: Mo Farahs Child Trafficking Highlights the U.K.s Troubling Migrant Policies #WorldNEWS British athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah shocked the world this week when he revealed in a

@newsMNC

Posted in: #WorldNEWS

Mo Farahs Child Trafficking Highlights the U.K.s Troubling Migrant Policies #WorldNEWS
British athlete and four-time Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah shocked the world this week when he revealed in a BBC documentary that he was trafficked to the U. K. as a child and forced into domestic labor. The Home Office, the U. K. ’s immigration department, was quick to say that “no action whatsoever” would be taken against Farah. “The real story is, I was born in Somaliland, north of Somalia, as Hussein Abdi Kahin,” he said.
The news has put a spotlight on the U. K. ’s approach to human trafficking and the treatment of migrants and raised questions as to what might have happened to Farah if he weren’t a famous Olympian. (Because Farah received his British nationality under his assumed name—which he obtained as a minor with the help of a school teacher—there was a legal risk his citizenship could be revoked. Hence the Home Office statement. )
[time-brightcove not-tgx=true]
Last year, at least 10,000 children were trafficked to the U. K. , and forced into crime, sexual exploitation, or, as in Farah’s case, domestic servitude. The figure is likely a gross underestimate, due to the often hidden and complex nature of exploitation, according to a joint 2021 report by the government’s Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and non-profit Every Child Protected Against Trafficking (ECPAT UK).
Kate Garbers, a trafficking expert who Farah consults in the BBC documentary, discusses the broader issue. “I think it’s incredibly brave [to speak out],” she tells him, “because we do live in a hostile environment where the issues of trafficking and smuggling and illegal immigration all get conflated. ”
Garbers was referring to the U. K. ’s “hostile environment” strategy toward migrants, which first began in 2012 under then-Home Secretary and future Prime Minister Theresa May, to discourage illegal migration and compel those who arrived to leave. The policies went through several rebrands—most notably in the wake of the “Windrush” scandal that revealed that hundreds of Black Commonwealth citizens had been wrongly classified as illegal immigrants and deported to the Caribbean—but the basic framework remains in place to this day. In many ways, charities and campaigners say the strategy—which has limited undocumented migrants’ access to jobs, education, and health care—has become more hardline.
In April, for instance, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government passed the Nationality and Borders Act, which included a highly contentious plan to resettle asylum seekers in Rwanda. The legislation criminalizes asylum seekers arriving in the U.

Latest stock market news Twitter alternate of India

Flash it Bury this

0 Reactions   React

Replies (0)

Login to post a comment!