Church of England's £100m 'not enough' to address slavery links

church-of-england's-100m-'not-enough'-to-address-slavery-links
Church of England's £100m 'not enough' to address slavery links

After an investigation in 2021 found that the Church of England had invested significant sums of money in a company that transported tens of thousands of slaves, the Church set aside £100m to help repair the damage caused by its historic links to slavery. However, a new report has deemed this sum “not enough”. While the Church welcomed the report by the Church Commissioners charity and accepted its recommendations, it stated it would not commit to raising the fund to the report’s £1bn target.

The group behind the report, which has been looking into the history of the Church’s investment fund, recommends that the money from the new fund should be invested in black-led businesses focusing on education, economic empowerment, and better health outcomes. The report also reiterated calls for the Church to fully acknowledge its involvement in the slave trade.

The company the Church had invested in transported 34,000 slaves in crowded, unsafe, and inhumane conditions over a 30-year period. To address this involvement, the group’s report recommends that the Church should accelerate the timeline for the delivery of the fund and should acknowledge and apologise for its historic denial that black Africans are created in the image of God and for its “deliberate actions to destroy diverse African religious belief systems”.

Bishop Rosemarie Mallett, who chaired the group, said she hoped the report would be “a catalyst to encourage other institutions to investigate their past and make a better future for impacted communities”. The Church Commissioners manage the Church’s investment portfolio and state that £100m is a “seed investment”, which they hope will “grow over time” and “will inspire others to act”. They also recognise that no amount of money will ever be enough to address the impact of their involvement in transatlantic chattel slavery

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