Ghana's 'divine slaves' still under bondage despite legal ban

NYOGORTE ANYIHEME, Ghana, Aug 25 (AFP) - Awlesi Amegawi lost both her freedom and her will to live 40 years ago when she was given away as a slave to a Ghanaian priest to atone for the sins of a family member.

Amegawi, a wizened woman in her fifties, is a "trokosi" -- or the spouse of god. The Ewe and Dangme ethnic races believe that a trokosi can atone for past sins by slaving away gratis for a lifetime.

It is a heavy cross to bear.

Amegawi said every day was a welcome countdown to death... and eventual liberation.

"When I die, I do not want to be born again. Every day I am insulted, humiliated and made to work like a superslave. I work in the priest's fields, I cook, I gather firewood and I have four children from a man I do not love.

"I stopped laughing when I became a trokosi at the age of 10."

Trokosis are generally virgin girls who are "chosen" by the local deity -- through the priest or "togbi" -- to perform the penance.

The penance can last a lifetime if the trokosi's family does not perform a ceremony to "liberate" her. This involves libations and large cash donations to the priest and the shrine.

If a girl dies or the priest tires of her, the family has to send a replacement. When a priest dies, his trokosi are passed on to his successor.

Adzimasi Yao Petechie, the priest who "owns" Amegawi, said the life of a trokosi was not miserable.

"Their families have to give them land, jewellery and cattle. These are rich women," he said, although he admitted that priests like himself lived off the slaves.

"They are supposed to work on our farms and support themselves."

But how is the guilty family identified?

"When a crime is committed -- be it a theft or rape or murder -- we consult the divinity. The divinity points the finger by marking the family of the criminal with unnatural disasters or sudden deaths," the priest said.

"Then that family has to pay for it sins."

Trokosis have to sport black or blue clothes all the time to indicate their status. Sex with them is strictly prohibited to everyone but the priest who has the right to violate them.

International Needs, a Ghanaian non-governmental organisation fighting the practice, says the trokosi tradition survives despite the outlawing of ritual slavery in 1998.

Project director Wisdom Mensah said: "When we started work in 1990, there were about 5,000 enslaved women. We have liberated 2,800 women but there is still a lot of work to be done."

Abla Petechie, another trokosi, said she had missed out on childhood.

"The normal things that girls enjoy -- the attentions of a man and harmless flirtation are things I never knew. I live in a village where I have no friends or family."

Dale Massiasta, a former woodcarver who now researches traditional culture and practices, defends the tradition.

Speaking at Klikor, a town about 175 kilometres (110 miles) east of Accra, Massiasta said much of what was written about trokosi was untrue.

"My mother was a trokosi and my daughter also served as one. These women are not badly treated because we believe it is a bad omen if a trokosi is unhappy.

"Trokosis can marry and have children if they are liberated," he said.

That claim is hotly denied by others. Rights activist Vincent Azuma said the "stigma is so strong that many men will have nothing to do with a former trokosi."

The Afrikania Mission -- an indigenous church set up in 1982 to propagate and revitalise traditional African practices -- dismissed the controversy over trokosi as Western propaganda.

Mission chief Osofo Kofi-Ameve said: "How can a practice, which has continued for longer than Christianity and is present in other countries like Togo and Benin, carry on if it is a con job?

"If the Kennedy family consulted the shrine and identified the cause of all their tragedies, they would be a happy lot today.

"All it would take them is a bottle of schnapps and some 5,000 cediscents) to appease the deity and identify the criminal."