Mo Farah’s experience shows how identifying trafficking cases is often dependent on disclosure – a person coming forward with their own story.
Sir Mo Farah recently revealed that he was trafficked into the UK at the age of nine for domestic servitude. In a BBC documentary, the long-distance runner said it took him three decades to publicly discuss what happened to him, partly because he wanted to block it out, and is only now piecing it together.
We have known for years that disclosure is gradual and incremental. As a 2009 report commissioned by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children shows, identifying trafficking can be hindered by silence.
Disclosure can be hampered by the control traffickers hold over young people, enforced through physical violence or less visible forms of coercion. At the age of nine, Farah would not have had any meaningful say in his trafficking and was told not to say anything to anyone about his circumstances. The burden of keeping that secret would have been immeasurable. But like many, Farah ultimately reached a point where he needed to tell someone.
Children who have been affected by trafficking are often required to tell their story again and again. This can be a traumatic experience for anybody, child or adult, trafficking victim or not. There may be feelings of guilt or shame associated, fear of unknown consequences, or a child may simply not have the right words to explain what is happening to them.
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