“I have been hit, tortured, humiliated – I’m always the first to wake up and the last to go to sleep,” explains Habi Mutraba, breaking into tears.

Miss Mutraba is from the West African state of Mauritania, and, like an estimated 600,000 of her fellow citizens, was enslaved from birth.

Her mother was impregnated by her “master” and when Habi was born she was given to a member of his extended family.

Like most other Mauritanian slaves, Habi would tend to her master’s livestock or work in the household, fetching water and preparing food.

She says she was regularly raped by the head of her household after he threatened her with a knife and later on became pregnant by his son following another rape.

“None of us ever went to school,” she said in an interview with the Telegraph, “none of us had identity or civil papers.

“I received no support, no one could help me. I was totally at the mercy of my masters.”