Mende Nazer had an idyllic early childhood with her loving family in a small village in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan, until she was brutally kidnapped by the Mujahidin. She was kept as a domestic slave by a woman in Khartoum without any pay or a single day off. Mende endured this harsh and lonely existence without knowing whether her family was alive or dead, for seven long years. In the spring of 2000 Mende was passed on by her master, like a parcel, to a relative in London. Eventually she managed to make contact with other Nuba exiles who, with British journalist and filmmaker Damien Lewis, helped her escape to freedom. In 2002 she was awarded the Human Rights Award by CECRA, the Spanish Coalition Against Slavery for her work in making slavery a public issue.