Australia helping to liberate Trokosi slaves in Ghana

Aku Dzameshie (left) is 15 years old. She does not know the age at which she was brought to the shrine as a Trokosi slave. When freed, Aku was four months pregnant but has never had medical support with her pregnancy.

Another Trokosi slave, Guayo, 30, was very young when she was banished to the religious shrine. She was not told why and she quickly lost contact with her family. Sexually abused by the fetish priest from the age of 12, Guayo subsequently had four children. Unable to take good care of herself or her babies, she often went without food and proper health care and lived in constant dread, shame and abject despair. The priest has since died and Guayo is unable to find a husband and has no family to turn to - she is feared and shunned by her community who believe she is owned by the gods.

Aku's and Guayo's stories are typical of the deprivation and abuse under the Trokosi slave system in Ghana . But now they have a chance for a new life because of Australia 's overseas aid program.

Trokosi is the practice where young virgin girls are offered to religious shrines as reparation for the sins of family members.

The priests and shrine elders subject their victims to persistent sexual abuse and children - particularly girls - who are born to a Trokosi mother and fetish priest become the property of the shrine.

Female ritual servitude is a broad term used for all cultural or religious practices that violate the rights of women, affect their dignity and impact on their socio-economic and psychological development. Trokosi practices in Ghana contravene both local and international law but unfortunately continue.

AusAID and International Needs Ghana (ING) have embarked on a program over the next three years in cooperation with the Government of Ghana to release and rehabilitate 900 Trokosi women and their children from servitude. Willing shrines contact ING and offer to liberate their Trokosis, at the same time signing an agreement not to take any new girls.

Australian Government funding of $300,000 will provide the liberated Trokosis with basic needs and improved income-generating skills, enabling them to become self-sufficient when they leave the protection of rehabilitation centers specially set up to care for them after their emancipation. The women also undergo trauma counseling so they can better cope with assimilation back into their own communities.

This follows previous Australian Government funding of more than $80,000 between 1996 and 1999 which helped rehabilitate 330 ex-Trokosis.

Through the work of International Needs Ghana, more than 3,300 women and children have been released and rehabilitated since the 1990s.

It is estimated that more than 5,000 women are still in bondage in Ghana .