Ouidah, a historic town in southern Benin, is hosting this weekend’s International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. Established by UNESCO in 1998, the commemoration is held every August 23 in reference to the uprising that began on the night of August 22 to 23, 1791, in Saint-Domingue, present-day Haiti, an insurrection that played a decisive role in the long process leading to the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
For Benin, former land of the Kingdom of Dahomey and a major starting point of the Route of Enslaved Peoples, this day carries particular weight. Ouidah was indeed one of the main ports of embarkation toward the Americas, and the Door of No Return, erected on the historic site of the crossing, remains its most powerful symbol today.
This year’s edition places that memory under a theme filled with hope: « From the Door of No Return to the Door of Return. » Rather than serving as a simple act of remembrance, it aims to turn the memory of the slave trade into a forward-looking movement, one of reconnection between Benin and Afro-descendant communities around the world.
Celebrations began on Saturday, August 22, with the memorial march « Our Footsteps in Those of Our Ancestors, » organized by CCOM23 along the routes once walked by enslaved people. The evening continued with the Ouidah International Jazz Festival, hosted by the Ouidah Jazz Brotherhood at the Maison de la Culture.
This Sunday, August 23, most of the program takes place on Ouidah beach. Following the official opening ceremony, an inaugural lecture and several panels address topics ranging from the transatlantic deportation to initiatives for return, as well as colonial-era plunder and restitution projects.
One moment draws particular attention this year. From 4pm to 5pm, the Ministry of Justice and Legislation formally hands over citizenship documents to Afro-descendants recognized as Beninese nationals. The initiative rests on Law No. 2024-31 of September 2, 2024, which grants Beninese nationality to anyone able to demonstrate, through genealogy, that a sub-Saharan African ancestor was deported. The official platform My Afro Origins, launched in July 2025, now facilitates this process of genealogical reconnection.
Through this gesture, Benin is transforming a site long associated with pain into a place of reunion. The Door of No Return, which once saw so many people torn from their homeland, is becoming the starting point of a journey in the opposite direction, a return to one’s roots.
