Registration details can be found in the Journal Officiel.
According to its website, the Association des descendants d’esclaves noirs et leurs amis (ADEN) was created following the French parliament's decision to vote for a law declaring the slave trade and slavery as crimes against humanity on 10 May 2001.
Founded in September 2001 by Marcel Rosette (1925-2005), a former senator and mayor and a slave descendant, it was successively chaired by Serge Hermine, a university professor and member of the Comité pour la Mémoire de l’Esclavage, Jean Metellus, a professor of medicine and writer, and Daniel Voguet, a lawyer at the Court of Paris and a human rights activist.
ADEN focuses on the duty to remember (devoir de mémoire). It has called for school curricula and history and humanities research programmes to give the slave trade, slavery and colonialism the attention they deserve. ADEN has also requested the creation of a 'National Center for the History of the Slavery and the Slave Trade'.
ADEN fights against racism and discrimination in all its forms. It wants to replace the sombre memory of the triangular trade with positive human interactions by creating a triangular brotherhood between Europe, Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Americas.
ADEN also proposes to take action for the right to reparation for people who have suffered from the oppression of the slave trade and colonialism, carried by countries that are now members of the European Union.
ADEN sees reparations as a mean of establishing better relations between European countries and the global south, allowing these countries to experience non-imposed and well-handled development, capable of meeting the present and future interests of their people.
After its creation in 2001, following the vote of the Taubira law, ADEN (then called the Association de descendants d’esclaves noirs pour une fraternité triangulaire) stated the following:
'Following the French parliamentary vote on 23rd May 2001 of the law recognising the slave trade and slavery as a crime against humanity, ADEN intends to contribute to the duty to remember this historical period and, specifically, to fight against racism; ADEN intends to intervene for the right to reparation for people who have suffered oppression; ADEN also hopes to replace the triangular trade by a triangular brotherhood (Europe-Africa-Americas).'
In 2008, the objectives of ADEN are as follows:
- To promote human solidarity and exchanges between people, actors and victims of the slave trade and slavery in order to combat racism and defend the rights of men, women, and children in the spirit of friendship
- To raise awareness by all means about the history of the slave trade and slavery, and its legacies in Europe, Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Americas
- To participate in reparations by working towards improving relationships between France and the countries that were victims of the slave trade and slavery.