Planetary Patrol to Eradicate Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery

No embellishment needed.

In modern slavery and human trafficking slithers the sinister soullessness of breathing putrefaction in all its nauseating retchy-ness. Those traumatic embedded experiences where the stinging never really stops, only becomes blockaded behind cerebral cortex nerve cells 2-4 mm thick.

The illegal face of this age-old problem has gained another champion spokesperson. Mo Farah, a four-time Olympic gold medal winner in the 2012 and 2016 games for 5,000- and 10,000-meters distance running, received a knighthood in November 2017 for services to British athletics. He is the first person in living memory to attain such stature and later fully disclose being unlawfully trafficked to the UK around eight or nine years of age. In bondage as a domestic slave to an unknown family, threatened and abused, he would lock himself in the bathroom to cry.

Farah’s signature smile, sparkle eyes, and self-styled ‘mobot’ victory symbol propelled him to international prominence impossible to ignore.

That man worked his butt off to get what he got.

His ancestry evident. His true story hidden.

In February 2017, a ‘Modern Slavery/Human Trafficking Awareness Course’ by the registered charity Voice of Hope, blindsided my realities and previously held serenities oblivious to a modern-day scourge.

I fumbled with an unfamiliar bus route in an unknown location and walked in a few minutes late to a session smack dab in the middle of a video re-enactment that was all too real. The only seats left happened to be in the front row. A 3-D effect not necessary to feel inside the screen as a young woman, drugged and kidnapped, descends into a nightmare. Now my nightmare. Thuds, bumps, fists, kicks, screams, and groans shook the entire screen.

I felt beyond sick. All might and power frozen.

Helpless.

Hopeless.

The graphic content held no verbal script per se, but oozed realistic grunts, howls, and crippling audible sobs as the victim was repeatedly abused. To this day, it still haunts me in the re-telling. I cannot bear the thought of someone trapped in an ongoing hell as sinister individuals seek nothing but gratification and greed.

Inwardly, I seethe that people capable of gross inhumanity could live in the same neighborhood. Country. World. Draw breath from the same air and gain nourishment from identical soils and waters.

The course presenter must have known.

When the film ended, he spent generous minutes apologizing for the distress and shock that rose with a palpability from the audience. He recounted his own emotional violations through each presentation given but explained the disturbance factor necessary to expose the agonizing effects of modern slavery and human trafficking to galvanize the masses to action.

The public walks the front line of a camouflaged conflict in plain sight. Their awareness had to be mobilized. Everyday people are best positioned to spot red flags. Signs have to be recognized. Awakened community members are a lifeline. This heinous activity thrives in areas where people don’t look outside their own routines. Where people sleep soundly at night by not asking questions, giving second looks, or sticking noses into scenarios that don’t smell right and permeate with an unrelenting stench.

After returning home, I was not okay.

How could I be?

I had to call someone who I knew would care.

Long ago, I came to accept, that although a functional human being, I would never be okay. Not in a world where evils such as this extend toxic tendrils with impunity.

Objective: Destroy the root. Kill the poisonous weed that would see corruption and misery spread, viewing nothing and no one as sacrosanct.

Apathy and ignorance put everyone at risk.

In the book, The True Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient Teachings in the Ways of Relationships by Dagara Healer Sobonfu Somé, she speaks of instances when someone in the village becomes sick. The entire village is concerned, as justifiably, there exists in whatever form, something that can make everyone unwell.

When someone speaks to the emotive characteristics held from youth so that you feel less bizarre and more spirit-validated.

We all occupy one tiny planet in the cosmos located in the now barely habitable zone with no recourse for escape. Why isn’t everything with the potential to destroy us (created by us, by the way,) given primary focus with the remainder on pause for a minute?

In an era of mass information, why wasn’t everyone educating themselves about this?

Is there something so intimidating about looking someone in the eye on the street to see if they are truly alright? Searching a few more seconds beneath the superficial?

How would we feel if this happened to someone we knew? Loved? What if it were us, desperate for a second glance to plea, stare “Please help me” in less time than it would take an eye to blink?

What happens to human consciousness that allows a person to treat another human being with abject indignity, neglect, and violence? As less than garbage? In what way do they alter to make this acceptable practice for another’s misery to be of no consequence?

Are we all at risk of this insidious energy if we do not to stop it?

My questions continue unending.

In the BBC documentary The Real Mo Farah, intimate details of Farah’s early life and emigration to the UK are revealed. The previous backstory told by Farah, was that he came to the UK with his parents as a refugee to seek asylum. The truth is that his father actually died as a non-combatant in the crossroads of military conflict engulfing Somalia when Farah was four years old. His mother’s attempts to protect her sons from war, drought and death led to the fateful decision to send them to an uncle in Djibouti. After that, things went terribly wrong. Mo’s mother, Aisha, never knew what happened to her son.

When given the news that travel to relatives in Europe awaited him, the young boy was excited, having never traveled on a plane. But he was taken from his family and all he knew, to work for an unknown family in Britain, performing domestic duties and caring for children whilst still a child himself. For months, he was not even permitted to leave the house.

His real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin.

The name that he was trafficked under:

Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah.

As with many who have endured unconscionable hardships, he coped by blocking off an integral part of himself, living a lie for decades. To declare freedom and begin the healing process despite the serious repercussions, he determined that he would share his story with the world.

It is my earnest desire that Mo Farah’s documentary and many other stories like it will help educate and engage global citizens not only on this subject, but the challenges of all refugees and asylum seekers fleeing crisis and conflict.

Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that:

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

There is no mention in the Article of convenience or legalities of migration, as I would like to think the participants in its construction envisioned that persons fleeing terror, famine, torture, war, etc. would not always conceivably have time to collect documentation or go through established procedures risking injury/death in the process.

It might be a statement of the obvious that there is no other planet to seek urgent refuge but with the rapidity of nations enacting legislation to “stem the flow of migrants” and close borders, you would think there was some alternate accessible universe.

How did every man, woman, and child leaving their country get blanket-labeled as a migrant?

Does disregard/ignorance of someone’s backstory make it expeditious to be dismissive?

Perhaps it’s ‘easier’ for fleeing people (labeled ‘problem’) to suffer and die in their own countries. Or languish for countless years in immigration centers, applications awaiting processing. Yeah, that’s so much fun.

Do I occupy the residence halls of indignation, since historically, colonial powers profited immensely through the infiltration of many of these same developing countries where conflict, climate change, and economic collapse now drive people en masse for refuge in former colonial jurisdictions?

So to be clear, self-sanctioned exploitation from the 15th century of foreign lands and resources from inhabitants who could not “stem the flow of colonialists/invading forces,” left precious few with a title e.g. Commonwealth countries, overseas territories. However, this doesn’t equate to mutual benefit. And for bereft regions left with subsequent millennia of chaos after occupiers departed, how could reciprocity be assumed in respect of a safe haven of so-called developed nations’ borders when under threat?

Nations who took without asking and now won’t share even when begged.

Those indignation residence halls have become a permanently fixed abode.

In a world where instability can make refugees of anyone, maybe we can be a little kinder. More giving. Offer unconditional acceptance. Justice and freedom topped with peace. Because I mean who could deal with such an onslaught of having a loving, caring world. A world with no hand outstretched not taken. Where a person cried alone only if they wanted to. In which children, the elderly, and vulnerable people were supported and protected without fail. And where a world-renowned Olympic athlete with a gold medal spirit would not have to hold on to a secret for decades.

The world population has surpassed eight billion. If even a quarter of us decided to focus attention on this problem, the positive result would be huge.

I believe that you can be an effective part of Planetary Team Change for the Best.

Does it really matter if I made that up?

The real question is…can you be a fraction of those eight billion eyes?

Can you?

Thank you so much for reading this story! You have made a world of difference through your awareness.

Please support:

Refuge.org.uk

IJMUK.org

Love Justice International

Alliance To End Slavery & Trafficking (ATEST)

(This story has been previously published by the author on Medium)