Ghana, Ghana
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but no one has ever been prosecuted under the law. Rather, 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 Gborble 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 50 year old woman was freed who had been slaved for 43 years, since was was seven years old. She was later told her captivity was because her father had sex with another shrine slave. The victim remembers that during her initiation she was dipped into cold water containing smelly herbs, her head was shaved, she was given a rope that she had to wear around her neck to show she belonged to the shrine, and she had to go through a ritual dance. After many years of enslavement in the shrine she was given partial release, but this arrangement did not end her slavery. The shrine still controlled who she married and where she lived and travelled, and she was fined for the least mistake and required to attend the annual festival every year and to bring sacrifices so expensive that getting them together still dominated her life all year long.