The data
Every case on SlaveryMap, drawn from public sources and shown with its location deliberately generalized to protect survivors.
631 of 1,631 cite a source · Updated
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Togo TG
The Kadza Yeve shrine took in "yevesi" shrine servants, a form of ritual servitude. As Yeve, every part of the victim's life is strictly controlled by the shrine and there are substantial punishments for offenses. The priest freed the 55 shrine servants associated with the shrine on March 25, 2010, after becoming a Christian.
Togo TG
The priest volunteered to free his shrine servants with the collaboration of Every Child Ministries after he became a Christian. The victim in this case was a 55 year old woman who was taken into the shrine "very young" by her father, but never knew the reason. Because of this she was never able to attend school.
Togo TG
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 and negotiated with the Sovigbenor 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 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 37 year old woman was liberated who had been born in bondage to a trokosi. The practice of replacement demands that if a trokosi slave dies or runs away, she must be replaced by another girl from her family, so this child replaced her mother upon her death. Her story came out in the course of the liberation process. She was one of 126 women liberated from the Sovigbenor shrine.
Togo TG
A logal waga or recruiter lived in the victim's village in Central Togo. She was an older woman who took up to three girls to Nigeria every year to work selling on the streets. Sometimes the girls came back alone, sometimes with her. Some of the claimed to have made the equivalent of $55 a day. The victim wanted to earn money to enable her to take a vocaitonal apprenticeship, since her family was no longer able to pay for schooling for the children. The Waga agreed to pay for the victim's trip and deduct it from future wages. One night the victim took $3 from the family's money, packed a few clothes in a plastic bag and went to meet the waga. She and another girl and the waga walked to the highway and caught a car, changing vehicles and drivers many times. Eventually they ended up in Cotenou, a city in the southeast part of Benin near Nigeria. The girls were hidden for two days in a house, then smuggled into Nigeria in a car taking a back road.