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 70 year old woman was sent into shrine slavery when she was too young to remember her age, and spent most of her life in servitude. She was later told that her grandfather had got into a quarrel with someone over a palm plantation, and the other party had cursed their family at the shrine. When family members died, it was believed that they needed to present a young virgin girl to atone for the grandfather’s crime by living a life of slavery. The victim was not the only very young girl at the shrine. Three others of her age range were there at the same time. Her duties included sweeping the compound, gathering firewood from the forest, selling firewood at the market, and working the priest’s farm with a short-handled hoe. The priest received all the money and all the crop. The victim was plagued by hunger, so she sometimes picked unripe mangoes and hid them under leaves in the forest until they ripened. She was very angry at her family for sending her into servitude. 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. This victim was one of 264 who were liberated that day along with their children (a joint liberation involving three shrines of which Dzoli was one).
Documented on the original SlaveryMap (2008–2016). Use “Report a problem” below to add a source or flag an issue.