the broader international conversation on reparatory justice.

“This history should be reflected accurately in our knowledge systems and encourage countries to integrate reparatory justice into their education broadly conceived in all its different forms,” Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said.

She was speaking at a ceremony in Cape Coast following the adoption of UN General Assembly Resolution 82/50, which recognised the trafficking and enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.

The Vice President said education has become an important part of the responsibility created by the historic UN recognition.

“Our young people,” she said, “should understand how the trade operated, how it shaped societies on both sides of the Atlantic and why its consequences remain part of international discussion today.”

She said teaching the history accurately also requires a deliberate effort to recognise African agency.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang rejected a narrative that presents Africans solely as victims of enslavement.

“Africans were more than the people to whom enslavement happened,” she said.

She explained that African communities resisted capture, defended their territories, escaped and organised to preserve their freedom.

“We remember suffering, but we also remember agency, resistance and survival,” she said.

The Vice President said evidence of that resistance remains visible in communities including Assin Manso, Sankana and Golu, where memories of the period have been preserved through oral traditions, written records, architecture and the landscape.

She said a fuller understanding of the history is necessary not only for remembering the past but also for informing present-day discussions about justice.

The call forms part of Ghana’s broader push following the UN resolution, with the government now turning attention to education, preservation, restitution, legal pathways and sustained international engagement on reparatory justice.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang acknowledged that the UN resolution cannot undo centuries of injustice.

“A resolution cannot repair centuries of injustice,” she said.

She maintained that it provides a firm foundation for continuing the conversation and pursuing practical steps towards justice.