UK Olympic great Farah says he was trafficked as a child
LONDON — Olympic great Mo Farah — the winner of four gold medals and one of Britain’s greatest and best-loved athletes — has been carrying a secret burden all these years: He was illegally brought to the U.K. as a youth and forced to care for other children before he escaped a life of servitude through running.
In a new documentary, Farah says his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin and that he was from taken from the East African nation of Djibouti when he was about 8 or 9. He says a woman he didn’t know brought him to Britain using fake travel documents that included his picture and the name Mohammed Farah.
The revelations come as Britain struggles to deal with a surge of people fleeing conflict and hunger in Africa, the Middle East and Asia on flimsy boats organized by human traffickers who assist the desperate to cross the English Channel. Criminal gangs are also smuggling people into the country and forcing them into sex work, criminal activities and unpaid labor.
In the documentary, produced by the BBC and Red Bull Studios, Farah said he thought he was going to Europe to live with relatives and had piece of paper with the contact details.
“The lady took it off me and right in front of me ripped them up and put it in the bin,” Farah said in the film, to be broadcast Wednesday. “And at that moment I knew I was in trouble.”
The woman took him to an apartment in west London where he was forced to care for her children, Farah said. He wasn’t allowed to go to school until he was 12.
“I wasn’t treated as part of the family,” Farah said. “If I wanted food in my mouth, my job was to look after those kids — shower them, cook for them, clean for them.”
Farah was granted U.K. citizenship in 2000 and represented Britain at three straight Summer Olympics starting in 2008. He captured hearts in Britain and elsewhere with the look of joy and astonishment after his triumph in the 5,000 meters at the 2012 London Games after earlier winning the 10,000-meter title. He won the same races at the 2016
Games in Rio de Janeiro.
He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017.
Farah says his fortunes changed when he was finally allowed to attend school. A teacher who was interviewed for the documentary recalled a 12-year-old boy who appeared “unkempt and uncared for,” was “emotionally and culturally alienated” and spoke little English.
But he began to blossom on the track and eventually told his story to a physical education instructor. The teacher contacted local officials, who arranged for a Somali family to take him in as a foster child.
Farah said he had feared he would be deported if he spoke about his childhood experiences. He decided to tell his story to publicize and challenge people’s perceptions of human trafficking, he said.