A 15-year-old boy has won a national writing award scooping it from the grasps of more than 2,000 applicants.

Zaahidur Rahman, who goes to Cranbrook School, Mansfield Way, Ilford, won the Amnesty Young Human Rights Reporter of the Year award.

Zaahidur said: “It’s such an honour to be part of all of this, with like-minded people who want to make the world a better place. They are doing the noblest things and it is an honour to be among them.”

He said he chose to write about female genital mutilation to increase understanding among his own age group as well as the wider community.

“More women than the whole population of Britain have it done to them. “I couldn’t understand it so I had to write about it”, Zaahidur said. “Now with social media it is even easier to get information so we have even more responsibility to write about human rights abuses all over the world.”