This paper discusses Human Rights Violations in African Traditional Religion with a conscious focus on its
masquerade administration. At its face value, masquerades are understood to represent entertainment and
visitations by the spirits from the land of the dead. However, the contemporary trends show that masquerade
institution is shrouded in secrecy known only to the members of the cult. On the outside, they violate the freedoms
and rights of people with only flimsy a reason that it is people’s culture. The bad effects of its practice outweigh its
positive dimensions in today’s world. The findings of this paper reveal, among others, that masked men who make
others believe they are spirits have imposed on the larger society the burdens of atrocities which public
responsibility demands that they must be treated with every sense of urgency and seriousness in order to put an
end to the evil consequences of their operations. No one has any rights to violate the rights of others. In fact, one’s
rights stops where the other’s begins. The challenges of masquerade culture include pastoral, cultural, economic,
security, moral, social and political issues to mention but these few. The methodology employed in this work is
historic-descriptive as the masquerades have been studied as a cultural practice with special interest on its
human rights violations.