Install the app
How to install the app on iOS

Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.

Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.

Mo Farah story

Status
Not open for further replies.
davek said:
That was interesting.

I take that back. His story appears very believable.

Here's the thing though: I think his search for the person who trafficked him probably lands at the feet of his own mother. If you watch the documentary all roads lead back to her. I think she wanted him off her hands but not to be treated like an unpaid slave in London skivvying for another Somali family.

I do think it underlines though how easy it would have been to supress taking PEDs given the complex way he went about keeping his change in identity secret. And I'd also say it looks like he was estranged from the woman who later took him in as her own kid and looked after him for 7 years until he began to find fame. He looked VERY sheepish about making contact with her again for any info she had on his early life and he seems to have treated her and her own family shabbily.

I felt sorry for him, but I defo think he's as *sharp* as they come in terms of the way he's gone about things.
Click to expand...
 
davek said:
That was interesting.

I take that back. His story appears very believable.

Here's the thing though: I think his search for the person who trafficked him probably lands at the feet of his own mother. If you watch the documentary all roads lead back to her. I think she wanted him off her hands but not to be treated like an unpaid slave in London skivvying for another Somali family.

I do think it underlines though how easy it would have been to supress taking PEDs given the complex way he went about keeping his change in identity secret. And I'd also say it looks like he was estranged from the woman who later took him in as her own kid and looked after him for 7 years until he began to find fame. He looked VERY sheepish about making contact with her again for any info she had on his early life and he seems to have treated her and her own family shabbily.

I felt sorry for him, but I defo think he's as *sharp* as they come in terms of the way he's gone about things.
Click to expand...
Dave you admitting you might be wrong? Just fell off the couch in ours reading this :Blink:
 
davek said:
That was interesting.

I take that back. His story appears very believable.

Here's the thing though: I think his search for the person who trafficked him probably lands at the feet of his own mother. If you watch the documentary all roads lead back to her. I think she wanted him off her hands but not to be treated like an unpaid slave in London skivvying for another Somali family.

I do think it underlines though how easy it would have been to supress taking PEDs given the complex way he went about keeping his change in identity secret. And I'd also say it looks like he was estranged from the woman who later took him in as her own kid and looked after him for 7 years until he began to find fame. He looked VERY sheepish about making contact with her again for any info she had on his early life and he seems to have treated her and her own family shabbily.

I felt sorry for him, but I defo think he's as *sharp* as they come in terms of the way he's gone about things.
Click to expand...
Bit of a strange take on it

His mother said she sent him and his brothers to Djibouti to live with their uncle after their father died. Given that the father would have been the breadwinner in the family his death meant that she could no longer care for her children. The uncle took advantage of the situation and trafficked her child. The brother even said he was expecting to go with him and woke up and he was already gone.

The question of why it happened is indeed dodgy but given that they never spoke to the uncle in the documentary all signs lead to money and greed. Traffickers make a huge amount of money so he probably took the money and fled.

Regarding why he was sheepish to meet that woman who raised him, well she was the sister of the person who forced him to do child labour. You might harbour some resentment towards a relative of that woman who even admitted that he was not treated as a human.

For me the worst part was the P.E teacher and social services. He told the teacher his name was Hussein and he says he reported this the next day and they justified how he kept the name Mohammed Farrah despite this by saying that he was ‘just mo’. It was the most pathetic thing I’ve heard. He came clean and he still had to go along with the deception because the authorities were bloody inept. They were so inept that they left him with the only other Somali family in the school who had lied and told them she she was his aunt.

That call with the ‘other’ mo farrah was dodgy as hell. I swear the aunt said that all the family members had been killed and then next thing she says she found him on Facebook and got his WhatsApp and she greeted him by calling him her nephew. So bizarre.
 
RomanReigns said:
Bit of a strange take on it

His mother said she sent him and his brothers to Djibouti to live with their uncle after their father died. Given that the father would have been the breadwinner in the family his death meant that she could no longer care for her children. The uncle took advantage of the situation and trafficked her child. The brother even said he was expecting to go with him and woke up and he was already gone.

The question of why it happened is indeed dodgy but given that they never spoke to the uncle in the documentary all signs lead to money and greed. Traffickers make a huge amount of money so he probably took the money and fled.

Regarding why he was sheepish to meet that woman who raised him, well she was the sister of the person who forced him to do child labour. You might harbour some resentment towards a relative of that woman who even admitted that he was not treated as a human.

For me the worst part was the P.E teacher and social services. He told the teacher his name was Hussein and he says he reported this the next day and they justified how he kept the name Mohammed Farrah despite this by saying that he was ‘just mo’. It was the most pathetic thing I’ve heard. He came clean and he still had to go along with the deception because the authorities were bloody inept. They were so inept that they left him with the only other Somali family in the school who had lied and told them she she was his aunt.

That call with the ‘other’ mo farrah was dodgy as hell. I swear the aunt said that all the family members had been killed and then next thing she says she found him on Facebook and got his WhatsApp and she greeted him by calling him her nephew. So bizarre.
Click to expand...
A thoughtful interpretation. However...

The mother said that she sent Mo and his brother to Djibouti out the way of the war, but the brother came back and Farah was taken on to London. The other brother looks like he's been used to ease Farah's passage out of his home before going to London. The mother may not have been in control of what became of Farah, but she knew she couldn't feed all the kids and wanted one out the door...and there doesn't seem to have been any urgency of finding where he was in London.

The other thing is that the term 'trafficking' might be ill-fitting here. It's clear he was being moved about within an extended family. He ended up skivvying for an auntie in London, he was denied freedom to do his thing until he was 11 and started in a Comp. He was was pretty much in the system after that and able to get away from that situation and into a better one. I doubt that reflects the story of too many other kids trafficked.

The school and social services let him down in finding his real family, but they seemed more motivated to keep him in the UK for his own benefit as they knew he'd be deported and away from his life here to a possible dangerous situation in Somalia. Then, of course, the State found out he could run...and that was then a national benefit and it's at that point in reality where the biggest exploitation occurs: they use his talent and double down on his fake identity.

The woman who took him in clearly saved him....he said so himself. From what I could gather he then made a success of himself and then distanced himself from her and her family.
 

This type of child ‘trafficking’ has been done over centuries, like boys being apprenticed to tradesman back in the 17 & 1800’s in the UK, it’s not a new thing and will go on where there is poverty and potential elsewhere. I don’t think it’s specific to Somalia or anywhere, just reality.
Perhaps Sir Mo could help his real family back in Somaliland?
 

Bungle said:
I think I've misunderstood the films
Click to expand...
Not as much as I have...
super-bungle.jpg
 

Status
Not open for further replies.

Welcome

Join Grand Old Team to get involved in the Everton discussion. Signing up is quick, easy, and completely free.

Register
Back
Top