CHALLENGES IN ENDING A TRADITION OF SLAVERY

Second Issue (P. 28)

By Emily Bowers

Trokosi, the practice where a young virgin girl is taken from her home, usually with the support of her family, to work as a slave in a fetish shrine, has long been practiced in Ghana.

For countless generations, under the guise of tradition, it has taken young girls from their families, from their schools, from their communities and probably in innumerable cases, it has taken their very future.

The exchange of opinions and ideas towards a plan of action for eliminating trokosi, exposed very difficult obstacles to be overcome.

It is hoped that new attention will be given to this devastating, outdated practice that community leaders in Ghana have long spoken out against, with the upcoming release of Toronto Pictures’ latest film Punctured Hope.

The film is based on the true story of Belle Siamey (who plays the lead part), on her year of imprisonment in a shrine and the physical and sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of the shrine priest and workers.

In hopes of initiating a discussion aimed at eradicating this practice, Daria! magazine spoke with community leaders in Accra, asking what would lead to its end and it enquired about the way that Punctured Hope could impact Ghanaian society.

"There is a law which has proscribed trokosi as a practice, but it still goes on because it’s so steeped in religion," said Richard A. Quayson, Deputy Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ). "And so it invokes fear for those who are the victims and a sense of power for those who are the perpetrators."

Quayson’s organization, CHRAJ, is the wing of the Ghanaian government empowered with dealing with issues of rights, corruption, ethics and public abuses of power.

Seated in his comfortable office, a bright Ghanaian flag in green, red and yellow adding a splash of colour to the brown walls, Quayson talks about the difficulties CHRAJ has in eradicating trokosi.

"If we are able to educate the practitioners and say listen, the practice is not acceptable; because of its dehumanizing effects, you are condemning a number of people to slavery. If we are able to get them to understand from that point of view, then we are able to have their cooperation to solve the problem."

"If we are able to get the communities to understand that this is not the place for this, (not to) use the trokosi shrine to settle our differences, but rather use a more acceptable mechanism for resolving disputes."

Quayson highlights the inherent difficulty leaders have in dealing with this issue. It’s not just the priests in the shrines who perpetuate the problem. trokosi is supported by people in the largely Ewe ethnic communities of eastern Ghana, where traditional religious beliefs mingle with the dominant Christianity.

In the case of Siamey, Punctured Hope’s lead actress, the situation is rather typical. She was sent to the shrine by her father after an uncle discovered an envelope of cash while out in his community one day. Instead of turning it in to the village chief or police, he kept it for himself. Soon after, Siamey says, members of her family began falling ill and this was perceived as a curse stemming from her uncle’s actions. To atone for his sin, it was decided that the only way to end the supposed curse on her family was to give Siamey – the only young virgin girl in her family at that time – to the shrine.

Quayson says that trokosi will only be eradicated when Ghanaians realize they should use other methods to resolve disputes of that sort.

Retired Captain George Nfojoh, a Member of the Ghanaian Parliament for one of the districts in the Volta Region of Ghana in which trokosi takes place, states that today’s parents are evolving their system of values to include honoring their children, regardless of gender. He claims that many parents would, presently, never think of giving up their children for the purpose of becoming slaves in trokosi shrines: "Today, when children of the two genders are considered equally important, nobody wants to send their child into captivity or into slavery", although he admits: "it’s still difficult to turn away from tradition. These people are educated, but this is an ancestral custom".

While Nfojoh is a Catholic, he says he believes in certain tenets of traditional Ghanaian religions, including the concept of retribution by the gods in the case of a crime being committed, along with the need to appease the gods. He cites an example of the practice of pouring a libation of alcohol on the ground before making a long journey. He indicates that community members may use traditional religions as crime deterrents, in order to keep themselves, their families and their neighbors from causing harm to each other as long as they believe the gods will punish them.

However, he declares that trokosi takes the principles of traditional religion functioning as a deterrent much too far, thereby condemning slaves to pay for crimes they never committed. Nfojoh, like many others, believes that trokosi practitioners should alter the conditions of sacrifice, to consist of other options of atonement, which do not include the victimization of a human being. "If it were a question of paying a material price, I would rather pay the money, than allow my child to submit to slavery" Nfojoh says, while adding that any tool that could be useful in educating the community – including a film such as Punctured Hope – would be very valuable.

"The parents and the community members are the ones who need to be educated," he says, "these things are only bound to change with education and with exposure".

..."The shrines are not there just because of trokosi, they are there because this is their way of worship," Quayson says. "So if you attack them, people will say ah, you are attacking our rights to worship."

The advocates for change face stiff opposition from practitioners who are not willing to end the violation. The priests of the trokosi shrines vigorously defend their practices as part of their tradition, and take issue when rights advocates speak out about trokosi.

That vocal opposition has proven to be a daunting challenge, says Nana Oye Lithur, the co-ordinator of the Africa regional office of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).

"The whole issue would be how we can get those who actually practice to see that it constitutes human rights violations," she says. "And the fact that it’s a cultural practice is going to make it very, very difficult."

Lithur, a lawyer and frequent media commentator on women’s affairs, draws a parallel with female genital mutilation, the ritual alteration of women’s genitals that ranges from complete removal to small cuts. It is usually practiced by older women in the community who act as midwives and is often performed with crude instruments that can lead to infection and death.

This devastating practice goes on in Ghana, and widely throughout Africa. Also defended as a cultural practice, the fight against female genital mutilation has chalked certain victories with a few practitioners agreeing to give up the practice.

"When you look at the advocacy around female genital mutilation, you find out that somehow there’s been an amount of success. It’ll be interesting to look at the lessons that have been learned to see whether you can apply it (to trokosi)."

But Lithur points out a key difference in the respective fights against female genital mutilation and trokosi – practitioners of FGM in Ghana were not as vocal in defence of their cultural practice as the trokosi leaders are.

"I think one of the lessons learned in the success of the female genital mutilation was approaching it from a reproductive health dimension, looking at the practice and revealing how its practice affects the health of women," says Lithur. "Maybe for trokosi one would have to look at whether you can find those issues, so that you can say apart from the cultural, it also has socio-economic impact."

Whichever method is to be used, leaders agree that what is necessary now, is to talk to the trokosi practitioners about the results of their actions in a constructive discussion.

"You can’t tell them to give up their shrines, that is their very life," Lithur says. "But when you open up the dialogue, at least you can hear all the voices and then determine what would be most appropriate."

Using a vehicle like Punctured Hope, a film that looks at subject matter never covered before in Hollywood, might be a way to help open up a dialogue.

"If the awareness that this film will create will provide a solution, I don’t have any problem," said Quayson. "So if this film were to be released in the country here, to create awareness and shame for the practitioners, we would welcome it."

It’s unknown exactly how many women and girls are enslaved in trokosi shrines, but a U.S. State Department report on human rights estimates as few as 100. However, the secretive nature of the practice means that exact figures are impossible to gauge.

Since this practice is banned by Ghanaian criminal law, some question why police and government forces don’t simply go into the shrines, liberate the girls and arrest the priests and the other abusers. Lithur gives an example of one town she’s heard of where a trokosi shrine and the local police station are even on the same road.

But Quayson counters that CHRAJ, the government body, is concerned that enacting a massive crackdown on trokosi would lead to its further concealment.

"Then you send the practice underground and we wouldn’t have access at all to the victims," he says.

Lithur knows that any police action would never fully stop trokosi.

"At the end of the day, it boils down to those who own the shrines to actually stopping it, because they have shown that even if you make it a crime, we will still go ahead and do it," she says.

While trokosi is an obvious human rights violation – hindering the right of movement and freedom, says Lithur – it has another effect that perhaps causes the most devastating harm.

"If it has been said that some of the priests have children with the women who are there, I don’t know if it’s true, then it raises issues of choice, of reproductive rights and choice," Lithur says.

The issue of sexual abuse in the shrines is often hidden and seldom publicly discussed when talking about trokosi. But according to Siamey, Punctured Hope’s lead actress who was imprisoned in a shrine for a year, it happens routinely.

After her escape with another trokosi slave, thanks to the help of a former teacher, Siamey was taken to a nearby clinic for a check-up. It was there that, at the age of 15, she discovered she was pregnant. Her son Kofi is now eight.

Siamey says priests and other shrine workers routinely raped and abused them, and pregnancies are a usual occurrence in the shrines. While it’s reported that sex abuse isn’t technically part of the trokosi tradition, the very word means "wife of the Gods".

It is this shocking reality that should get the attention of the international community, which so often concerns itself with African issues. But yet, trokosi goes largely unnoticed. While celebrities tour the slums of Nairobi, the famine-stricken villages of Ethiopia and the AIDS-ravaged communities of South Africa, this old form of slavery in modern-day West Africa, one of the poorest regions in the world, continues.

This is exactly where Punctured Hope could fill a large gap in the world’s consciousness, says veteran Ghanaian actor Fred Amugi.

Amugi, a common fixture on Ghanaian stage and screen since the 1970’s, also took part in Punctured Hope, playing a village chief. While Toronto Pictures featured the talent of several up-and-coming Ghanaian actors such as Siamey who will be a part of the future of film business here, they also dipped into the well of talent that already exists in this country with leading actors such as Amugi.

Relaxing at a breezy outdoor restaurant in Accra, Amugi says he believes Punctured Hope will help Ghanaians in the eastern part of the country, where trokosi is prevalent, rethink their support of the practice.

The realistic portrayal of the horrifying conditions in the trokosi shrine will take the film’s audiences by surprise, he says.

"I know when the film comes out and people see it, they will wonder how (you got) the setting as good as the true thing," he says. "And I believe that with some of the dialogue in the film, it could change some things.

As a veteran actor of the beleaguered Ghanaian film industry, Amugi says he is pleased to see that Toronto Pictures plans to make a lasting investment in the future of film here, through the Toronto Pictures Film Academy.

"Whatever goes on, (the young actors) should just open their eyes, open their ears and watch," he says. "Whatever is happening is for the good of this generation, for now and the one to come."

On a broader scale, Amugi says that when Hollywood stars bring African issues to an international audience, which might only pay attention because of these actors’ involvement, it can be a benefit to the whole continent.

"When good actors, celebrities, make Africa their second home for filming, coming out with things that are in Africa and which must be gradually, if not minimized, then eliminated, they are seen in the forefront, it could help change a lot of things," he says.

CHRAJ’s Quayson and CHRI’s Lithur agree that when celebrities focus their attentions on Africa, the eyes of the rest of the world will follow and this can help benefit the lives of Africans.

But they also agree that, due to the fact that it is so deeply ingrained in Ghanaian society and it has religious and traditional overtones, it is unlikely that an increase in international pressure on the issue of trokosi, will help find a solution.

"What the international (community) would do maybe, it would bring pressure to bear on the government, then the government would have to bring pressure to bear (on the practitioners)," Lithur says. "As for the practitioners, they have shown that film or no film, they are still practicing."

She is skeptical about how the film will impact Ghana.

"The film may open up discussion, but I don’t see it actually as bringing international pressure to bear on Ghana, just a single film," she says.

Quayson, on the other hand, believes that any extra attention that is given to the issue will help them achieve their goal of eradicating trokosi.

He says that, while international attention would be helpful, what would be even more important would be the impact Punctured Hope will have on a Ghanaian audience.

"The practitioners I don’t think will cave in from the outside, the pressure has to come from within," he says.

That pressure can be created through education, awareness, and dialogue, precisely of the sort that Toronto Pictures hopes to create with its realistic portrayal of the struggles of trokosi prisoners.

"I believe that if we are able to do more consultation, hold more dialogue interaction with these practitioners, with time, they’ll come to understand we are not against their religion, we are against the dehumanizing practice of trokosi," Quayson says. D

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