Many African and Asian countries have banned the recruitment of domestic workers for countries in the Middle East who subscribe to the “kafala” system.Under the system, foreign maids are legally bound to their employer and have limited rights.Employers can take advantage of their position and many women are overworked, underpaid and physically abused.Testimonies from women who escaped and private recordings show a world of powerlessness and abuse, hidden behind closed doors.

One month ago, BBC Africa Eye released an investigation into child trafficking that sent shockwaves throughout Kenya. Many of the children featured in the film were stolen. But others were willingly sold by their own mothers, often for tiny sums. This is the story of one mother and her baby, trapped between poverty and the child traffickers.

A year long investigation by BBC Africa Eye has uncovered damning evidence of a thriving underground network in Kenya that snatches babies from their mothers and sells them for a profit. The secretive and highly lucrative trade preys on the country’s most vulnerable, stealing children from the streets and even the maternity ward of a major government hospital. Njeri Mwangi reports from Nairobi.Subscribe:

BBC Africa Eye uncovered an illegal network that lures women to India from Africa, where they are then forced into sex work to satisfy the demands of the many African men living in Delhi.The women are mostly from Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania and Rwanda.One woman, Grace, who was trafficked from Kenya, agreed to go undercover.

In Uganda, young women are leaving their homes to try and find jobs as domestic workers, but for some their new lives can lead to mistreatment and abuse.A charity in Kenya is calling for the introduction of laws to protect domestic workers, who are commonly referred to as ‘housegirls’, to ensure their safety.For BBC Africa Eye, reporter Nancy Kacungira has been investigating why young women living near Uganda’s border are leaving their villages to find work in Kenya.

The G20 nations, made up of the world's biggest economies, struck an historic agreement on restructuring debt for some of the world’s poorest nations.It goes beyond the current deal to freeze debt repayments until June of next year.It is significant because it includes China, which has been reluctant to sign up to any deal that would cancel or restructure debts.

Despite the deal, Zambia has defaulted on its debt.Plus: Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. We explain why central banks are thinking about introducing negative interest rates.And, Brazil drops out of the ranking of the top 10 economies.

#China's presence is visible all over #Africa. But nowhere as much as in #Zambia, the African nation where it invested the most money last year. The ties between Beijing and Lusaka are strong and have existed for decades. Today, China possesses one third of Zambia's national debt. It has invested in the mining and industrial sectors, but also in agriculture. Some Zambians denounce this Chinese presence as a form of neo-colonialism.

27 years on and Thomas Sankara's legacy still lives on. Sankara was a profound leader with deep love for his country, Burkina Faso. But he would not live long enough to see his vision change his country for better. He was assassinated.

"Faces of Africa" takes you through Sankara's journey and how his ideas have stuck in the minds of the young generation, now seeking to resuscitate the country's economic and political status.

Decades after the European powers carved up the African continent for their own imperial needs, Africa is undergoing a new wave of resource and strategic exploitation – some are calling it the new scramble for Africa.

The United States is increasing its footprint across Africa with AFRICOM, fighting terrorism and ensuring stability are the trumpeted motivations. Resource security is a more hushed objective.But it is not just about the US.

During the last decade, China's trade with Africa not only caught up with America's, it has more than doubled it.The new battle for Africa does not deploy strong-arm tactics, it is now a soft power game: economic and humanitarian aid, interest-free loans, preferential trade agreements and investments in infrastructure are currency across a continent that is, for the world's established and emerging powers, seemingly up for grabs.

India, Brazil and Russia are all invested in Africa's present and future, and old imperial powers like France are fixing to retain their loosening grip on the riches of former colonies.So what does all this mean for Africa and Africans?Empire travels to Kenya to examine the continent at the centre of the world as it is courted, cajoled and carved up by global powers to its East and West.

Seventeen African nations gained their independence in 1960, but the dreams of the independence era were short-lived. Africa states of independence tells the story of some of those countries - stories of mass exploitation, of the ecstasy of independence and of how - with liberation - a new, covert scramble for resources was born.[2 September 2010]