Agave area, Volta Region, Ghana, Ghana
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. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and International Needs Ghana negotiated with the Bekli shrine and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 31, 2003. 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 30 year old woman was liberated who had been held within the shrine for 6 years, from the time she was an early teenager till about 20 years of age. She was later allowed to live outside the shrine under the condition that her life and movements be strictly controlled by the shrine and that she bring expensive offerings to the annual festival. This usually took most of her wages. Her story came out in the course of the liberation process.