Issue No. 429

 Mo Farah, global migration, and the perils of child trafficking

In an interview with the BBC that aired on 13 July, Olympic star Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah – Mo Farah, to his legions of fans – revealed that he was trafficked as a child to the UK. Born Hussein Abdi Kaahin in Somaliland, he lost his father to a stray bullet in 1987 during the civil war, when Mo Farah was four. He said that he was flown to the UK from Djibouti at age nine by a woman he had never met. She provided him with documentation that had his photo but a different name – Mohamed Farah – which he used to enter the UK, where he believed he was going to be living with relatives. Instead, he was forced to work as a domestic servant, doing housework and providing childcare.

Mo Farah’s revelation shocked Britain and much of the world. In reality, though, his is far from a unique case. Mo Farah’s experience is all too familiar to a whole generation of Somalis and others who were uprooted, displaced, and dispersed across the globe due to any number of humanitarian crises: war, political violence, state collapse, terrorism, drought, and famine, to name a few. But his revelations are noteworthy because they put a friendly, familiar face – albeit an African one – on a practice whose victims are all too often faceless and anonymous, which makes their stories – however horrific – easy to forget. He should be commended for making public the truth about how he came to the UK and using his position to bring attention to the scourge of human trafficking.

At the same time, his privilege and whatever role it played in his decision to come clean cannot be denied. As a famous athlete who has won four Olympic gold medals and received a knighthood for his accomplishments, Sir Mo Farah is hardly comparable to the thousands of Africans illegally trafficked every year. Much more common is the recent story of a Nigerian senator who, together with his wife, was charged with trafficking a homeless 15-year-old boy to Britain to harvest his organs for their sick daughter. The boy, who is being safeguarded by British police while the case is pending, could very well be deported back to Nigeria.

Many Somalis have lived through the same experience as Mo Farah, being sent away as children to live with family members or friends inside or outside of Somalia, where they are expected to provide labour in return for a ‘better life.’ In exchange for their labour, these children receive housing, food, and education, depending on the ‘generosity’ of the host family. In some instances, a small stipend is sent to their family back home. But there are no enforceable mechanisms for this sort of agreement beyond the goodwill of the host family. This often leads to the exploitation of the children, who sometimes end up as essentially slaves: forcibly kept under threat of deportation or worse, and receiving severe punishments and abuse when they fail to complete their ‘duties.’

Child labour in Somalia is relatively normalised. Most children start working at a very young age and the lucky ones get the opportunity to combine work with school. There have been some initiatives to address the issue of child labour, but progress has been limited. The government rarely enforces child protection laws. Despite ratifying the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 2015, Somalia has not criminalised child trafficking for labour. Consequently,  parents often don’t report their children as trafficking victims, as child labour is generally not viewed as immoral or illegal. As a result, the practice tends to be very opaque, with little information available about its prevalence.

In Somalia, children who are sent away to live with better-off families in urban areas typically come from poverty-ridden rural areas. In some cases, they are trafficked to more affluent neighbouring countries with a large Somali population, such as Kenya or Ethiopia, or further abroad, to Europe, the UK, or the United States. To reach a destination outside of Africa usually requires either fake documents, which tend to be extremely expensive, or relying upon a trafficking syndicate. Either way, the children end up in a very precarious situation, one that can easily segue into exploitation and abuse.

Legally, most countries regard children who are trafficked as victims. However, when it involves crossing international borders, they are sometimes treated as illegal migrants instead. Even children are not spared from prosecution and punishment for violating immigration laws, leading to detention and prison sentences in some extreme cases. Such responses are often driven by rising anti immigration and anti-refugee sentiment in Western countries. In the BBC documentary, Mo Farah admitted to being worried about his immigration status after his revelations became public. And, indeed, there were calls in the UK for him to be stripped of his knighthood and deported back to Somaliland.

As a result of growing nativism globally, public policies intended to safeguard migrants and trafficked persons become difficult to enact – despite strong institutional support – due to concerns about public opinion. Migration is much less commonly perceived by the global community as a positive alternative for individuals attempting to cope with dire circumstances. As a result, migrants are increasingly penalized for their attempts to find safe harbour. Worldwide, the sentiment behind the poem inscribed on New York’s Statue of Liberty – “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore” – has given way to fears of migrants f looding in from “s***hole countries.

Mo Farah’s decision to reveal the truth about his history offers an opportunity to address the difficult issues that are all too often glossed over in debates about immigration, whether legal or illegal. Some people, such as trafficked children, don’t have a choice, and are victims in the truest sense of the word. To punish them is not just immoral; it’s inhumane. Rather than punitive measures, what is needed are better regulations and more humane policies. The real impact of Sir Mo’s story is it shows what amazing benefits even migrants can bring to their host countries, if given a chance.

The Somali Wire Team