child trafficking - The African Mirror

Jul

2022

UK police investigate after Mo Farah says he was child trafficking victim

LONDON'S Metropolitan Police said it had opened an investigation after multiple Olympic and world champion athlete Mo Farah told a BBC documentary that he was a victim of child trafficking. The 39-year-old said he was brought to Britain from Djibouti at the age of nine and was forced to do housework in exchange for food. "Specialist officers have opened an investigation and are currently assessing the available information," the Metropolitan Police said in a statement, adding that no reports had yet been made directly to the police. "Where offences are reported in the media which are deemed significant public interest…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

Mo Farah says he was a victim of child trafficking

NEWS

MULTIPLE Olympic and world champion Mo Farah was brought to Britain from Djibouti at the age of nine and was forced to do housework and childcare in exchange for food, he told the BBC. The 39-year-old Briton, who was born in Somalia, added his name had been changed to Mohamed Farah from Hussein Abdi Kahin in the fake travel documents used to fly him to Britain by a woman he had never met before. Once he arrived in the UK, the woman took him to her home in Hounslow, west London, and tore apart a paper with the contact details…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

10 child traffickers jailed in Ivory Coast

NEWS

ANGE ABOA A court in Ivory Coast has sentenced 10 people found guilty of child trafficking to 10 years in jail, part of an effort to clamp down on organised networks that smuggle children to work in cocoa plantations. Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, and the companies that buy its cocoa are facing international pressure to tackle child labour and put measures in place to guarantee sustainable farming. The group of suspects, which included transporters and smugglers, all came from Ivory Coast's northern neighbour Burkina Faso, prosecutors said during the trial in Bouna, a town near the two…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

British police raid drug gangs as COVID-19 fuels child trafficking fears

WORLD

KIERAN GUILBERT MORE than 1,000 people were arrested and dozens of suspected victims of modern slavery identified in a crackdown on the drug trade in Britain, police said, as concerns grow about a rise in child trafficking during the coronavirus pandemic. Police said 69 possible trafficking victims were referred to government bodies for support following a series of raids this month to disrupt the so-called County Lines drug trade, by which criminal gangs move drugs from cities into rural areas. The operation was the biggest of its kind to-date and led to the seizure of more than 1 million pounds…