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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Annie Kelly

‘I could have been a Mo Farah’: trafficked boxer denied his shot at Olympic glory by Home Office

Mo Farah Home Office Immigration Alicia Canter Team GB Trafficking Olympics
Boxer Kelvin Bilal Fawaz was only granted a 30-month visa by the Home Office in 2020
Boxer Kelvin Bilal Fawaz was only granted a 30-month visa by the Home Office in 2020. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

A prodigious talent with the drive and ambition to make it all the way to the top, when Kelvin Bilal Fawaz got the chance to represent Team GB as a boxer at the 2012 Olympics in London it was a dream come true.

Trafficked as a child from Nigeria to the UK and forced into domestic servitude, Fawaz had the opportunity for Olympic glory in the place he now called home.

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