Let's Help Save Kids

I'm Helping to prevent child sexual abuse By Nabila Sharma*, 44, from W Midlands

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Scrubbing the loo until it gleamed, I stood back to check my work. I was only seven, and it was an honour to clean the toilets at the mosque. I turned to see the imam, my religious teacher, standing in the doorway. The expression in his beady eyes made me uneasy. Had I done my cleaning job well enough?

‘Good work, Nabila,’ he said approvingly. ‘As you’re doing so well, you can come upstairs and clean my study.’

We were alone in the mosque where the imam held after school classes to teach the Koran. The other kids had all gone home.

I’d been given the job of cleaning as a reward for learning my prayers.

The other girls were jealous, but I didn’t deserve his praise. I was the slowest student.