Strictly’s Eddie Kadi reveals he could have ended up homeless or as a sex worker if he stayed in the Congo
STRICTLY star Eddie Kadi has revealed he could have ended up homeless or becoming a sex worker if he stayed living in Congo.
He was born in the country’s capital Kinshasa, but left aged eight — just as civil war was breaking out — to live in Britain.
Comedian Eddie, 40, later returned on a War Child mission in 2012 and was horrified to find kids living on the streets and having to work as prostitutes.
He said: “There is no one to help because everyone else is struggling to get by too. It’s hard. It’s really hard.
“It made me compare my realities to theirs. I could have been any one of those kids had I not come to the UK.”
The trip hit him hard as he met a girl around his age.
He said: “I couldn’t bear to imagine my little sister having to live such a life.
“I really didn’t know what to say because I was talking to girls that were selling their bodies from the age of eight and now they are 24 and they’ve got three kids to raise and they’ve got no choice but to be out there doing what they’re doing.”
Eddie moved to South West London in 1992 just as his hometown Kinshasa was on the brink of a rebel uprising.
Violence and poverty has plagued the Congo for decades.
President Joseph Kabila governed the country from 2001 to 2019, with poor human rights records and abuses including forced disappearances, torture, arbitrary imprisonment and restrictions on civil liberties.
As of 2018, following two decades of civil wars and continued internal conflicts, around 600,000 Congolese refugees were still living in neighbouring countries.
Two million children risk starvation, and the fighting has displaced 4.5 million people.