A/HRC/24/52 8. In accepting her role, the Chairperson thanked the other experts for her election and the participants for their support, stressing the importance of working together. The Chairperson highlighted that people of African descent were historically marginalized and stated that the session would seek to address racism, xenophobia and racial intolerance in its deliberations under the theme selected over the week of meetings. C. Organization of work 9. The Working Group adopted the agenda and programme of work (see annex I). III. Update and briefings on activities undertaken by the Working Group in the past year 10. Under item 5 of the agenda, the Chairperson presented briefs on the country visits of the Working Group to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1 to 5 October 2012 and Panama from 14 to 18 January 2013. She informed participants that, at the end of the visits, the Working Group had released press statements, available from the OHCHR website.1 The experts thanked the Governments of the United Kingdom and Panama for their invitations and their assistance before, during and after the visits. The Chairperson also thanked the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and people of African descent with whom the Working Group had met during the visits. She stated that the detailed reports of the missions would be made available to the public following their submissions to the twenty-fourth session of the Human Rights Council. 11. Yury Boychenko, Chief of the Anti-Discrimination Section of OHCHR, provided an update on the International Decade for People of African Descent and informed the session that the President of the General Assembly would initiate consultations as envisaged in General Assembly resolution 67/155 and would identify facilitators from among Member States. Pursuant to paragraph 79 of the same resolution, whereby the Secretary-General was requested to report to the Assembly before the end of its sixty-seventh session on the practical steps to be taken to make the Decade effective, Mr. Boychenko also reported that the Secretariat had dispatched a questionnaire to Member States and other stakeholders, including NGOs, for contributions to the report. 12. The Working Group was congratulated by Brazil, China, Gabon, Jamaica and Senegal, all of which expressed their support. IV. Summary of deliberations Thematic analysis: discussion and analysis of recognition through education, cultural rights and data collection 13. Ahmed Reid, Professor of History at City University of New York, presented on the topic, “The transatlantic trade in Africans: Recognition through data analysis”. Mr. Reid began his presentation by establishing that the transatlantic trade in Africans, which is today considered a crime against humanity, had been a State-sanctioned capitalist venture. He also stated that it had been a racialized trade that involved mainly Africans as victims 1 4 See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12645&LangID=E and www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12948&LangID=E, respectively.