US embassy cable - 05ACCRA1226

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. 
 
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A HISTORY OF FRAUD 
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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. 
 
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CURRENT CLAIMS OF ABUSES 
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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