Lilith Dorsey is an American citizen living in New Orleans, but it is in Benin that she could end her days to “feel closer to her homeland”.
In the coming months, the author, dancer and filmmaker aims to take advantage of a new law in the West African state granting Beninese nationality to the descendants of enslaved Africans.
Adopted by parliament on July 30, the legislation is Benin’s latest attempt to attract people drawn to their cultural and historical roots on the African continent — a legacy of a slave trade which left a deep mark on Benin.
Millions of enslaved Africans departed from the shores of West Africa, not least from Benin’s beaches, to be shipped across the oceans.
The law’s text, set to be approved by Benin’s President Patrice Talon, will allow “any person who, according to their genealogy, has an African, sub-Saharan ancestor deported as part of the slave trade” to obtain a Beninese passport.
“What the government of Benin has done is extraordinary and will bring us closer to our brothers here,” Dorsey told AFP.
Officials say the law is a response to the difficulties of “the search for identity faced by Afro-descendants”.