GNV News August 1, 2025

In recent years, many African countries, including Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, and Liberia, have promoted policies to grant citizenship and encourage a return to roots for the descendants of people who were forcibly transported from Africa to the Americas as slaves in the 17th–18th centuries, with the aim of strengthening cultural and social bonds. Within this trend, in September 2024 the Republic of Benin enacted a citizenship law with a background and significance different from those of other countries.

Benin is located along the Gulf of Guinea and, during the era of the Kingdom of Dahomey, developed into a major hub of the slave trade, centered especially on the port town of Ouidah. At the time, the rulers of Dahomey raided inland African settlements and sold captured people as slaves to Portuguese, French, and British merchants—a past that Benin has officially acknowledged. Benin has recognized its complicity in the slave trade and has long worked toward reconciliation with the descendants of those who were taken to the Americas as slaves. In 1999, President Mathieu Kérékou visited the United States and issued an official apology to African Americans. In addition, memory sites that convey the history of the slave trade, such as the “Door of No Return,” have become a pillar of tourism in Benin today, and visits by descendants are increasing.

Having a history in the slave trade not only as victims but also as perpetrators, Benin is proactive about engaging with descendants, also in the context of atonement to its ancestors, and in September 2024 it established a law granting citizenship to people whose ancestors were taken to the Americas as slaves, with the aim of facilitating reconnection to their roots. Under this law, those who do not hold the nationality of another African country and are 18 or older can obtain provisional citizenship for 3 years if evidence that their ancestors were taken as slaves from sub-Saharan Africa (such as DNA test results, certificates, public records, or genealogies) is accepted. Thereafter, by visiting Benin and staying until nationality is granted, they can obtain full citizenship. However, even after acquiring citizenship, neither voting rights nor eligibility for public office are granted.

On July 30, 2025, an African American famous singer became the first public figure to obtain citizenship of the Republic of Benin, bringing renewed attention to this embrace of return.

Learn more about the relationship between the slave trade in Africa and today’s society → “Zambia’s Shifting Economy”

Learn more about modern slavery → “What Is Debt Bondage?: The Harsh Reality in Pakistan”

Benin’s ‘Door of No Return,’ with enslaved people sculpted on the upper section (Photo: Erik Cleves Kristensen / Flickr [CC BY 2.0])