When I came to Ghana I was bombarded by the difference between it and my home country. Among other things, the religious beliefs, traditional beliefs, gender roles, and medical practices are very different compared to my home. My image of what Africa was far from correct, as I have never been to a place anything like it. I did not find it to be either better or worse overall, only different. Ghana is a deeply religious country and it's religion has had profound effects on Ghanaian societies in a variety of ways, which I found to be very interesting.
Religion and spirituality play huge parts of the daily lives of people in Ghana. Religion is everywhere in the country; most shop names, bumper stickers, in the schools, everywhere you look. Many people attend church, mosque, or their religious groups many times a week, dedicating large percentages of their time to their religious practices. The time that they spend at church often takes away from time that they would be otherwise spending with their family or at work.
Religious tolerance in Ghana is very high, as the different religions have coexisted for many years without any big problems. The main religions in Ghana are Christianity, Islam, and traditional/tribal religions. There are also some other religions such as Rastafarianism. Both the Christian and Muslim holidays are recognized and celebrated in the country. The religious composition of Ghana from the census of 1960 was 41 percent Christian, 38 percent traditionalist, 12 percent Muslim, and 9 percent no religious affiliation. According to a 1985 estimate the percentage of Christians rose sharply to 62 percent and the Muslim population rose to 15 percent. Conversely, traditionalists declined dramatically to 21 percent and those of no religious affiliation to about 1 percent. Christianity and Islam in Ghana are sometimes intertwined with traditional beliefs and practices. Almost every person in Ghana believes in and practices a religion. This shift, especially the increase in favor of the Independent African Churches, is thought to, as said by U.S. Library of Congress, “attest the success of denominations that have adjusted their doctrines to suit local beliefs”. There is not a official religion in Ghana but attendance at assemblies or devotional services, typically Christian, is required in public schools.
Throughout the country the number of worship centers, churches, mosques, and prayer camps out number schools and hospitals. As a developing country, Ghana does not have a lot of money for building new structures, and a large amount of it is spent on building religious institutions, which is an impediment to it’s development. Religion is so important in the lives of Ghanians that it seems rarely anything is done without reference to religion.
Since Christianity was introduced to Ghana a large number of changes have been made in society, one of which is the political structure of the country. The government has shifted from chieftaincy systems to democracy, which is not necessary a good change or a bad change. The western countries thought that not only their religion of Christianity should be followed in Africa, but also their political system. Democracy is still new in the country and the culture has not fully adjusted to it at this point. Ghana has been one of the most successful countries in Africa to start a democracy, although it is far from perfect. The country has been holding mostly successful elections since the early 1990s.
A common religious belief-system can unite members under a common political party. Religious groups in Ghana have a long and uneven history of civic engagement in Ghana’s political history, including leadership in social movements that led to the collapse and overthrow of the military regime in the late 1970s. Religious groups are a force by themselves when it comes to the provision of education, health, and social services. To the extent that religious leaders accurately represent their members’ views, politicians at times have no choice but to listen to them. Religious leaders are looked up to and their opinions are taken as fact in a large percentage of religious groups. Religious leaders have been taking advantage of their status and using it to get the political candidate elected that they favor. Politicians have been known to even bribe religious leaders to get them votes. There is a direct tie between religion and the partial corruption of political elections in Ghana.
There is also a great amount of corruption in the church it’s self. Pastors and church workers in a number of large churches embezzle large amounts of money. This happens not only in Ghana but all over the world. It is horrible that churches embezzle money because the people donating it expect that it goes toward helping people and the good of mankind. It matters more in Ghana than in many other countries though because Ghana is a developing country and the money that is being stolen has so much potential and need for helping people.
For all Ghanaian ethnic groups, the spirit world is considered to be as real as the world of the living. I have a great interest in the spiritual belief in Ghana, as I have never come across any like them until I came to Ghana. When I first learned that Ghanians believe in witchcraft I was utterly shocked. In America most people have heard of witchcraft, but most don’t know that people actually believe in witches like they do in Ghana. I heard of the Salem Witch Trials, but always thought of them as ridiculous, crazy, and outdated. Since I have been in Ghana I have learned that witches are thought of as absolutely real and a part of life by a large amount of people.
In Ghana, when something bad happens it is typically blamed on an evil spirit or witchcraft. In this way traditional religion and beliefs are integrated into the modern religion and beliefs. The majority of people in Ghana believe in good spirits, evil spirits, and witchcraft. When any natural disaster or bad event occurs it is often blamed on witchcraft. Instead of looking for the physical cause of the incident, people look for the witch instead. Witches are usually older women and are identified by a priest, who has been given by god the power tell that who is a witch. How the problem of witchcraft can be solved varies through different regions and religious groups. In the northern Ghana witches are usually banned from town and forced to be confined in a witch town where they endure very poor living conditions. Occasionally they are even burned at the stake or physically harmed. Some religious groups believe people believe that witchcraft can be healed or removed by prayer. It is a problem that bad things are believed to be a result of witchcraft because bad things might keep happening when the cause is never corrected, and innocent women are often harmed.
When it is believed that something has been bewitched or there is an evil spirit, sometimes a medicine or juju man will be hired to fix the problem. Despite the growing numbers in hospitals and the general education of Ghanians, most still put their hope and trust in medicine men, juju men, and herbalist to fix their problems. It is believed by many that all illnesses are caused by gods withdrawing their blessing, and healing is impossible until the spiritual disturbance leaves. The medicine men can diagnose the patient and then heal them with herbs, rituals, and charms.
The importance of medicine men in Ghanaian society and the reason why hospitals in Ghana are the way they are, may be interconnected. I spent a couple months working at a Ghanaian hospital and found it to be very different than American hospitals. It had long waiting times for patients, the injections were unsanitary, diagnosis often incorrect, and a number of other problems. The ineffectiveness of Ghanian hospitals make them less appealing and important to Ghanians. When the hospital doesn’t do a good job at helping reverse illness and health problems or they don’t have enough money to pay hospital fees, they turn to alternatives. Hospitals are the more popular medical resource popular but medicine men are still commonly used throughout Ghana. Medicine men might not always be effective, but many Ghanians feel they provide a better diagnosis and more peace of mind than a hospital would.
To society, medicine men are important in many other ways than healing. They are members of the council of elders in villages who advise chiefs on issues that have to do with the spiritual welfare of society. They are responsible for praying to the gods for guidance, protection, and changes in the environment when necessary. They also perform ceremonies to link the spiritual world to the world of the living, such as weddings and burials. Medicine men do not have any medical or political degrees, but a lot of trust is put on them.
Both modern and traditional religion in Ghana reinforce gender roles. Scriptures in the bible and in the koran explain that men are the head of the household and the women must submit to them. In Ghana it is typically expected that the woman is to do the household chores, to take care of the children, take care of their husband, and numerous other duties. Men are the decision makers of the household and are also expected to financially take care of his family, although they often fail at this. Because of these gender expectations boys are expected to go to school and study more than girls, and become better educated.
When a family or person is not making enough money, they often will go to a big city to seek financial gain. People see the big city as a promise of money and prosperity, which are in some ways both real and imagined expectations. The man’s position as primary decision makers allows them to migrate with their families to the city, while the women migrate alone. Because most Ghanaian men are better educated than the women, they tend find better work. Sometimes a man will decide that he can’t or doesn’t want to support his family, and leaves them. This chain of events leaves women more vulnerable to poverty than men.
The bible states to “be fruitful and multiply”, which is something that Ghanians don’t seem to have any problem doing. It seems that practically everyone in Ghana wants to have many babies. I am not sure why people want to have so many, but perhaps it is because of religious beliefs or simply to carry on the family lineage, which is very important to traditional Ghanians. If Ghanians slowed down having babies there would be less children for money and resources to be focused on, which would allow the children to grow into healthier and better educated adults, helping the economy prosper.
A lot of the pregnancies are wanted, but many pregnancies in Ghana are not planned or wanted. There are strong ties between contraceptive use and both religion and education. The Christian, Islam, and traditional religions in Ghana look down upon premarital sex, which has caused some problems. Women that are sexually active are often too embarrassed or ashamed to seek condoms or birth control. Also because premarital sex is looked down upon there is a lack of sex education available to many people. Even when there sex education provided at schools, many of the children don’t attend school, and a number of the students that do attend don’t take it seriously. These factors have caused the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and many unwanted pregnancies.
Another problem that religion has caused in Ghana is Female Genital Mutilation, which is usually done in order to reduce the woman's sex drive and remove her temptation to have sex before marriage. It is also seen in some areas as a passage rite into adulthood for females and therefore done just before marriage. It was made illegal in Ghana in 1994 and those who perform the operation face a prison sentence of at least three years, but it still occurs. Reports indicate that the prevalence rate of FGM in Ghana has decreased substantially but is still around 5 percent, which is lower than many African countries but still too high. FMG is most common in the north, where it was widely practiced before the ban, and there are relatively few prosecutions. The laws regarding FMG are weak and have many loopholes, such as how it “does not punish accomplices such as parents, family and community members who help the FGM practitioner,” said Florence Ali, the president of Ghanaian Association of Women Welfare. FGM often leads to medical complications and can leave a woman psychologically scarred for life.
This traditional practice will continue unless the laws regarding it are strengthened and enforced, which women's rights groups are working on in Ghana. They have put together a campaign, and as stated in Medical News Today; “have persuaded traditional chiefs in the Upper West Region to publicly condemn the custom as 'inhuman and degrading.'”, which is a big step towards their goal of completely eliminating the practice. Another action that can be made to stop FGM would be to persuade girls in the traditional areas of Ghana that FGM is not a good rite of passage and give a substitute for the custom. For example a new rite of passage could be learning about their culture or learning how to be a strong woman.
It is believed by the Ewe people that if a man commits a grave sin, the gods will take revenge and kill members of his family. To avoid this, the family may sacrifice a young virgin girl, typically of eight to fifteen years old, to the local shrine as the god's slave, which is known as trokosi. After the sacrifice the priest has full ownership over the girl. The girls are usually forced to do hard labor, live in brutal conditions, and be the priest’s sex slave. The trokosi girls are typically denied education, food, and basic healthcare. The priest controls all her interactions with others and if she tries to escape the priest can beat her. The girls serving under trokosi often have to spend their entire life serving, some only have to spend a few years. In the past before the trokosi ritual became popular, other rituals were in place. For example, a offering of cattle or other life stock could be made.
In 1998 Ghana made a law banning all forms of ritualized forced labor, including trokosi. Since then a couple thousand women have been rescued from the practice and non-government organizations have established programs to teach them skills to survive outside of slavery, although government has not done anything to enforce the new law. No arrests have made and it has been up to non-government organizations to do all the work. Many women have been rescued from trokosi, but it is speculated that over a thousand still exist.
The traditions that go along with widows in Ghana are often degrading and cruel. The Widows and Orphans Ministry identified the following widowhood rites: “stripping the widow naked and having her wear only shea tree leaves; having the widow bathe naked in public; forcing the widow to marry a man from her late husband's family; having the widow feed the ritualist during and after the funeral; and isolating the widow and exposing her to black ants”. Widowhood rites have been traditions among families in Ghana for a very long time. Despite many human rights movements and the fact that they are prohibited by the law, they still happen regularly.
Religion has it’s purposes and good aspects, but there are a number of negative impacts that it has had on Ghanaian society. Ghana is one of the most religious countries in the world. This paper is not meant to argue if the religious beliefs and practices are good or bad, but only to point out some of it’s effects on society. Religion has been the cause of many profound trends in Ghanaian society, some good and some bad. The right to carry out traditional practices sometimes can conflict with fundamental human rights, but there are always changes and compromises that can be made so that traditionalist can practice in a more humane way.
Bibliography
U.S. Library of Congress. RELIGION. http://countrystudies.us/ghana/50.htm
The Gambia Echo. Kofi Akosah-Sarpong. Engaging Evil Spirits through Spiritual Courts.
Baffour K. Takyi, Chris Opoku-Agyeman, and Agnes Kutin-Mensah. Religion and the Public Sphere: Religious Involvement and Voting Patterns in Ghana’s 2004 Elections
04 Feb 2004. Female Genital Mutilation in Ghana.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5681.php
Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. 12 July 2006. Ghana: Widowhood rites performed by the Akan people, particularly for chiefs and sub-chiefs; whether the widow has to marry the customary successor of the sub-chief and consequences for refusal (2004 - 2006).
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,IRBC,,GHA,,45f147352f,0.html
Sarah C. Aird. Ghana’s Slaves to the Gods.
http://www.wcl.american.edu/hrbrief/v7i1/ghana.htm
Africa Recovery, Vol.15 #4. December 2001. Niri t Ben-Ari. Liberating girls from 'trokosi':Campaign against ritual servitude in Ghana http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/vol15no4/154troko.htm
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