“The priest would just point at you. He could call us chicken, goat or cow – because we were cows to him – then, he would sleep with us just like that,” she tearfully described.
Her duties included preparing ‘charms’ for people seeking protection at the shrine and beseeching the gods that more sin be committed so more innocent virgins could be entrapped into the vicious cycle.
As Mary grew older, she broke protocol by taking ventures outside the shrine’s confines, one day being spotted naked by a group of foreign tourists who took her picture.
Six months later, her ‘freedom’ was procured by the foreigners in conjunction with an NGO called ‘International Needs’, leading to the release of the 500 young girls who were in ritual servitude at the shrine.
However, physical liberation did not stop Mary from a living a life of spiritual slavery. Unable to trace her real family, Mary moved to 11 different locations but continued to experience “a series of rejection, maltreatment and abuse”.
Men had an unnerving sexual attraction for her and exploited her innocence at will. “The demons would enter the men and make them sleep with me,” she stated, adding that each promiscuous encounter was followed by dismissal and hatred from the men involved.
Plagued by terrible nightmares of snakes and increasing mental instability, Mary eventually found herself begging on the streets for survival at Madina Market in Accra. There, she finally met a ‘Good Samaritan’ and narrated her sordid story to her.
“She said that the only person would could deliver me from all those demons was Prophet T.B. Joshua,” Mary explained, adding that the lady fully paid for her journey from Ghana to The SCOAN in Lagos, Nigeria.
