The story of a young Sudanese girl kidnapped and sold into slavery and how, in London in September 2000, she finally escaped to freedom.
Mende was born into the Nuba tribe in Sudan. She had a happy, loving childhood in the remote Nuba Mountains, in a primitive but proud community. She was a bright little girl whose dream was to train as a doctor, to help her people. But then, when she was twelve years old, raiders on horseback swept into her village.
Wielding swords and guns, the Mujahedin hacked down the bewildered villagers, raped their women and torched their huts. Mende, with a group of other children, was abducted, abused, and handed over to a slave trader. She feared the rest of her family and been killed.
This may sound like a story from the dark pages of history, but it happened just ten years ago. Mende was sold to a rich Arab lady in Khartoum. There she was kept as a domestic slave, often beaten, always locked up in a garden shed at night, and fed on the family's leftovers like a dog. She wasn't paid, and she never had a day off. Her owner called her "abid", or "black slave". She had to call her "master".
For seven years she lived a lonely life of toil without hope, without any news of her family. Then, in the spring of 2000, her master passed her on like a parcel to a relative living in London. In September that year, she managed to make contact with other Nuba exiles in London, who, together with Damien Lewis, a British journalist and filmmaker, helped her to escape to freedom.
'Slave' is the shocking first-person insight into the slave trade that goes on in Sudan to this day, under the cover of the civil war. But Mende's story also gives a fascinating glimpse into everyday tribal life among the Nuba, whose traditions and community are fast being destroyed for ever. Above all, it is a moving testimony to one brave young girl's unbreakable spirit.
