The Slave Route, is an Intercultural project administered, coordinated and monitored by the UNESCO Department of Intercultural Dialogue and Pluralism for a Culture of Peace.
The transatlantic slave trade, a determining factor in the world economy of the 18th century, was the biggest deportation in history. Millions of Africans, women, men and children were torn from their homes, deported to the American continent and sold.
Launched 1994, the Slave Route Project aims on the one hand to study and get to know the profound causes and modalities of the slave trade, and on the other hand, to underline the interactions generated by it, in the Americas, West Indies and the Indian Ocean.
The stakes are historical truth, peace, development, Human Rights, memory and intercultural dialogue.
The challenge set to the international community, through this scientific project, is to link historical truth on a hidden tragedy in order to highlight intercultural dialogue originated from forced encounters between millions of Africans, Amerindians, Europeans in the Americas and West Indies, in addition to forgotten parts of slavery: the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean.

Information source: UNESCO Documentation Centre, UNESCO Intercultural Dialogue web site