LONDON — Olympic great Mo
Farah expressed relief Wednesday after receiving fulsome backing from the UK
government despite his admission that he was illegally trafficked into Britain
as a child.
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The revelation in a new BBC
documentary could have raised questions about Farah's UK citizenship, but the
interior ministry said it was taking no action.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris
Johnson said: "He is a sporting hero, he is an inspiration to people
across the country.”
The spokesperson added: "It is
a shocking reminder of the horrors that people face when they are trafficked.
And we must continue to clamp down on these criminals who take advantage of
vulnerable people."
The 39-year-old distance runner, one
of Britain's best-loved and most successful athletes, revealed his real name is
Hussein Abdi Kahin, and he was forced to work in domestic servitude after
entering the country aged eight or nine.
London's Metropolitan Police said it
was "assessing" the allegation that Farah was trafficked, after his
mother sent him away to escape civil war in their native Somalia.
Asked in a follow-up interview on
BBC radio how he felt about the government's response, Farah said: "I feel
relieved: this is my country.
"No child wants to be in that
situation. I had that choice made for me," he said.
"And I'm just grateful (for)
every chance I got in Britain and... proud to represent my country the way I
did, because that's all I could do, in my control. I had no control when I was
younger."
Farah was later helped to obtain UK
citizenship by his physical education teacher at school, Alan Watkinson, while
still using the assumed name Mohamed Farah given to him by a woman who
trafficked him to Britain.
"I don't think Alan did
anything wrong there," the athlete told BBC radio.
"Alan did go to social
services. We did report it, we did tell them exactly what was my name. ... So
we went through the right channels, but I don't know why nothing was ever
done," he said.
Rather than moving to the UK as a
refugee from Somalia with his mother and two of his brothers to join his IT
consultant father as previously claimed, Farah said he came from Djibouti with
the woman he had never met, and then made to look after another family's children.
In fact, he said, his father was
killed in civil unrest in Somalia when Farah was aged four and his mother,
Aisha, and two brothers live in the breakaway state of Somaliland.
He was encouraged to speak out now
by his wife and children, after burying the truth for decades.
"I honestly don't want to be
talking about it because I told myself I would never talk about it. I'm gonna
lock it up," he said.
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