Rouster, p. 28 Highly motivated, Paxson worked on overcoming his handicaps. He learned to walk without showing his discomfort and overcame stuttering by practicing taking a deep breath and then expelling it slowly, accompanied by hand gesturers.Willis, p.
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Ritual slavery shows a high degree of cohesiveness, but there are many significant differences as it is practiced in various shrines and in various areas. Every Child Ministries, a Christian NGO that has done much research on the topic, lists these as variations that they have observed in their work:Interview with Rouster, ECM, 2006.
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Lorella Rouster, Testimonies of Faith, "Steady in All Circumstances--Robert and Mary Moffatt," (Cleveland, OH:Sunday School Times/Gospel Herald, Summer Quarter, 2006), p. 156 During this period, Robert Moffat made frequent journeys into the neighbouring regions as far north as the Matabele country. He communicated the results of these journeys to the Royal Geographical Society (Journal 25-38 and Proceedings ii). Whilst in Britain on leave (1839–43) an account of the family's experience, Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa (1842) was published.
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Rouster, p.28 During the winter months, travel was impossible on the frontier, so Paxson used those times to visit the larger towns of the East, seeking to start Sunday schools in each community there, and raising funds for the work of the American Sunday School Union, in particular for furnishing mini-libraries of Sunday school books for frontier communities at half cost.Rouster, p. 28 This was no idle time. Paxson spoke five nights a week and three to five times on Sunday.Belle Paxson Drury, p.
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Those who practice ritual servitude usually feel that the girl is serving the god or gods of the shrine and is married to the gods of the shrine.Field Findings on the System of Slavery Commonly Known as Trokosi, L W Rouster, M.R.E., ECMAfrica Publications, 2005, p. 1. If a girl runs away or dies, she must be replaced by another girl from the family. Some girls in ritual servitude are the third or fourth girl in their family suffering for the same crime, sometimes for something as minor as the loss of trivial property.
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In Ghana, human rights organizations monitoring the practice of "trokosi" claim that shrine slaves often end up with an average of four children while in servitude, many of them by the priest or elders of the shrines. Proponents of ritual servitude deny that this is a part of the practice. There seem to be wide differences between practices in different districts, but Rouster claims that the problem of forced sex in many of the shrines is too well documented to be disputed. Stephen Awudi Gadri, founder of Trokosi Abolition Fellowship, speaks of "ritual violation after menarche" (first menses) as the beginning of a life of coerced sex.
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This form of slavery is still practiced in the Volta region in Ghana, in spite of being outlawed in 1998, and despite carrying a minimum three-year prison sentence for conviction. Among the Ewes who practice the ritual in Ghana, variations of the practice are also called trokosi, fiashidi, and woryokwe, with "trokosi" being the most common of those terms."The Revealed Myths about Trokosi Slavery/Human Rights Violations" by Stephen Awudi Gadri, Authorhouse, UK, 2010 In Togo and Benin it is called voodoosi or vudusi."Field Findings on the System of Slavery Commonly Known as Trokosi", L W Rouster, M.R.E., ECMAfrica Publications, 2005, p.1.
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