By Brent Swails, CNN
The mansion sits in the heart of Maputo, Mozambique. From the street it looks abandoned. Its walls are crumbling, the windows are broken and overgrown shrubs and trees hide the once grand entrance.
But inside there are signs that this place is still a home. The ceiling is black from cooking fires. In the bedrooms, mattresses line the floors and pages torn from magazines decorate the walls.
Local anti-trafficking activist Katie Magill often visits the mansion and other squatter housing in the city. She says its residents are at an age where they idolize the singers and actresses pictured on the pages. But they are much too young for the work they’re forced to do every night.
Many here say that Mozambique’s label of “the land of prawns and prostitutes” is well deserved. Prawns dominate trade by day, and at night, it’s Mozambique’s girls that are for sale. FULL POST
By Natalie Allen, CNN
Twelve-year-old Dieu wears a bright-green top sprinkled with yellow flowers as she squats in a pile of garbage with her mother.
The two talk and laugh while their hands work quickly, sorting plastic from the discarded food and waste.
A full bag will bring their family just pennies. But this is their life’s work. They live on a dump in Rach Gia, Vietnam, part of the Mekong Delta.
When she was about 7, Isabel was sold into domestic servitude to a wealthy Taiwan family who later moved to California. She endured a childhood of constant work and beatings and only escaped when she was in her 20s.
CNN's Martin Savidge first talked to Isabel about her story in November. In that conversation, Isabel said her wish was to be reunited with her mother. "If I find her I say Mom I love you so much. I still want to find you," she said.
Her story sparked a media storm in Taiwan and the country's foreign minister helped locate Isabel's family.
On Thursday, after 20 years, Isabel got her wish and was finally reunited with her mother. FULL POST
Everyone loves chocolate. But for thousands of people, chocolate is the reason for their enslavement.
The chocolate bar you snack on likely starts at a plant in a West African cocoa plantation, and often the people who harvest it are children. Many are slaves to a system that produces something almost all of us consume and enjoy.
The CNN Freedom Project sent correspondent David McKenzie into the heart of the Ivory Coast - the world’s largest cocoa producer - to investigate what's happening to children working in the fields.
A nanny horribly burned by a relative of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is building a new life in Malta. She is out of hospital but still needs almost daily treatment, and many more months of hospital visits lie ahead. CNN’s Dan Rivers has this update on her progress.
(CNN) - Since its launch in March, the CNN Freedom Project has helped shine a spotlight on all aspects of modern-day slavery and spurred action from governments, corporations and individuals.
CNN reported on sex slaves and bonded workers, children and adults caught in despair, and the inspirational against-all-odds work of individuals and organizations fighting the trade.
Nearly 2,000 people have come out of slavery, either directly or indirectly, as a result of the hundreds of stories broadcast on air and published online.
They called him “Miguel.”
In April, Haitian police found a naked child in a hole, near the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. He was badly beaten, hadn’t eaten in days and was unable to even speak. So they simply called him “Miguel.”
He is the face of human trafficking in a country whose porous borders provide many opportunities to those who buy, sell or abduct children. Authorities say these kids are often trafficked for sex, for their organs or as to be used as child laborers.
This is Miguel’s story.
Editor's note: Actor and activist Robin Wright recently traveled to eastern Congo with the Enough Project, a Washington-based group focused on ending genocide and crimes against humanity. Her video trip diary appears as a special feature on a new UK edition of "Blood in the Mobile," available on DVD.
(CNN) – A 10-year-old boy, his face still innocent, abducted from his village and forced to kill alongside ruthless militia fighters. A 60-year-old grandmother too ashamed of the injuries caused by a brutal rape to leave her house for five months, even though her wounds worsened. A girl who reminded me of my own daughter, bridging the years between youth and womanhood, who had been dragged into a forest near her house by a group of men and raped, over and over again.
Images of these people, whose quiet but warm personalities barely hint at the atrocities they have survived, give a human face to the conflict in eastern Congo that has long moved me as an activist. With well over 5 million people dead through war and its accompanying hardships spanning more than a decade, it is difficult to imagine the daily impact of a conflict of this magnitude, much less to feel empowered to do anything about it.
Steven Taylor is a 24-year-old music and celebrity photographer. In the past two years, Steven has photographed Common, John Mayer, Snoop Dogg, Pharrell, Bruno Mars, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, John Legend and more. FULL POST
Editor's note: This is part of a series on the CNN Freedom Project on domestic servitude. Read more about some in domestic servitude who are so desperate to escape, they take their own lives. And get an update on the nanny in domestic servitude who suffered extensive burns when, she said, a Gadhafi relative poured boiling water on her.
(CNN) – One was sold by her impoverished parents, the other willingly left her family to become a nanny. But both found years of their lives turned to domestic servitude before finally finding freedom.
CNN's Martin Savidge tells the story of Isabel. Her mother sold her into slavery at around age 7 to a Taiwanese family who later moved to the United States in an upscale southern California neighborhood. FULL POST
A nanny who suffered extensive burns when, she said, a relative of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's family poured boiling water on her, may be discharged from a hospital in Malta as early as next week. She has been receiving medial treatment there since she arrived from Libya in September. FULL POST
Abuse of Lebanese domestic workers is so common some nations are banning citizens from taking jobs there. And many are so desperate to escape enslavement and abusive conditions, that they take their own lives. Arwa Damon reports.
For this Freedom Project challenge, we invite you to create a dish using fair trade chocolate. Get started! Fair-trade chocolate challenge
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