"Are you living in slavery?"

The shipping of millions of Africans to work as slaves on sugar and cotton plantations in the United States and the Caribbean ended in the early 1800s.

But far from being confined to history, other forms of slavery still continue.

Millions of men, women and children around the world - including many Africans - are forced into servitude.

Human trafficking and slavery is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. So serious is the problem that the United Nations has made 2004 an anti-slavery year.

In west Africa, children are trafficked between countries, often sold by their own parents, to be used as servants in the houses of richer people and on agricultural plantations.

In some countries like Mauritania and Niger, people are born into a class where they are viewed and treated as only being suitable for slave labour.

Source : news.bbc.co.uk