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Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). We don’t have a verifiable source on file yet. Know one?
What happened
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. The NGO Every Child Ministries Ghana negotiated with the Sovigbenor shrine and educated the sfinally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all 126 of its trokosi slaves on December 9, 2005. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a 13 year old girl was freed who had been enslaved in the shrine since she was too young to remember. She had been sent to the shrine to replace her grandmother who had been a trokosi. The practice of replacement demands that when an offense is perceived, it must be atoned for until the end of time, so that if one slave dies or runs away, she must be replaced by another from the same family.
Response and intervention
No one has ever been prosecuted in Ghana under the 1998 law. However, local law enforcement oficers in Ghana as well as CHRAJ (Commission on Human Rights & Administrative Justice) and the National Commission on Culture cooperated in the liberation and spoke against the practice of trokosi at the liberation ceremony. The 126 victims were emancipated in a public and culturally appropriate ceremony. Afterwards they received counseling both immediate and long term. The thirteen year old girl found no stable home environment, so she was taken in at Haven of Hope, ECM's children's home, where she is being supported through ECM's child sponsorship program. She started school in first grade, where she made rapid progress. After arriving at Haven of Hope she was found to be pregnant on arrival. She gave birth and her child was taken in by the home, where she is able to give him motherly care while still attending school. Every Child Ministries (ECM) Ghana One of the main focus points of Every Child Ministries is an anti-slavery/anti-trafficking initiative on behalf of African children. The organization has conducted extensive research into the issue of ritual servitude and follows all the shrines of the area that still hold trokosi slaves. This liberation was one of the fruits of that initiative.