Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05ACCRA1226
2005-06-23 16:17:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Accra
Cable title:  

GHANA'S TROKOSI REVISITED

Tags:  PHUM EAID KDEM ELAB SOCI GH 
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231617Z Jun 05

ACTION AF-00 

INFO LOG-00 NP-00 AID-00 AMAD-00 CIAE-00 INL-00 DODE-00 
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 ------------------07DF92 232016Z /38 
FM AMEMBASSY ACCRA
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 8774
INFO ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L ACCRA 001226 

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR AF/RSA, AF/W, DRL FOR KDURKIN, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/17/2015
TAGS: PHUM EAID KDEM ELAB SOCI GH
SUBJECT: GHANA'S TROKOSI REVISITED

REF: A. ACCRA 002509


B. ACCRA 02661

Classified By: Amb. Mary C. Yates for reasons 1.5 (b, d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L ACCRA 001226

SIPDIS


DEPT FOR AF/RSA, AF/W, DRL FOR KDURKIN, LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/17/2015
TAGS: PHUM EAID KDEM ELAB SOCI GH
SUBJECT: GHANA'S TROKOSI REVISITED

REF: A. ACCRA 002509


B. ACCRA 02661

Classified By: Amb. Mary C. Yates for reasons 1.5 (b, d)


1. (C) Summary: After another investigation of the issue,
Post has been unable to find evidence of systematic human
rights abuses in the traditional Trokosi practice. Fewer
than 50 Trokosis are currently serving in shrines, and
Trokosi is a dying practice. Some organizations have used
fraudulent allegations of sexual abuse and forced detention
of Trokosis to attract donor funding. Some religious and NGO
activists are calling for the "liberation" of hundreds of
alleged Trokosi victims in July 2005 in what could be another
ruse to attract donor support and funding. End summary.

--------------
A HISTORY OF FRAUD
--------------


2. (C) Trokosi is a traditional religious practice in which
families send a family member to be trained at a fetish
shrine for a period lasting from several weeks to three years
to atone for an offense committed by a family member or to
obtain divine assistance with fertility. Families
predominantly choose to send girls, often a virgin, sometimes
under the age of 10 but more frequently in her teens.


3. (C) In the late 1970s, missionaries began attempting to
convert practitioners of these traditional African beliefs.
By 1997, the religious organization International Needs Ghana
(ING) garnered support from international media and NGOs in
its campaign to end Trokosi. ING alleged that as many as
5,000 Trokosi girls in Ghana were forced to labor on shrine
priests' farms, detained against their will, denied schooling
and medical treatment, and subjected to physical and sexual
abuse. The Embassy began to treat Trokosi as a serious human
rights abuse in its annual Human Rights Report. In 1999,
ING's most prominent Trokosi victim won the Reebok Human
Rights award and coverage in Newsweek. That year, post
granted ING $10,000 to support its anti-Trokosi campaign.


4. (C) Post's six previous investigations since 2001 (see
reftels) suggest that ING recruited 2,200 women, many of whom
were not genuine Trokosis, to participate in mock
liberations. Participants were offered $28 each and told they
could attend ING's vocational training schools in exchange
for their "liberation." ING was assisted by Ghana's leading
human rights body, the Commission for Human Rights and
Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) who received hundreds of
dollars in honoraria for participating in these events.
National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE) representatives
also received payments. Even the Reebok award winner who
claimed she was sexually abused later disavowed her story to
embassy officials.

--------------
CURRENT CLAIMS OF ABUSES
--------------


5. (C) ING's claims were widely discredited, the organization
adopted a lower profile, and an international observer who
has lived and visited Klikor numerous times told us ING's
Volta Region representatives now steer clear of Trokosi and
have taken up other causes. However, Every Child Ministries
(ECM),the Rescue Foundation and the International
Humanitarian Campaign Against the Exploitation of Children
have made fresh allegations of widespread abuses.


6. (C) On April 27-30, Poloff and PolFSN visited the Volta
Region to investigate these allegations. Based on post's
research and interviews, the current allegations of
widespread human rights abuses appear baseless.


7. (C) The Afrikan Renaissance Mission (ARM),the umbrella
organization for African traditional believers and
practitioners, recognizes 23 Trokosi shrines in the Volta
Region. Several of these shrines are inactive because the
priests have died and are not being replaced. Even the most
active shrines had no more than three Trokosis serving. ARM
leaders told Poloff that organizations staging