Iysha Ibrahim is one of the “slave girls’ at Sweetwater. The Trokosi System is practiced in the Southeastern part of Ghana. It is a system where a virgin girl in a family is taken to a shrine to serve all her life to pacify a god for a death spell cast on her family because of a sin committed by a member of the family. If that virgin dies in servitude the family has to replace her with another virgin.
Iysha said she was taken to the slave village at a very tender age of about 3. She doesn’t know who took her there and for what reason; she only found herself there. She said she was there with other girls and daily they were sent to the fetish priest’s farm to work. They lived in this village with no clothing and so walked about naked. They were fed by the fetish priest’s wives. These wives are matured girls who have come to this place as slave girls too.
She was in this place for eight years and was freed one day by brother Stephen who was once involved in this practice himself and is now a convert to the Lord. This man, though it is not easy to seek the release of slave girls, has decided to help the release of these girls at all cost. Sometimes he has to pay a ransom to secure our release. We are hidden from this man when he comes around because these fetish priests are not always happy to let go of us. She was enrolled in school but due to financial constraint she ended not completing junior high. At home, she sold oranges to help her mother. One day she said brother Stephen told her about Sweetwater Ministries and the prospects to better her life if she offered herself to be trained. Her parents released her to him and now she is happy to be here. She is now 17 years of age and is looking forward to being trained as a seamstress at Sweetwater House so she can go and help her community.
An estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked every year to be used as domestic servants, factory workers, camel jockeys, child soldiers and sex slaves
—UNICEF