Every year, millions of women leave their own families in Africa and Asia to look after other people's in the west. But many domestic workers find themselves abused, beaten, raped, even murdered. Foreign Reporter of the Year Dan McDougall travels from Manila through the Middle East to London to hear their stories

“I was so thin I would faint with hunger”: Divia, 33, who was abused as a domestic worker in London, photographed in the capital, May 2009. Photograph: Robin Hammond

Out on the estuary, fishermen and day traders motor battered aluminium canoes through waves of steaming rubbish. Beyond are the skyscrapers of downtown Manila and the chaos of the streets - the calls of hawkers and warbling Pinoy radio music mingling with the snarling engines of Jeepney taxis stalled in traffic and the shrill whistles of traffic police, trying to rein in the uncontrollable energy of one of the world's most frenetic cities.