Liberated "trokosi" women economically empowered

Adidome (V/R), Aug. 13, GNA - Hundreds of liberated "trokosi" women from various shrines in the North Tong District of the Volta Region at the weekend receives vocational trading tools worth millions of cedis as set-up capital.

The more than 1,400 women liberated from the "trokosi" traditional servitude under the auspices of International Needs Ghana (ING), undertook vocational training in dressmaking, hairdressing, pomade making, baking and confectioneries, soap making, weaving and batik tie and dye.

"Trokosi" is a cultural practice in which young girls are subjected to ritual servitude in shrines supposedly in atonement for an offence committed by a relative or an ancestor.

The Reverend Walter Pimpong, Executive Director of ING, a Non-governmental Organisation, urged district assemblies, ministries, departments and agencies to intensify their programmes aimed at women empowerment and the elimination of child labour.

He said ING, in collaboration with other partners was working to make individuals, communities and policy makers realise that the "trokosi" problem was not only a human rights issue, but also a developmental one, because girls sent to the shrines, as well as their children were denied the right to education, thus perpetrating poverty and illiteracy in the communities.

Rev. Pimpong said: "We have reached a stage that requires that we all wake up to the reality that until we move away from looking at the "trokosi" problem as a religious or cultural practice, we would be loosing the battle against poverty."

He said ING was also trying to assist the women who had been liberated from the shrines to be re-integrated into society. ING, he said, provided vocational training for liberated "trokosi" women and their children as well as other women in the communities at the ING Vocational Training Centre at Adidome.

Rev Pimpong expressed regret that in spite of efforts to rid the country of the practice, some seemingly enlightened persons were putting impediments in the way of progress by supporting recalcitrant priests to perpetuate it.

"With the passage of law banning the practice in Ghana, the question is how long can these priests continue their recalcitrant posture".

He appealed to law enforcement agencies to take steps to implement the law banning the practice to save young women from the harmful tradition.