Child Sex Slaves to the Gods? Do You Care?

Did you know that little African girls are taken from their parents to be "wives of the gods" in the southern Volta Region of Ghana, and in southern Togo and Benin? Thousands of young girls of the Ewe tribe are held as slaves in unspeakable conditions, victims of ritual abuse. The term "wives" does not mean they are treated with kindness or respect. No, they are there to fulfill the priests' demands for any kind of kinky sex demanded in these idol shrines. How do these girls end up here?

Many of them are taken just prior to adolescence, but many also are taken in early childhood-as young as four years old. Although the time they are supposed to serve in the shrine is sometimes defined in years, the price of exit is placed so high that most remain slaves all their lives, or until the priest no longer finds them desirable. Parents are usually accused of a crime, real or fictitious, and the child is taken in payment. Or the parents owe a debt (sometimes for badly needed medical procedures), and the child is taken in payment.

Some are second and third generation "human sacrifices," because the offenses require a fresh virgin from each generation in order to "atone" for a sin of some ancestor. Other girls are given into trokosi slavery by their families in payment for the services of the priest, seeking the favor of the gods in order to assure a good crop or success in an exam.

A common reason for becoming a trokosi slave is to break a real or suspected curse resulting in deaths of several family members. In each case, the priest consults the spirit of the idol through divination, and the oft-demanded payment is the perpetual servitude of a virgin daughter of the family. Families go along with the priest's unspeakable demands out of fear that if they do not, they and their families will be cursed and die.