Country
Modern slavery in Togo
12 documented cases recorded in Togo, 2005–2011. Locations are deliberately generalized to protect survivors.
Lake Volta, ghana, Togo
The court, presided over by Mr Emmanuel Davis, remanded two others who pleaded not guilty in prison custody to reappear in two weeks. The decision of the court incurred the displeasure of relatives of the convicts. The rescue operation, which lasted about two hours, was met with resistance from some of the fishermen, while others ordered their ‘children’ to run into the bush on the arrival of the rescue team.
Akonta, Togo, Togo
Friends of the teen-aged male victim returned home with money after working in Nigeria for a year. So they put him in touch with the local waga or child trafficker of the area. He claimed life was too hard in Togo and urged the teen to go to Nigeria to make money, promising him the equivalent of $200 for a year's hard labor in the fields. He and his younger brother knew their parents would not agree, so they climbed on a truck bound for Nigeria with 8 other boys from their village. The trip took 8 days, waiting for passengers some days along the way. The boys could afford to eat nothing but ground manioc. Gradually the truck gathered over 100 people, mostly men and boys, all headed to Shaki in the Oyo State of Nigeria. In Shaki, the boys rotated hard labor in the fields around the town, the crops changing with the seasons. They constructed a simple wooden hut to live in and slept on straw on the floor with a platic tarp over it. They worked every day from before dawn until after dark. They were given quotas of work, and if they did not meet them, their wages were docked or they were beaten or both. Under the harsh conditions the victim's brother died. After that the victim escaped and found a way home. He now has the same financial difficulties as before. He counsels local teens not to seek work in Nigeria and some have listened.
Aflao, Ghana, Togo
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.
Afao, Ghana, Togo
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.
Aflao, Ghana, Togo
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.
Aflao, Ghana, Togo
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. The NGO Every Child Ministries Ghana negotiated with the Sovigbenor shrine community 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 79 year old woman was liberated who had been enslaved there since she was about one year old.
Togo, Togo
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.
Togo, Togo
The victim was a girl who had completed primary school but was unable to go on to attend middle school because of lack of finances. A family friend presented them with the idea that she go to work in Lome. He said he knew someone who was looking for help in their boutique. The victim traveled to Lome with the friend, and the girl was introduced very briefly to her knew employer in Agbelapedo, a busy transit hub. The employer offered her the equivalent of $6 a month to care for her four children and the house and make tea to sell in the boutique, then help out there. However, she found that she was subjected to both verbal and physical abuse as well as food deprivation. She was fed only scraps, but often there was nothing left. In one instance, she was accused of stealing money and was severely beaten. It was eventually found in the son's pocket.
Kpalime, Togo, Togo
A local recruiter called a "navi" (meaning "aunt" or "big sister" in the Kotokoli language) came to see the victim, she was receptive. Her father had died and her mother and stepfather had left her and her sister on their own. The victim knew a Muslim girl must have a dowry in or to marry and knew that many girls went to Nigeria to make money. The recruiter offered just what she wanted--a chance to travel to Nigeria with her to make money to save up for her dowry. The recruiter even offered to pay for the trip. She told no one, but one day got into the recruiter's truck with 50 other Kotokoli girls on their way to Nigeria. The trip took three days. Finally they arrived in Shaki, in the north of Oyo State. They were told to line up so that their future employers could select their workers. A Nigerian woman selected the victim and she was taken to live and work with other girls. A piece of cloth on a mud floor was her only bed. The girls did housework and cooked dishes which they sold on the street. After a time the employer began prostituting them at night as well as working them all day. She was only 11 years old when she was first forced into prostitution. Sometimes they had to go to work so immediately that there was no time for them even to eat. After 2 years the victim discovered she was pregnant. She told the man she thought might be the father, and he paid for her to abort the child by taking herbs. After the abortion, she escaped from that house and looked for work elsewhere. She escaped the prostitution but still had no decent place to sleep and worked all day with no pay. Then her first employer found out where she was and began to threaten her. She'd been at the second place for 8 months when she escaped from there, too. She found another woman who spoke her language, and the woman arranged for a man to drive her back to Togo. The trip took five days. She had virtually no money, so the driver paid for her food along the way. AT the Benin-Togo border she was forced to walk across in order to avoid the authorities, and she was attacked and beaten by thieves hoping she might have something worth taking. She didn't. When she arrived home, the driver told her family they owed him the equivalent of $60. The family told him they would try to save it up and pay him. They are still working on it.
Central Region, Togo, Togo
The victim's father was approached by a woman who offered the daughter a job caring for a child for a family in Lome. She did not mention payment, but the father agreed anyway, sending the daughter with the woman in a taxi to the city. For four months she lived and worked in a house in Lome cleaning, washing, and selling juice on the street in addition to watching the child. If she did not sell enough juice or did not finish all her housework, she was beaten with a stick or locked out of the house to sleep outside. She escaped that house and met some children on the street who spoke her language. They took her a woman who said she needed help selling her rice. The victim agreed, but after four days realized she was being abused there, too. She told her employer she wanted to leave and was brought to the police station. They informed a local NGO and arranged for her to go to the Oasis Center at Lome. After 7 days at the center, her father found her there and took her back home to Aouda.
Tchamba, Togo, Togo
A local "waga" or trafficker of children from her home area contacted the victim whose family she knew to be poor offering her a job in Nigeria. The victim, hoping for the best, did not inquire as to what kind of job she would receive or the conditions of work. The young girl was handed to an intermediary who accompanied the victim and other girls by bus on a winding three-day trip over back roads to Agegai, Nigeria. All along the way they picked up other victims. The victims had no money to pay for their trip, so agreed to work for six months to pay off the cost of their voyage. They had nothing to eat along the way. Meanwhile, the family at home was frantically searching for their daughter. In Agegai, Nigeria, 15 girls from Togo and Benin lived and worked in a filthy kitchen where they prepared food to sell on the streets to local workers. They had quotas to sell and were forced to prostitute themselves if they did not meet the quotas. The victim began to suffer from dysentery and suspected she was pregnant. Then the supervisor threw a knife at her and cut her wrist deeply. She escaped, but alone on the streets she fell victim to another man who held her as a virtual prisoner for three months. Desperate, the victim stole some money and fled to the road station, where she begged a driver to take her home. She arrived home six months' pregnant, penniless, sick, and owing the driver for the trip. She was not welcomed by her family. The grandparents finally tok her in.
Aflao Ghana, Togo
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.