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'Voodoo Girls' Back to School
After a three-year campaign, rights groups claimed victory over a way of life that they said cut the girls off from their own families, sometimes involved ritual scarring -- and occasionally led to sexual abuse.
But it took some intense lobbying of political and religious authorities in this small west African state -- and, it would seem, the voodoo divinities -- to get there.
The final decision only came after numerous offerings to the divinities of beef, poultry, drinks, cola nuts and animal sacrifices to the ancestors during voodoo ceremonies in the heart of a sacred forest.
"Maman Kponou" (Mother Kponou), the "mother of the divinities" in Togo, finally gave her consent to the changes in late May.
About 60 years of age, a string of multi-coloured pearls laced around her neck, she reigns over the sacred forest of Togoville, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of the capital Lome.
Her authority extends to about a dozen "convents" serving 150 gods -- in a country where voodoo remains influential.
Voodoo priests say that several hundred young girls are baptised every year as voodoo adepts, or voodoosi, after lengthy initiation rites of between three months and two years.
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