Hundreds of British teenagers are reportedly being sent by
their African parents to East Africa to avoid knife crime in the UK,
representatives of the Somali community say. Some names have been changed to
protect the identity of the interviewees.
"In those few years I was doing my A-levels it was
tough. Just seeing people being dropped every other day, being stabbed,"
Yusuf tells BBC
Yusuf was born and raised in London but moved to Nairobi
after a close friend in his neighbourhood was stabbed to death.
It is a decision an increasing number of parents are taking,
for their children's safety.
Of the 100 people stabbed to death in the UK so far this
year, 8% were of Somali heritage, according to the Rise Projects which works
with young British Somalis in north London.
Jamal Hassan mentors young men in London, many from Somali
families. He explains parents "want to protect that child by all means
necessary".
"If it means that child doesn't finish school, college,
university or he will not have a good job by the time you come for them the
future is not really important.
"What's important is that child's life."
One mother who had sent her child to Africa told him she
could now sleep at night, because she knew any police sirens she heard were not
for her son.
Jamal went to Kenya as a teenager, when he says problems for
him in London "were at their peak".
He says there are parallels with the present day.
"One of the things I'll never forget, is the fact that
when you walk in the streets in Kenya you don't have to look over your
shoulder. Here I could travel in and out of the city, go and visit whoever I
wanted, and it was good. I felt a sense of freedom. But for these kids [in
London that can be] life and death."
Others, such as Abdul, who is in his early 20s, left London
because they had started to get into trouble with the police.
"When I came here it was like a clean sheet,"
Abdul said. "No-one knew me, no-one knows my history. There [in London],
you have people that look like you going after you. My mum feels I'm much safer
here than anywhere else in the world."
Parents say they do not view the move as a long-term
solution - some children stay in Africa while others return.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) advises against
all travel to Somalia, including Somaliland, and highlights a heightened threat
of terrorism and kidnappings, across Kenya.
But Amina sent her 15-year-old son to Somaliland, when she
was worried about the new friends with whom he was mixing.
In his year there, she says he became a studious child
again. He had even wanted to stay in East Africa. But within 17 days of being
brought back to the UK in November 2018, he was stabbed four times.
"He's been completely traumatised by the
experience," she says.
"They damaged his bladder, his kidneys, his liver. He's
got permanent damage. He was safer there [in Somaliland] than he was here… 100%
more safe than in London."
The new mayor for Islington, Rakhia Ismail - a mother of
four who came to London from Somalia as a refugee - believes that some areas of
the city are unsafe for young people.
"Does the parent wait for her child to be killed? Or
does the parent take a decision - quite a drastic decision - to take him all
the way back to wherever that child is from originally?"
She says she knows families who are waiting for their
children to finish primary school so they can leave the UK. She estimates that
out of every five Somalian families, two are taking their children back home.
Dr Fatumo Abdi - a mother of Somali origin - said parents
were struggling to know how to react to knife crime.
"This is not something they've encountered before. But
we know living here in Britain, the context is Britain. This is a British
problem and it's a problem that we've fallen into. It's not the answer but
these are desperate parents."
She believes poverty, inequality and exposure to violence
are big factors as to why young people fall into criminality.
"Our communities are living in very poor disadvantaged
areas with poor educational attainment. All these things affect how our
children move through the world."
Rhoda Ibrahim, who runs the Somali Advice and Forum of
Information, which supports Somali mothers, says that as many of them have poor
English, they are forced to take jobs such as cleaning, which lead them to
being away from their families for long periods of time.
"When you get sent back to your country by your
parents, it's the worst feeling," says Mohamed, who lived in Kenya for six
and then nine months.
He was sent there after being excluded and sent to a pupil
referral unit when no other school in his area would accept him.
"It feels like you're going to prison, and your mum's
the judge. You can't come back until the judge has let you free. You have to
show that you're good, you've changed."
But he feels like it has made him a "better
person".
"I could have been out on the streets right now selling
drugs, but... the kids in Kenya put school first."