Ritual Servitude - Meaning of "Trokosi" and "Vudusi"

Meaning of "Trokosi" and "Vudusi"

Trokosi is a traditional practice alleged by many to be a form sexual slavery in some parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin. In Ghana, it is practised by the Ewes in the Volta region and by their counterparts in Togo and Benin. In this practice, young girls, usually under the age of 10 and sometimes as young as three, 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 as payment for favours sought from the shrine. In Togo and Benin the slaves are called Voodoosi or vudusi (French spelling "vaudounsi"). The Anlo people of Ghana call the practice fiashidi.

The practice continues in Ghana despite a 1998 law against "ritual or customary servitude" 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 NGOs 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. The "tro" deity is not, according to African traditional religion, the Creator or what might be called the "High" or Ultimate God. "Tro" refers to what African Traditional Religion calls the "small gods" or "lesser deities"--spirits of nature, etc. which are venerated in traditional religion. The term trokosi is commonly used in English in Ghana, as a loanword.