Mercy Senahe, an Ewe, grew up in the Volta region of Ghana, West Africa.  When she was about eight years old, the fetish priestess cursed her family after she lost a gold earring because she believed that Mercy’s grandmother had stolen it.  To pay for this “theft,” and avoid the fatal consequences of the curse, the family planned to give Mercy, the youngest virgin daughter in the family, to the village shrine in Avakpe. 



”My age-mate came to tell me that I would be sent to some place and I would never come back,” Mercy relates today. “Some days later they told me that I should bathe because I was going to some place. I remembered what my age-mate had told me, so I went to the bush to hide. I stayed there until the night. When I came out, my grandfather beat me roughly. 



That same night they took me to cross the river to the shrine.”

After she arrived in the next village, she fell asleep on the ground.  When she woke up, her family was gone.  Women from the village shrine came and placed bracelets on her wrists and ankles.  They showed her how she must worship each of the idols in the shrine.  Mercy had become one of the “trokosi,” a slave to the gods.

Her new name in the shrine was “Gold.”  She was named after the item her grandmother had been accused of stealing.  She was the sacrifice meant to be appeasement for that crime, and she bore its name.

But Mercy did not understand this at the time.  In fact, she had no idea why she was in the shrine at all.  But she quickly learned to be terrified in her new environment. 

In the Avakpe shrine, Mercy was raped repeatedly by the priest, a ritualized form of sexual assault meant to symbolize the “marriage” between the trokosi and the shrine gods.

At about age twelve, Mercy gave birth to her first child, fathered by the priest.  She would have four children by him.  The priest had already fathered dozens of children borne by the other trokosi in the shrine.

Mercy had to farm to support herself and her children.  She was forced to work all day before she was allowed to eat.  She could not go to school.  Her children were not allowed to go to school either, but were instead forced to work with her on the farm to feed themselves.

Mercy tried to escape, but her family sent her back to the shrine.  She was completely trapped.

It was not until she was in her early twenties that Mercy was set free.  At that time, the International Needs Ghana (ING) team, a Christian ministry, came to negotiate for Mercy’s release. 

Intervention: International Needs Ghana, freeing the trokosi

Typically, ING involves all the stakeholders in the redemption process:  the priest, the women, their children, their families of origin, the Ewe village communities, the ING negotiators, and a Ghanaian government representative.  Once the priest agrees to set the women free, he performs a ritual inside the shrine to appease the idols.  Then, a second ceremony is performed, in which it is declared to the women, their families, and their Ewe communities that they are free:  no longer slaves, no longer trokosi.  The government official bears witness to this and signs a document to this effect.

Once women are set free, they often return to their families of origin and the villages where they formerly lived.  ING workers talk with their families to facilitate this re-integration process.  ING also offers education and work-skills training to the women through their Vocational Training Center (VTC) in Adidome so that they can economically support themselves and their children. 

At the VTC, women can learn mat-weaving, soap-making, bread-baking, hair-dressing, cloth-dyeing (“batik”), and dress-making, among other things.  Their older children attend ING schools in the Adidome.  Their younger children are cared for in an on-site nursery.  They themselves have the opportunity to learn reading, writing, and small business skills as well as health-care. 

Women are provided with one-on-one and group counseling to help them overcome their intense fears and traumatic experiences.  Many of them have been told that if they ever speak of what went on in the shrine, they or one of their family members would die.  They become free of these fears gradually.

ING staff share the knowledge and love of Jesus with these freed women, and many of them become passionate Christians.

Redemption:  Mercy Senahe, trokosi advocate

Today, Mercy is one of these Christian women. When ING negotiated for her release, her family would not accept her back because they were afraid of being cursed.  She went through the educational and work-skills training at the IN VTC, learning about baking and sewing, and she now works with ING and speaks publicly about her experiences.

I hope that many people in the world will hear her story and pray for the thousands of West African girls in Ghana, Togo, and Benin who, like Mercy before International Needs intervened, still need to be set free from the shrines, the trokosi system, and the terrors they have experienced.

“The tears in your eyes do not blind you,” African proverb from Togo, West Africa

For further information:  

WorldWide Religious News 

Ghanaian woman speaks out against tribal customs allowing slavery 

I recently spent two weeks in Ghana, West Africa, visiting the International Needs Vocational Training Center in Adidome and the main office in Accra.  

This was an awesome time of building relationships and ministry partnerships.  I believe that the work of the ING VTC is exemplary, a model for other Christian ministries seeking to bring hope and healing to women who have been sexually abused, assaulted, or trafficked.

Below, I explain some of the highlights of the trip.

Ministry to Wheaton College Student Interns:

One of my primary reasons for visiting Ghana, West Africa was to provide practical and spiritual support to Sarah and Michelle, Wheaton College students serving as SMP (Student Missionary Project) interns with International Needs at the Vocational Training Center (VTC) in Adidome, Ghana. 

I spent four days with Sarah and Michelle on site in Adidome and a fifth day visiting Kakum National Forest and the former slave-fort of El Mina in Cape Coast.  During this time, I had the opportunity to listen to the student interns as they processed their feelings and concerns about their cross-cultural experiences.  We prayed and fellowshiped together.  

Ministry for the Office of Christian Outreach:

I also had the opportunity to evaluate the International Needs VTC to determine whether it would be a suitable internship site in future years.  I toured the site, visiting each work-skills training classroom, meeting the teachers and students engaged in learning cloth dyeing, dress making, hair dressing, bread baking, mat weaving, soap making, and so on.  I attended a “micro-finance” workshop sponsored by a visiting professor, which aims to help women successfully run their small businesses, and I attended a reproductive health class, which aims to educate women about their family planning options.  I witnessed the older children of the women leaving to attend school in Adidome and the younger children being cared for in the nursery. 

I systematically photographed the site to give a clear visual picture of what is done there to the Office of Christian Outreach as well as future student interns and those interested in supporting the IN VTC financially.  These pictures are available for viewing in the “my photos” section of my profile, Jane Ellen Louise Beal, on Facebook.

I was deeply encouraged to see the spiritual side of the IN VTC as well.  I attended choir practice one afternoon as well as the Friday evening and Sunday morning church services.  These were powerful opportunity to praise God and hear His Word preached.

I interacted with all the major staff members of the project.  I met with the IN VTC director, Patience Vormawor, as well as the head counselor, Priscilla Kalitsi, discussing the project’s goals and needs.  I also met with Pastor Jacob, who works as an church planter in the Volta region.  I met with other staff in the International Needs main office in the city of Accra, including the director, Rev. Walter Pimpong, after he returned from a fund-raising and speaking tour in Europe.  In a discussion with the head accountant, I learned that over 160 employees work for the ING on a budget of approximately $400,000.  I’ve begun to pray that God would double this budget so that this NGO, which already has all the necessary infrastructure in place, may grow and expand its services to the thousands of women still waiting to be set free from the trokosi system.

It is my conviction that the IN VTC is a project with integrity and that its staff are doing what they say they do.  It is clear that hundreds of women are benefiting economically from their training, emotionally from counseling, and spiritually from the knowledge of the love and power of Jesus Christ.  It is my hope that the Wheaton College Office of Christian Outreach will form a permanent ministry partnership with International Needs in Ghana, West Africa.

Ministry Partnership with International Needs:

I had the opportunity to partner in ministry with the IN VTC staff while on site.  I learned from talking with Sarah and Michelle, as well as Priscilla Kalitsi, the head counselor, that many women who were formerly trapped in the trokosi system now suffer from symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Many of the women have a difficult time talking about their experiences in group or in one-on-one settings with the counselor.  (One particularly brave woman, Mercy, is an exception to this.)  So I spoke with Priscilla about the possibility of sharing my testimony of surviving sexual assault in childhood as a way of encouraging the women at the IN VTC.  Priscilla thought this would be an effective way of modeling open communication about past sexually abusive experiences, and she invited me to speak at the Friday night meeting.

So I shared part of my testimony of surviving childhood sexual assault in simple sentences that were then translated into two languages, Ewe and Danmge.  As part of this testimony service, I played two songs on flute:  “Give Me Jesus” and “Evidence of Your Glory.”  I also performed a praise dance at the conclusion to the song “Surrounded” by Audrey Hatcher, which presented a picture of how God surrounds us with His love even when we are afraid or alone or discouraged.  This dance provoked a powerful response among the listeners.  I was deeply thankful for the opportunity praise God in the dance because the praise-dance was able to cross the language barriers and show the love of God visibly to the women present.

Thankfulness

I am deeply thankful to God that I had the opportunity to visit Ghana, West Africa and connect with the people doing such critical work at the International Needs Vocational Training Center.  

Dr. Jane Beal

JSASSN International 

April was a solid month of effective ministry for JSASSN.

Sexual assault prevention & redemption: This month, I met with Anne Ream, who works with the Voices and Faces Project. The project is compiling a national archive of testimonies by sexual assault survivors (on the model of the Holocaust Museum). I completed the Voices and Faces project survey online and so shared my story in hopes of helping others.

As a result of Anne’s visit to the Wheaton College campus, I was able to learn about Gabe’s story (below) and his work with Men Against Sexual and Interpersonal Violence (MASIV) on the Northern Illinois University campus. I looked for more organizations and resources specifically for male survivors of sexual assault and found the organization MaleSurvivor as well as Mark Lew’s book, Victims No Longer: The Classic Guide for Men Recovering from Sexual Child Abuse. Because 1 in 6 men are sexually assaulted, it is essential to reach men with resources for recovery.

In addition, I was able to meet with another recent survivor of sexual assault, listen to her story, and encourage her in her recovery process.

Sex trafficking intervention: I met with Wheaton College students, Sarah and Michelle, who are going to Ghana, West Africa through the Office of Christian Outreach Student Missionary Project (SMP) to serve as interns with the IN Network. The IN Network specifically works to free and rehabilitate the trokosi, women and girls who have been turned over by their families to village priests as slaves to pay for the crimes of their ancestors. I will meet Sarah and Michelle in Ghana at the end of May. Thanks to the Wheaton College Alumni Association Faculty Missionary Fund, the costs of my trip are covered.

I also made an initial report to the International Justice Mission (IJM) regarding the sex trafficking situation in Moldova, Eastern Europe. Although IJM does not work in Eastern Europe currently, IJM did supply me with referrals to other legal agencies that do. I hope to follow up on these referrals in the next two months in order to get help to the 70% of orphan girls who are being trafficked by the mafia each year.

Raising Awareness through Online Networking: This month, I joined the Wheaton IL Network on Facebook, a social utility designed to connect people online. Through Facebook, I started a cause called “Stop Sex Trafficking.” Thus far, more than a dozen friends have joined the cause. I linked the JSASSN International site to my Facebook profile in two places: my blog roll and my contact website in my information box. As a result, the JSASSN site experienced a jump in the number of visitors viewing the site, with most attention going to “Jane’s Story” and “About JSASSN.”

I also added two Compassion International boxes to my Facebook profile: a cause and an opportunity box, the latter of which a viewer can click to begin the process of sponsoring a child. I am an advocate for Compassion International, a Christian ministry that seeks to “free children from poverty in Jesus’ name.” Children in poverty are a group especially at risk of being abused and trafficked. Compassion, by connecting sponsors to children in need, in effect acts to help prevent the abuse and trafficking of children.

Finally, I updated JSASSN International’s site, adding pages on “Ministry” and expanding the page on “Myths, Facts, Statistics” with information on sexual assault from the Voices and Faces Project and information pertaining specifically to sexual assault of men and boys from MaleSurvivor.

I hope these resources will continue to strengthen others as they heal.

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International

PRAY for Anne Ream and the Voices and Faces Project; for Michelle and Sarah, the IN Network, the trokosi and those women and girls who have been set free; for my upcoming trip to Ghana; for international legal intervention in Moldova that will stop the sex trafficking of women and girl in and outside of the country; for more committed Christians to join the “Stop Sex Trafficking” cause and to sponsor a child in poverty through Compassion International.

One is six men is sexually assaulted in his life-time. Yet there are few ministries or organizations that specifically address the needs of male sexual assault survivors. One man, Gabe, has told his story and started an organization, Men Against Sexual Interpersonal Violence (MASIV), in response to this need.

I learned about Gabe through the Voices and Faces Project, and I am both amazed and thankful for his courage. His story, available on the Voices and Faces Project website, is reproduced here:

Like most men, Gabe never thought of rape as something that could happen to him. He didn’t think much about rape at all. He was 22 years old when that changed. “My then-wife and I got into an argument one night, and I left the house and drove to my favorite fishing hole to clear my head and think things over.” Once there, three men approached Gabe. “We struck up a typical ‘guy-type’ conversation. These were just guys on a fishing trip, like me, and I didn’t think anything was unusual about them until one of them pointed a gun at me. They beat me and raped me, and after that my whole life was different.”

Speaking out to those he trusted gave Gabe a sense of hope, and new purpose. At Northern Illinois University, he started a group called MASIV – Men Against Sexual Interpersonal Violence. The group involves men in education, advocacy, and community outreach. “We are talking about the issue of rape and what it means for men and women,” says Gabe, “Supporting both male and female victims is important. Finding a place like The Voices and Faces Project, where my story as a man mattered, made a difference for me, too. I have a way to share my story that will help others. Now I feel like things are changing, and that I am changing things.”

PRAY for Gabe and for the work of MASIV.

In the third week of April, Wheaton College held “Voices” week, “a time to remember those who have no voice and pray for the marginalized grops of the world by hearing the stories of often-unheard voices.”

On Thursday evening of that week, Anne Ream, a rape survivor and key participant in the Voices and Faces Project, came to the campus to speak in a forum called “From the Inside: What We Can Learn From Rape Survivors.” I met Anne and learned from her.

What is the purpose of the Voices and Faces Project?

According to the Voices and Faces Project website, “The mission is to create a national network of survivors willing to stand up and speak out about sexual violence … The belief is that to stop rape we need to start talking and … the initiatives are political, cultural, and creative.”

What does the project accomplish?

The project specifically invites sexual assault survivors to complete its survey, which can be accessed, downloaded, and returned online.

The survey is helping to build a permanent archive of survivor stories as well as give shape to presentations, books, and photographic exhibits intended to help survivors, raise community awareness, and influence the creation of laws and policies pertaining to sexual violence. The survey helps to make visible the otherwise often invisible trauma of sexual assault.

I completed the survey this week, and I believe it would be very worthwhile for other assault survivors to complete it as well.

PRAY for Anne Ream and the extraordinary work of the Voices and Faces Project.

March has been an amazing month for JSASSN.

At Wheaton College, I conversed with the Director of Christian Outreach, Brian Medaglia, who was looking for a professor to visit students participating in SMP (Student Missions Project). Four students are going to work with organizations that minister to women who have been abused in the sex trade. Two are working with ServantWorks in Thailand and two are working with IN Network in Ghana, West Africa. In May and June of this year, I will be going to Ghana, West Africa to visit the latter two students and work with the vocational training program run by the Rev. Walter Pimpong and his wife, Marion, to help women and girls formerly known as “trokosi” (”slaves of the gods” or “fetish slaves”).

These women, who have now been set free, were originally given by their familes in sexual slavery to village priests to pay for the crimes of their ancestors.

While in Ghana, I hope to offer support to the Wheaton College student interns working with IN Network, evaluate the strengths of internship site for the college and for future SMP students, and participate in some of the work of the IN Network. This work includes negotiating with village priests to set the women free, sharing the gospel, and meeting the physical, spiritual, educational, vocational, and communal needs of the freed women and girls thereafter. Wherever I can contribute, in the short two weeks I have in Ghana, I hope to do so.

For me, this will be a return trip to Ghana, where my dear friend, Kate Tetteh, her husband Theophilus, my three goddaughters, and the extended Tetteh family, my African family, all live. I am full of a sense of anticipation about what God will do at the beginning of this summer! Please pray for this work.

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International

PRAY for the trokosi and SMP.

India is one of the most culturally rich continents in the world. Thousands of languages are spoken there. Architectural, literary, and religious traditions all flourish there.

It has long been my dream to go to India.

Though I have known of the problems with prostitution in India, their severity was recently brought into sharp relief for me as I spoke with my dear friend, Michelle, who has served as a missionary with Free-Set Bags in Kokata, India.

Did you know that in Kolkata there are brothels filled, not just with adult women or teenagers, but with pre-pubescent children ages 7 to 10 who are raped and sexually assaulted daily by brothel clients?

I had not realized there were brothels specifically full of children in India. I was appalled that there were brothel owners who could think to appeal to a market of pedophiles. I was even more devastated as I thought that a sufficiently large market of such clients exists to make such a “business” not only sustainable, but profitable.

How can this be?

The daughters and sons of prostitutes are particularly at risk of being exploited and prostituted. The film, “Born into Brothels,” which originally aimed to work as a documentary to educate people about the problem, actually worked like an advertisement–tripling the international clientele of Kolkata brothels within three months of its release.

PRAY for the end of sexual slavery in India. Pray for the deliverance of children from every brothel. Pray for the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit to save, to heal, and to redeem every person who has been sexually assaulted in Calcutta today.

In February, I have seen some powerful, new connections formed between JSASSN and other Christian ministries seeking to stop sex trafficking world-wide.

First, I met Rikki from Emmaus Ministries during Missions in Focus week at Wheaton College. Emmaus provides the gospel and seeks to meet the practical needs of male prostitutes as they transition off the streets of Chicago into a better life. I was so glad to learn of a ministry that is serving men! Men make up 20% of the trafficked population in the world, as I understand from the International Justice Mission, but most of the Christian ministries I know of focus on victimized women and children. But the need is greater than one gender or generation.

At the same Missions in Focus center where I met Rikki, I also met up with my friend Shuree Rivera. In talking with her, I learned she works with Remember Nhu, an organization to help children get out of trafficked situations in Thailand. Remember Nhu is now looking to expand its ministry to South Africa. Interestingly, in talking with another Christian sister, Taroh Saenz, after church one night, I learned of Straatwerk, which is also seeking to prevent the trafficking of children in South Africa.

Perhaps most significantly, I met to talk and pray with my good friend, Michelle McDonald, who has served as a missionary with Free-Set Bags in Calcutta, India. Free-Set is a “business-as-mission” ministry that provides women previously trapped in prostitution with work-with-dignity that can support them and their children. Michelle is going to help me create a more effective website for JSASSN (hallelujah!), and we are partnering in future ministry plans. (Thank you, God!)

I’m also working on a short book called Stop Sex Trafficking, which will be an e-book that can be down-loaded from the new site for free. I am praying that God will use this little book to raise awareness in the Christian Church about the problem of sexual slavery world-wide. It is my hope that more Christian soldiers will hear the call of our Captain, Jesus, to wage spiritual warfare against the powers of this darkness through prayer and active ministry to those trapped in the trafficking industry.

Dr. Jane Beal
JSASSN International

Last week, Wheaton College celebrated “Missions in Focus.” Christian outreach organizations set up in the Beamer Center to let students know about opportunities to serve. I visited the ministry tables and met Rikki from Emmaus Ministries.

Emmaus Ministries is “an outreach of hope and redemption for young men in the inner city who are trapped by male street prostitution, generational poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, and HIV/AIDS.”

Rikki gave me a couple of DVDs with the stories of some of those men. This weekend, I watched them. The story of one young man stays in my memory.

He grew up with a violent alcoholic for a father. Sometimes that father would get arrested for beating his kids so badly. But he would always get out of jail within a few days and come back.

When he came home, he always gave money to his wife to give to the kid who had been beaten the worst, often this young man. “Maybe it was his way of apologizing,” he said. The violence never stopped–nor did the cash “apologies.”

This set up a wierd dynamic in the young man’s experience. He would get beaten, and then he would get paid. So when he ended up living on the street in Chicago after he left home, it wasn’t so difficult to transition to prostitution.

“You get used to it,” he said.

No one should ever have to get used to chronic physical abuse and assault.

Where there has been no prevention of such violence, where the intervention of the criminal justice system has failed repeatedly, there must be a new kind if ministry that offers redemption through the the love of Christ.

Emmaus Ministries does this through street outreach, a drop-in ministry center, and a rehabilitation house. Their ministry meets the real physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of men on Chicago’s streets. I thank God they exist.

PRAY for Emmaus Ministries. I asked Rikki what they needed prayer for, and she said: 1) that men on the street would not freeze from the cold during this winter season and 2) that men would be open to receiving Jesus as they study the Bible together. She mentioned other things I cannot remember, so pray as the Holy Spirit directs!

On Superbowl Sunday, I was with friends, and I picked up one of their magazines, “O,” to read during the commercials. In Oprah’s magazine was a testimony written by Beverly Donofrio, an American writer living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She was raped by a serial rapist living in her town on 23 July 2006. When the attacker entered her home, she did not talk with him, as he wanted her to do, but started praying the “Our Father” and the “Hail Mary” in Spanish. When the rapist asked her why she was praying, she said, “I am praying for you.”

The man left her home after one assault instead of the several he had perpetrated against four other women in the town.

When Beverly Donofrio made her story known, many others began praying. She wrote that fear would titillate the rapist and resistance would infuriate him, but prayer made him leave her house. Within five days of her story being published in her town, the rapist was caught.

As I read this story, I was reminded of the power of God to answer prayer. JSASSN International is first and foremost a prayer ministry, and Beverly’s story is just one more reason why it should be. God’s power to answer prayer is why I began praying last night when I came home and found a “Sex Offender Notification” had been mailed to me from the DuPage County Sherrif’s Office.

A convicted sex offender has moved into my neighborhood. His name is Ross J. Scanio, and he has been found guilty of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against his family. He is a Caucasian, six feet tall, weighing approximately 280 pounds, with brown eyes and gray hair. By law, he is required to notify the Sheriff’s Office when he moves into a new neighborhood, and by law, the Sherrif’s Office must notify those living nearby so that they can take precautions to protect themselves and their children.

When I looked at the picture of this man’s face on the “Sex Offender Notification” mailing, I thought about how sad he looked. I thought about how this man would not be welcomed here like other neighbors. Who would go over to his house and offer him a meal or an invitation to come to church or just friendship? I thought about all the small children in my neighborhood under the age of ten. I thought about how their parents might feel getting this mailing: afraid. But fear doesn’t deserve to have power over anyone. God is the One with the real power.

So this is my prayer: Heavenly Father, You in your sovereignty know everything. I pray that You would bring your salvation, your redemption, and your heart-healing power into the life of Ross Scanio. God, I pray for his family, that You would heal them completely. I pray for my neighbors and their children, that You would take away their fear, cause them to put their trust in You, and protect them from all harm. I thank You for your promise in your word that no weapon formed against us will prosper. God, I thank You for your might and your power to redeem that is working, even now, in ways that we do not understand. AMEN.