Trokosi is a traditional practice of sexual slavery in some parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin. In this practice, young girls, usually under the age of 10 and often as young as five, are given to village fetish shrine priests as sexual/domestic slaves or "wives of the gods" in compensation for offenses allegedly committed, or debts incurred, by a member of the girl's family, or for favors sought from the shrine. In Togo and Benin the slaves are called Voodoosi. The Anlo people of Ghana call the practice fiashidi.

The practice continues in Ghana despite a 1998 law mandating a three year prison sentence on conviction. No one has yet been prosecuted under the law. Women's groups, human rights groups and Christian NGO's continue to strive to end the practice, and have won the liberation of over 2000 trokosi slaves by negotiating agreements with individual shrine communities to end the practice in those places.

The word trokosi comes from the Ewe words "tro", meaning deity or fetish, and "kosi", meaning female slave. However, the term is commonly used in English in Ghana, as a loanword.

Categories of Tro Adherents:

1. Those who join the Tro on their own volition and those who were born into the Tro and initiated as children (Trovivo);

2. Those who were born through the intervention of the Tro (Dorflevivo);

3. Those divinely called to serve as priest and priestesses of the shrine (Tronua);

4. Those who join through promise made by a family who benefited from the Tro; and finally

5. Those Trokosi who are sent by families to avert further calamities afflicting them. This last group consists of those vestal virgins who are sent into servitude at the shrines of the Troxovi due to crimes allegedly committed by their senior or elder relatives such as mothers, fathers, uncles, and grandparents.

References

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1. The Trokosi System, Mark Wisdom, FESLIM, 2001, p. 4
2. Wisdom, p 3.
3. The Criminal Code of Ghana, Act. 1998 Act. 554.
4. Wisdom, p 3.
5. Report on Trokosi Institution, Researched and Written by Dr. Elom Dovlo, University of Ghana, Legon, 1995.
6. "Trokosi--Should This Practice Be Allowed to Continue?", Progressive Utilization, Vol. 2. No. 1, PO Box C267 Cantonments Communication Centre, Accra, Ghana, 1995.

Organizations Fighting the Practice of Trokosi

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• ^* Every Child Ministries--Slave Children
• ^* International Needs Ghana

Fetish Slaves Liberation Movement, P.O. Box 25, Adidome, Ghana

African culture | Slavery | Child sexual abuse | Child labour | African Traditional Religion | Idolatry | Human rights