Female Ritual Servitude - Don't be ignorant about it!

In July of last year, my husband and I went on our first ministry trip to Ghana. The country of Ghana is afflicted with wide scale poverty--road surfaces are often poor and food sellers are everywhere.Yet, the landscape is striking, untamed and unkept. Still, the true beauty of the country lies in the hearts of the gracious people who live there. It was within their hearts that I found powerful stories of both hope and sorrow. 

Ghana is situated in West Africa, and for 150 years, it was the epicenter of the British Slave Trade. Some twelve million slaves were shipped from Ghana to the Americas and over 7 million of them died before ever reaching the new world. Today, Ghana is committed to the abolition of slavery and many Ghanaians turn with shame and pain away from their slave history. Almost seventy percent of the Ghanaian population are confessing Christians and the country itself has worked hard to promote freedom and abolish slavery.

However, a sad reality of female slavery known asTrokosi or Female Ritual Servitude still exists in areas of Ghana, Togo, Benin, and parts of Nigeria to this very day. I first learned about this reality from a young girl who stood on the terrace of her home and shared with me the stories of the "stolen"Trokosi girls.....

This month I was blessed to contribute a special article on this tragedy, please read it over at Arise - Female Ritual Servitude