I didn’t know anything about Christianity until I was in year seven. My mum always told me that Christian people were bad, so I used to think that all Christians were bad people.
I studied Christianity in RE in years seven to nine - and I started thinking about this religion where you didn’t need to be covered up, and you could still play music and follow God. I didn’t understand why I was a Muslim and why I had to wear a hijab and couldn’t play music. Christianity as a religion just made sense. I realised that I didn’t want to be a Muslim anymore. A while later I was involved in a performance at the Barbican with a guy called Kenrick - it was a Christian thing. Kenrick told us about his organisation, and it was from that day in 2011 that I wanted to be a Christian. Before the performance they were praying and everyone had their eyes closed and it was my first prayer ever. It was exciting!
One of my teachers at school told us about a competition that was coming up. I’m in a samba group and my friend thought it would be a good idea to enter the samba group into the competition. We did an audition and got through. I couldn’t tell my mum because she didn’t approve of me doing music. My mum’s main concern about music was that she thought that it was haram (sinful), and that I would go to hell. She said that we had to follow certain Islamic rules to get into heaven. From her point of view, she was trying to help me - but I didn’t think it was right. I used to tell her that I was doing revision in school. She eventually found out that I was doing music in school because one of my teachers contacted her, and said that I couldn’t do it anymore. I told her that I really wanted to do music and she got really angry with me, so I ran away from home. The first time I ran away it was only for three days.
The second time I ran away I went to a friend’s cousin’s house and kind of disappeared for two weeks while everyone was looking for me. It was chaos. After two weeks I decided that I was causing a lot of problems for a lot of people, so I should go home and speak to my mum. When I went home to speak to my mum, she locked me in the house for ten days and didn’t let me out. I celebrated my first ever Christmas trapped inside the house.
My brother wasn’t at home one day and my mum needed something from the shop, and I was the only person she could send. I went to the bus stop and had my brother’s Oyster card with me, so I ran away. I went to a friend’s house again and the next day I went to her cousin’s house and stayed there for a while. The police contacted my friend again, and she told me that someone was at her house who wanted to speak to me. Then I found out it was Wizdom, someone I knew through an organisation called XLP, in the house with the police’s missing person’s team. I spoke to them about everything that had happened and they sent me to social services. I ended up going into foster care.
I’m now in a much calmer place, a much calmer environment. I feel that I’m learning to speak for myself. I’ve never really had a voice before, because my mum used to always speak for me. If someone asked me my name, she would tell them what it was. I’ve only been Yasmin for six months - it’s like a new name for a fresh start.
