On 29 November, Cecilia Flores-Oebanda, founding President and Executive Director of the Philippine organisation Visayan Forum Foundation, will receive the 2005 Anti-Slavery Award. Anti-Slavery International's Sarah Williams recently visited Cecilia and saw her in action, working to combat child domestic work and related slavery.

Mila is now 23 years old, she started work as a child domestic when she was nine. "During my time as a child domestic I worked for 11 employers. Only one of them gave me any salary, and that was just 500 pesos (US$9.00) a month," she said.

Each day she had to get up at 5.00am, to carry out the household chores which involved taking care of her employers' children, cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry and ironing. On top of this, she had additional work including helping in a pre-school, making deliveries, and in one case, looking after pigs.

Conditions were bad, "in one place I lived in a shed, with no light, no mattress, and only one bucket of water a week for washing." On two occasions she was sexually assaulted, once when she was 12 by her employer, a 70 year old man, and then when she was 15 by the brother of her then employer. After that, she ran away.

Mila's experience is typical of the hundreds of thousands of child domestics in the Philippines. Mostly girls, these children are often deprived of the chance of an education and are working in harmful and unacceptable conditions. They are isolated from family and friends and are under their employer's complete control. Children in this situation frequently suffer a wide range of abuses, including physical or verbal abuse and sexual violence.

When Mila escaped, she found shelter with Visayan Forum, the pioneering organisation founded by Cecilia Flores-Oebanda in 1991.

Cecilia has dedicated her life to working for the rights of exploited migrant workers, particularly child domestics. Born into poverty in Negros province, in the Visayas, central Philippines, Cecilia began work when she was five years old, selling fish and scavenging. In her teens she started organising young people and agricultural workers, calling for rights and democracy at the height of the Marcos dictatorship. Her activism led to her being imprisoned, she was pregnant at the time and both her children were born in prison. She and her family were held for four years. Once freed, she moved to Manila, the capital, where her work for marginalised migrant workers began.

Visayan Forum started with community-based programmes to tackle the root causes of child labour, raising awareness and running micro-credit and savings schemes among poor, urban communities. It soon focused on the most invisible and vulnerable groups -- child domestic workers. Its activities include crisis services such as a telephone hotline, medical and legal assistance and a shelter. Through SUMAPI, an association of domestic workers which Visayan Forum founded in 1995, it involves domestic workers in helping each other.

SUMAPI's volunteers are both current and former domestics. They go to the areas where domestics of all ages meet: schools, churches and parks, and inform them about their rights, how they can get assistance and keep track of how they are doing. Currently it has around 8,000 members; half are in Manila with the rest in the provinces.

But to make a lasting difference, Cecilia says there must be policy changes. The organisation has led lobbying efforts for domestic workers' rights, such as their campaign for the Domestic Workers' Bill, which would provide basic rights for all domestic workers, as well as putting in place services and programmes dedicated to their protection.

Cecilia quickly saw the link with human trafficking, as most domestics are migrants from other parts of the country. Visayan's anti-trafficking programme has developed partnerships with such agencies as the ports authority and the coastguard, to intercept boats carrying potential trafficking victims. In most cases they are trafficked from outlying islands to Manila or overseas to the Gulf, Japan and other countries. Visayan Forum then gives them temporary shelter and support.

Visayan Forum seeks to empower those whom it helps. In Mila's case, soon after she arrived in the shelter, she began volunteering for SUMAPI. In 2001, she was elected the association's National President and moved to Manila where she continued her studies. In March this year, she graduated from university and is now one of SUMAPI's three full-time employees.

Cecilia is proud of SUMAPI and of all Visayan Forum's achievements. "I will stand firm and continue to fight," she says, "I cannot leave this work as this is what I am meant to do."

Cecilia will be presented with the Anti-Slavery Award at a ceremony in London on Tuesday 29 November by internationally acclaimed children's author J K Rowling.

The 29 November ceremony is at 7.30pm:
Chatham House
10 St James's Square
London SW1Y 4LE
Nearest tube: Green Park/ Piccadilly Circus

Everyone is welcome but places are limited, to register your attendance please contact Sarah Williams on +44 (0)20 7501 8933 or email s.williams@antislavery.org. Find the event with a map of the location.

Mauritanian governments have ruthlessly denied slavery's existence, but now there are signs of change. Africa Programme Officer Romana Cacchioli spoke to Fatimata Mbaye, President of Association Mauritanien des Droits de l'Homme (AMDH) about hopes on the horizon.

Slavery is deeply woven into Mauritania's social fabric. As in Niger, people are born into a slave class. The long denial of the problem by successive governments has meant organisations have not been permitted to work openly. In 1988, Fatimata was imprisoned with other anti-slavery activists for speaking openly about slavery.

Although no surveys have been able to be carried out, the problem is clearly significant. In rural areas, men and boys are used to herd animals while women and girls in slavery carry out heavy domestic chores. But slaves are also used in urban areas, working in any way their master demands.

Fatimata has faced challenges at every level. "In my village people can't understand and are angry that I challenge cultural norms and traditions. And
as I am a woman, people generally are affronted. Women in Mauritania, even
if they work out of the home, rarely challenge or push an opinion. I have suffered innumerable humiliations, very recently a government official refused to meet me."

In May our partners, AMDH and SOS Esclaves were officially recognised, meaning they can register as non-governmental organisations and talk and work more openly. This was soon followed by the overthrow of the Government. "Since the coup d'état in June, the transitional government has made some positive gestures, such as freeing all political prisoners and seeking meetings with organisations like AMDH. Recently we attended a public meeting where we raised the problem of slavery," she said, something that could not have happened before.

But there are still obstacles. Most prominent is the social perception of slaves. "A slave wears his status like a second skin. Mauritanians are identified by their tribe, by their family name; slaves are identified by their master's tribe, their master's name. So the first hurdle is for them to create a new identity."

But escaped slaves have few options and face a precarious future. When they leave their master, they have to leave their village as well. In town, there are few opportunities. Those escaping slavery have no education, no prospects. They barely make enough to subsist. The men can only get work as porters or night watchmen, the women as domestics or in sex work.

But escaped slaves have few options and face a precarious future. When they leave their master, they have to leave their village as well. In town, there are few opportunities. Those escaping slavery have no education, no prospects. They barely make enough to subsist. The men can only get work as porters or night watchmen, the women as domestics or in sex work.

Most slaves don't flee because they are physically and psychologically tied to their masters. Physically, because they are dressed, fed and sheltered by them; "without the master they are nothing, confined to the shadows and margins of society. In a vast country, much of it desert, they cannot just run, they have families," Fatimata stressed. They are bound psychologically as well. Slaves are told they can only go to heaven on their master's word.

Socially, there also needs to be change. "Mauritanians are very attached to their traditions, we need to change mentalities to help society accept slavery is a crime. The law needs to be rigorously applied and slavery should be heavily punished."

AMDH and SOS Esclaves are calling for a census to identify slaves, where they are and who their masters are. "Those living in slavery have to be released immediately upon identification with adequate compensation from the state," she said. "We could do so much, it needs a complete programme of action, beginning with schools and learning centres. People leaving slavery need to be given social assistance and education, economic opportunities and access to micro-credit schemes. We need a nationwide awareness campaign on human rights, which will include all sections of society, particularly our religious leaders."