Al Bangura was born and raised in Sierra Leone. When he was 16, he moved to Guinea. It was there that he met a French man who claimed he could help Bangura become a professional football player in Europe.
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“I didn’t know he had another different intention,” Bangura recently told radio host Victoria Derbyshire in an interview. “To get me into the sex trade.”
Bangura traveled with the man to the U.K. Shortly after arriving, the man brought him to an empty building, where he left him for an hour and a half.
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“The guy left me,” he recalled, “all of a sudden I saw two or three guys come around me, trying to rape me and make me do stuff.”
He went on to recount the terrifying incident: “Because I was young and I was small… I was just screaming, shouting, crying… I tried to make my way out. I was cold, I was scared, I was crying, I didn’t know where to start.”
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“I made my way outside,” he continued. “I was thinking this is the end of my life. All I wanted to do was play football.”
After escaping the horrifying scene, a stranger he met on the street helped Bangura apply for asylum in the country. He was given housing and granted a two year stay, but it took him several months to get over the trauma of what happened in that empty building.
“I was so emotional,” he recalled. “After a few months I’d kind of forgotten about what what I’d been through, it was sad for me, but I ended up coming to a good thing.”
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“I started meeting people, started playing football,” he continued, “and I got the opportunity to join Watford when I was 16, and things just started building up for me.”
Bangura, now 27 years old, is calling for FIFA to establish “a blanket ban on the signing of minors” to football teams. He hopes that such a ban will save the thousands of youths who leave Africa in hopes of becoming professional athletes but who often finding themselves sexually exploited instead.
“I’ve been through that,” he said, “I survived. But what about the young kids that are coming up? Are they going to survive? Are they going to cope with that? We really need to find a way to stop all that.”
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h/t: Pink News
ingyaom
So what exactly happened to this guy? It doesn’t sound like it was good, but it doesn’t sound like he was kept as a sex-slave, either.
Matthew Anthony Smith
Problem is it goes on always and deep down we know it goes on Taken a brave man to tell the world God bless you
Kangol
I think this probably happens a lot when sleazy adults have access to vulnerable younger people. It happens to both girls (in modeling, etc.) and boys (in sports, etc.), especially if they don’t have guardians around to look after their welfare. Compound it with linguistic differences, citizenship status, etc., and you’ve got a real problem.
Guy068
@ingyaom: ‘Trafficked For Sex And Men Trying To Rape Him’ is what the headline says and that’s exactly what he describes. Thank god he managed to escape or who knows what indignities and torture he would have end. His ban idea is probably too general to be adopted by FIFA but attention to this problem can’t hurt…
Rob Powers
Glad your ok now !
DDstar1me
I apologize if I sound insensitive but, was he actually a sex slave? or was this just one unfortunate incident? If you don’t have sold facts and a paper trail to support your cause, it’s likely that it will be tossed aside. BTW FIFA isn’t doing too well in the public arena right now. They have their own battles of corruption to fight.
This has the potential to further soil the rep of homosexuality on a larger scale.
I’m glad he’s speaking out though. I know a large majority of black men in general don’t like to speak about being sexually victimized.
Gigi Gee
@DDstar1me: Where does it say that he was a “sex slave?”
DDstar1me
“I didn’t know he had another different intention,” Bangura recently told radio host Victoria Derbyshire in an interview. “To get me into the sex trade.”
@Gigi Gee…isn’t that implied from that statement?
Blackceo
I need a couple of y’all to go back to primary school and learn reading comprehension skills.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Important issue? Yes.
Gay issue (in this particular instance) …?
SeeingAll
There’s a massive slave trade of children that’s been going on for years throughout central Africa, too, and yes it’s an extremely important topic, but I’m not sure all of this is a specifically gay topic either. It’s child abuse, not homosexuality.
Bob LaBlah
Sorry, but this story reads more like a preemptive strike at being outted than a man in pain after being trafficked in the sex trade business. I wonder who was/threaten to blackmail him? He is cute.
JerseyMike
@SeeingAll: EXACTLY!!! This isn’t about homosexuality this is pedophilia.. Queerty should be ashamed for equating the two..
Tackle
@DDstar1me: And a large number of White men in general do like to speak of being ” sexually victimized?” Away with the “stereotype” of the hyper-masculine Black male.
o.codone
Okay.
How is this not an anti-gay story? He was abused by nefarious gay men but triumphed anyway. Are their any editors out there?