Senegal has a law that criminalizes slavery. One of the articles of the law designates April 27 as a day to commemorate the criminalization of slavery in Senegal.

To date, Senegal is the only African country that has passed such a law criminalizing this appalling act in human history and that has dared to call it a crime against humanity. For three years, the city of Dakar has been organizing events on April 27 and several local organizations, as well as those of the diaspora, support this initiative so that other countries follow Senegal's example. April 27 also marks the date of the abolition of slavery by the second French republic, which at the time applied to its colonies all over the world.

Slavery was an economic system steeped in racism and the atrocities of racism are still very much alive. To describe the devastating impact of the Atlantic slave trade on black people, anthropologist and African studies scholar Marimba Ani created the concept Maafa, it comes from the Swahili word meaning "terrible event or tragedy". It attempts to encompass the actual number of people who died during captures, wars, raids which have yet to be fully assessed, as well as the destruction of traditional social and governmental structures which later facilitated the crimes of colonization. , and even today those of neo-colonization.