Rabi Khoury Boulay

You just need to be 18 and to be able to produce documents or DNA results that show some ties to the continent.

And you can't be the citizen of another Sub-Saharan African country.

It's not necessarily for people who are looking to relocate to Benin and make a life here.

It's more about having a formal connection to the country.

There is also a political aspect to all of this, which is that proponents of reparations endorse what they call a right of return for the descendants of enslaved people.

So ultimately, the hope is a larger resettlement scheme will be funded by the countries that benefited from slavery, mostly in Europe.

But these programs by African nations can, in the meantime, keep the issue alive and strengthen ties between the continent and the diaspora.