Records of French slaves to be inscribed on UN world heritage register
Several hundred documents and items revealing the names and other details of victims of slavery in France's colonial empire is being added to UNESCO's Memory of the World register.
This latest addition, which the UN cultural agency approved last week, marks the first time that France has pushed for the inscription of documents on the UNESCO register that were previously archived in France's present-day overseas territories.
The Memory of the World program and register was set up in 1992 to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time, according to UNESCO.
The documents date from between the 17th and 19th centuries, from places including the modern-day nations of Haiti, Mauritius and Senegal and the French overseas territories of Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Mayotte, Martinique and Reunion.
They represent just a fraction of some 4 million people "enslaved in the French colonial empire, whether victims of trafficking or born locall