Unreported World

25 May 2011

7/10: Mexico: Living with Hitmen

Fri 20 May, 7:30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Evan Williams and Director Alex Nott traveled to Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico's border with the United States, to experience the daily life of a journalist who has been called one of the most courageous women in Mexico.

Mexico's drug wars have been well reported but there is a frightening new phenomenon that is going largely unnoticed. A growing number of journalists are being killed and disappeared as they try to report on the drug violence and the growing links between the cartels and the corrupt police and politicians.

Luz Sosa is chief crime reporter on El Diario, the main newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, a city where more than 3000 were murdered last year as powerful drug cartels fight for control of routes to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the US.

 

Luz spends her days travelling from one crime scene to another trying to ascertain the truth of what's happened and provide a record of the conflict, which is spiraling out of control and in which hundreds of women, grandmothers and even babies have been murdered in revenge attacks or warnings.

Someone - possibly the drugs cartels, or the security services, or both - is targeting her, and several colleagues have already paid the ultimate price. Just two years ago Luz's predecessor, crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, was shot dead in front of his home as he was about to take his children to school. No one knows for sure who killed him but Luz says he had written about the links between the cartels and corrupt politicians.

Nearby in the office there is another small flower by the photograph of Luis Carlos Santiago, a 21-year-old photographer. In September last year, Luz got a call that there was another murder. They arrived to find their young colleague dead. It was after she wrote up this story that she too received a direct threat. Her front-page article was found next to a severed human head on the outskirts of the city.

A single mother of two, she says she's never sure whether that day will be the one where she doesn't come home to her kids. Her mother says she prays every day for her daughter's safety and that she will see her again at the end of the day.

The team also meets TV journalist Arturo Perez. He tells Williams that crime gangs, corrupt officials or police could be responsible for the killing and disappearances of journalists but there is never any credible investigation into these killings.

Just across the border in the United States, Williams and Nott meet one of Juarez's leading journalists, who has been given asylum. He claims that after he published an investigation into corrupt officials linked to the cartels he received a threat from an official in the state governor's office that he would be the next journalist to die. He also claims that some police are involved in extortion with the drug gangs, and that they take their orders from corrupt politicians involved with the drug business. ‘They can do anything, they use their weapons and uniforms for this as they know they will never be prosecuted,' he says.

 

5/10: China's Lost Sons

Fri 22 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Oliver Steeds and producer Matt Haan travel to China to follow one father's inspirational search for his son, who was abducted and sold into slavery. They expose one of the untold stories behind China's economic boom, discovering how thousands of young men with mental impairments have been kidnapped and forced to work in brick factories.

The Unreported World team begin their journey in Sanyuan town in central China, where they meet 62-year-old farmer He Zhimin. Steeds discovers that He Wen - his son who has the mental age of a child and used to live at home - went missing last June. Mr He said a woman approached his son at the local market, offered him a job and money and then abducted him. Mr He believes the woman was part of a trafficking gang and that his son has been abducted and forced in to a life of slavery.

The disappearance was reported to the police, but Mr He claims they have done very little and he's been left to search for his son on his own. He tells Steeds that a few months ago, He Wen was spotted in a nearby town. Eyewitnesses told him his son was being forced to work in local brick factories, which have a reputation for using forced labour supplied by trafficking gangs.

With hundreds of brick kilns across the county, Mr He has an almost impossible task. In the last nine months he has visited 40 kilns and come across many other cases of mentally impaired people who have been abducted into slavery. As a result of his investigations, he's been threatened and at times violently attacked.

Now, he thinks he may have another lead. The team travels with Mr He to a brick factory where he believes his son might be held. Labourers claim He Wen was forced to carry hot bricks from the oven and was beaten all over his body if he didn't work hard enough. Sadly they discover the factory was recently abandoned.

Just over a month beforehand, Mr He had received a call in response to one of his posters. A mentally impaired man fitting his son's description had been found wandering the streets. Mr He introduces the Unreported World team to the man he found - Liu Xiaoping - along with his family. Xiaoping is 30, but he has the mental age of a child. He reveals to Mr He that he worked alongside his son in a brick factory.

Xiaoping's father says his son was also groomed like He Wen and enslaved in brick factories for 10 months. He says his son was chained up at night. If he wasn't working hard enough in the day a hot metal rod was burnt across his face. Xiaoping's injuries got so bad that he couldn't work and he was thrown out onto the streets where Mr He found him.

Mr He also introduces the team to another father, Mr Li, who says his son disappeared from the street outside his house. He believes he was abducted and is now being forced to work in a brick factory. Since December he's printed off over 10,000 little cards with details of his son on the back but has heard nothing. In an emotional scene, the two men agree that 'If they're alive, we want to see them in person; if they're dead, we want to see their corpses. But both of us have the same thought. We shouldn't give up.'

Steeds and Haan move on and meet Yang Bin, who works for the only organisation helping families track down mentally impaired relatives who've been abducted. By his estimation, there could be at least 10,000 currently enslaved. He says it is difficult to prosecute the traffickers and brick factory owners because often the testimonies of people with mental impairment are not accepted in Chinese courts even when there is substantial evidence.

The team travels with Yang Bin to Sichuan province where they have heard of a case where over 100 people with mental impairments have been abducted. Yang Bin says a trafficking gang had been arrested in December, accused of abducting people from a government-run welfare centre. The team is told the authorities are trying to prevent any further reporting of this incident and is followed by secret police before being detained, interrogated and then driven to the train station and ordered to leave the province.

Steeds and Haan visit Mr He with Yang Bin. He has agreed to help Mr He, who says no witness statements have been taken by the police and he hasn't even been allowed to register He Wen as a missing person. Yang fears local police officers could be colluding with some of the brick factory owners. Mr He receives more potential sightings of his son from several eyewitnesses at a nearby brick factory: the same one where Xiaoping claims he was held. The team investigates, filming secretly, but unfortunately there's no sign of He Wen. The manager denies all allegations. Despite another dead-end Mr He vows never to give up searching.

8/10: The Battle for Ivory Coast

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and Director Alex Nott arrive in Abidjan, the commercial capital of the Ivory Coast in West Africa to report on the escalating political crisis.  Instead they find themselves one of the few television crews to be there as terrifying violence tears apart a city that had been described as the Paris of West Africa.

For four months President Laurent Gbagbo has clung to power - despite losing elections.  As the team arrives fighters loyal to Alassane Outtara, who has won the UN-backed elections, are advancing towards the presidential palace. 

On arrival, the team quickly discovers the Gbagbo regime mobilizing its most feared supporters, the Young Patriots. Rhodes and Nott are able to gain access to their leader, Charles Ble Goude, who's known as the "General of the Streets'.  He has a history of inciting violence against the regime's rivals and the UN has placed sanctions on him.  He agrees to let them accompany him to a series of mass rallies.

 

Most Gbagbo supporters come from the south and are Christian. The supporters of the new President Alessane Outtara come mainly from the north and are Muslim. There's a very strong nationalist sentiment at the rallies, Ble Goude supplies the team with bodyguards as he says that foreigners would be lynched without them. 

The rallies are a call to arms and Ble Goude whips up the young masses in to a frenzy - inciting them to join the army and fight against the Outtara forces - and also the UN and French peacekeepers in Ivory Coast.  That night, the team films as the Young Patriots set up checkpoints robbing almost everyone they stop and there are reports that elsewhere they are murdering people who they suspect are Outtara supporters.

The team visits the Malian embassy, which has become a refugee centre.  There are tens of thousands of workers from neighbouring Mali in Ivory Coast but the Gbagbo supporters hate them as they have strong ethnic ties with Ouattara supporters. One refugee says the police and army came to his house regularly, demanding money and forcing him to do press ups, while stamping on his hands.

The team decides to try to visit the Abobo neighbourhood, whose residents had voted for Ouattara. In retaliation the Gbagbo regime has cut off their water and sent soldiers to shoot innocent residents. The city is full of check points run by soldiers and Young Patriots and the team is robbed at gunpoint. They turn back but manage to reach another opposition neighbourhood which is coming under fire from the regime.  

By now Ouattara's forces have reached the edge of the City. They are heading towards the Presidential palace where they believe Gbagbo is hiding. This is a short distance away from the team's hotel. Nott and Rhodes are trapped but manage to film the oncoming battle outside as French troops take on Gbagbo's tanks and heavy weapons.

Foreigners in the hotel are targeted and the team is forced to take refuge while suspected Gbagbo gunmen search the building. The soldiers kidnap the hotel manager and two foreign businessmen and their security guard. They haven't been heard of since then. Rhodes and Nott join an evacuation convoy organised by the French, but even that comes under fire from Gbagbo supporters.

In the final hours of this civil war the team is able to drive out into the city. There are dozens of bodies on the streets and the city is still lawless. Ouattara's victorious forces are looting shops and businesses and even fighting each other.

Filming victims at a hospital, a group of young men - probably defeated Young Patriots -arrives and start to attack Nott and Rhodes. The Ivory Coast may now have a democratically elected president, but the Young Patriots are still very much alive and waiting for revenge.

 

9/10: Breaking into Israel

Fri 3 June, 7:30pm, Channel 4

 

Reporter Ramita Navai and director Paul Kittel travel through the Sinai desert on the trail of thousands of African immigrants seeking a new life in Israel. They reveal how desperate families fleeing conscription, torture and conflict in East Africa risk being shot by border guards and held ransom by people smugglers.

The team arrives in the Sinai desert in north-east Egypt just over a month after the revolution that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Smuggling from Egypt to Israel has gone on for years, but now the smugglers are focussed on people rather than goods. Navai and Kittel visit a smugglers' safe house where 100 Eritrean migrants are crammed into four small rooms terrified that they will be arrested by Egyptian border guards.

 

Eritrea produces more refugees than almost any other country in the world, with nearly 2,000 people escaping every month. Twenty-one-year-old Joseph has been in the smugglers' hands for over a month and has paid them $2000. He tells Navai that the Eritrean regime forcibly conscripts men and women and deserters can be tortured or killed. Another man, Sammy, says he has deserted the army and that torture, starvation and slave labour are commonplace. He also tells the team that conscription can be indefinite.

For the refugees, Israel's fast-growing economy promises safety and prosperity. The team talks to the mastermind of a people-smuggling ring transporting migrants into the country. He tells Navai that it is a sophisticated operation run by Bedouins in three different countries and that one smuggler can transport up to 4000 migrants to Israel every two years.

Later that night the team is driven deeper into the desert, less than a mile away from the Israeli border. The refugees are about to embark on one of the riskiest parts of their journey. Most of the 260km border is open, but Egyptian guards have been accused of using a shoot-to-kill policy against anyone found trying to cross into Israel illegally and 86 people have reportedly been killed crossing the border. The Egyptian authorities deny using a shoot-to-kill policy but say lethal force is justified to stop illegal activity.

The team crosses over into Israel as the migrants face the next stage of their journey; they must get further than 50km from the border or face being handed back to the Egyptian authorities if they're captured. The team receives a call from another refugee, Tadsse. He has been captured but has been detained rather than handed over to the Egyptians.

Navai and Kittel head north to Tel Aviv: Israel's business capital and the goal for the refugees. They meet 25-year-old Eritrean Kidane Isaac who was smuggled over four years ago and now lives there legally and helps recently arrived immigrants. He tells Navai that many of the 20,000 Eritreans who have made it to Israel are now safe but destitute. He rents a tiny shared room in a flat with 16 other refugees.

He also claims that in recent months there has been a disturbing new development: smuggling gangs have started to hold refugees for ransom, extorting cash from relatives who already live abroad. He says men have been killed and women raped. The team travels to a medical centre that treats up to 700 Eritreans every month, who say they've been abused at the hands of their kidnappers. 

With evidence suggesting nearly 200 Eritreans are being held hostage in the Sinai desert for ransom, Kidane talks to one smuggler insisting on $13,000 for each person being held. The smugglers are threatening to kill them if they don't get paid. Israel has appealed to the Egyptian authorities to investigate these kidnappings but so far no cases have been pursued. Israel is now building an electronic fence to keep African migrants out, but with the ongoing violence in their country, it seems clear that Eritreans will continue to seek refuge here and in Europe and take any risk on the way.

 

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

Fri 25 Mar, 7.30pm, Channel4

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and producer Richard Cookson begin their journey at a leprosy colony on the outskirts of Hyderabad in the south east of the country. They meet local leader Narsappa, who caught the disease 30 years ago. Like some of the other residents in the colony he has been cured and is no longer contagious. Despite this they are all forced to live together because they're not welcome anywhere else. 

Narsappa tells Rhodes that when he was diagnosed, his neighbours shunned him and his mother grieved for him as if he was dead. He was abandoned at the local hospital when he was just ten years old. Narsappa says he's now driven to stop others going through the same experience. 

At a funeral that night for another sufferer, the discrimination many face is brought home. Narsappa's friend has died and has to be buried in a patch of waste ground next to the public cemetery. Even after death some believe the disease is still contagious so those affected are buried in graves away from everyone else. 

In 2005, the Indian government declared that leprosy had been eliminated. However, the Unreported World team obtains leaked documents which suggest the official figures don't show the true scale of the disease. In one Indian state, health workers found the number of people infected was five times the official estimate. 

Rhodes and Cookson accompany Narsappa and a group of colony residents to the local health directorate to demand supplies for their clinic, which has run out of stock. But, like on previous visits, they leave with only promises. 

The team moves on to Naini Hospital in Allahabad. It's India's largest leprosy hospital and is run by UK based charity The Leprosy Mission. Senior surgeon Dr Premal Das tells Rhodes that his hospital saw 3,000 new leprosy cases last year - more than any previous year - but the budget has been cut by 20 per cent because it is practically impossible to raise money for leprosy when the government claims it has been eliminated. 

The team films one of his patients - 16-year-old Pooja - as she undergoes surgery to correct deformities in her hand. The next day the crew follow Pooja home after weeks in hospital, but how will she be received and will she overcome the stigma so many of her fellow patients have to endure? 

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

Fri 25 Mar, 7.30pm, Channel4

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

2/10: Congo: The Children Who Came Back from the Dead

Fri 1 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Ed Braman travel to Eastern Congo to witness the remarkable work of one man who liberates the child soldiers who have been forced to fight in one of the world's longest-running conflicts. While they are fortunate enough to film the moments several dozen youngsters are released, the team also discovers that hundreds more are being abducted as rebels and the army prepare for a new round of fighting.

2/10: Congo: The Children Who Came Back from the Dead

Fri 1 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Ed Braman travel to Eastern Congo to witness the remarkable work of one man who liberates the child soldiers who have been forced to fight in one of the world's longest-running conflicts. While they are fortunate enough to film the moments several dozen youngsters are released, the team also discovers that hundreds more are being abducted as rebels and the army prepare for a new round of fighting.

The Unreported World team are in the mountainous and densely forested province of North Kivu with Henri Ladyi. He has been invited to a secret meeting with members of the ADF/NALU rebel group who are hiding out in the hills. He has been told by a member of the group there are lots of child soldiers - many of them forcibly recruited - who need clothes and medicine. And there is an opportunity for Henri to see if he can get them released.

In a remarkable scene, around a dozen children suddenly appear out of the undergrowth. They are armed with bows and poison-tipped arrows. Some of them are extremely young: perhaps not even teenagers. The team films some tense negotiations before one of the rebel commanders begins a bizarre ritual. The children are each slapped and punched, but Henri tells Hartley that this is a good sign as it is a way of ensuring that the children leave behind their lives as soldiers. 

The team accompanies Henri and the children to the town of Beni. It's the first night in some time they have spent away from the forest, in a proper bed, with a change of clothes.

The youngest tells Hartley his fighter's name is Kambale but he thinks his real name is Justin, although he doesn't seem sure. He says that he was born in the forest and grew up living with the rebels who are on the run and who are being hunted down by the government army, and that this is the only life he has known.

But even as Henri is liberating child soldiers near Beni, it appears that rebels elsewhere in North Kivu are on an aggressive recruitment drive. One local tells Hartley that in Massisi 150 boys have disappeared and in his own area 80 boys have gone missing. He claims one boy was shot and killed for refusing to join up. The team drives to Kitchanga. When they arrive they find the schools deserted. One teacher tells Hartley that between 150 and 200 students have just vanished over the past few weeks.

The team is called by Henri to accompany him to another tense and dangerous meeting with a rebel army called the Mayi Mayi. After several weeks of negotiations, Henri has persuaded them to give up a group of their child soldiers. The Mayi Mayi are one of the most fearsome of Congo's rebel groups, hostile to the government and with a taste for magic. 

Henri leads the team into the hills near the town of Butembo, where they wait nervously. After a while 14 children emerge, including two little girls: Edwige and 11-year-old Marve. They tell Hartley that the rebels think that child soldiers give them a special magical power. Some of them are given the job of doctors while others are told to cast spells on stones, which they then throw in battle to explode like grenades.

Harley and Braman return to the villages where the released children are trying to fit back in to their former lives. They find Marve with her grandmother, who says she plans for the girl to join the family business as a seamstress. But Justin is still subdued and withdrawn. He says all he wants to do is play football with other kids in the village. Just as they are leaving, the team are able to film Justin finally invited to do just that.

10/10: Indonesia's Wildlife Warriors

Fri 10th June, 7:30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and producer Rodrigo Vazquez travel to Indonesia to highlight the work of young environmental activists battling to save endangered species such as orang-utans and sea turtles. They visit a vast market where critically endangered animals are sold as pets or for the Chinese medicine trade and uncover allegations of corruption and harassment of the campaigners.

 

 

The island of Borneo in Indonesia has one of the planet's last big forests, but every hour an area the size of three football pitches is cut down to be used for palm oil production. The Unreported World team joins one team of young, local environmentalists who are trying to rescue the orang-utan, which, because of the loss of its habitat, is heading for extinction.

They arrive at a rescue operation for orang-utans kept illegally by local people as pets. The local chief tells Hartley that the loss of forest has brought people into conflict with orang-utans. A farmer who captured one baby orang-utan says he thinks they are a nuisance. Environmental activist Ali tells Hartley that some palm oil farmers see orang-utans as vermin and that local people collect a $10 reward when they bring in an orang-utan's head or severed hand. He says the few infants that are spared end up in cages or are sold as pets in private zoos across Asia, and that middle men can pay just US$25 to a poacher or plantation worker for a baby orang-utan, which, if smuggled to Thailand, is worth about US$25,000.

Local people tell the team that they want the forest to remain intact because they can get everything they need for their income from the forest, but it is being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They say the land clearances have taken away their livelihoods and they are now poorer than ever. 

At a rehabilitation centre for orang-utans, another activist called Hardi says his work has exposed corruption and criminal networks involved in the wildlife trade and brought him into conflict with the authorities. He claims the authorities are not interested in saving orang-utans and their objective is to see more palm plantations established. The team speaks to an official from the Forestry Ministry who insists it is guarding rainforests from illegal deforestation and protecting endangered species. The official says that if they obtain enough evidence they arrest and prosecute poachers or orang-utan traders.

Posing as tourists, Hartley and Vazquez visit the huge Jatinegara animal market in Jakarta. Hundreds of animal species in Indonesia are on the brink of extinction and protected by law. But most of these species, the team is told, are on sale as pets or for body parts to be used in Far Eastern medicine in a trade worth millions of dollars. The team films numerous rare birds, reptiles, apes and a small primate called the slow loris.

In Jakarta they met another campaigner, 31-year-old Irma Hermawati, who has been threatened and beaten by wildlife traders. They travel with her to Bali to investigate reports a turtle farm is keeping animals in appalling conditions, and then selling them for religious sacrifice.

Later an informer shows Hartley photos and samples of souvenirs he claims are being fashioned from the shells of wild turtles. The team visits the farm, where staff say they are breeding turtles and that the sale of products here is legal under Indonesian law. Next to the farm, there is a shop selling souvenirs made from turtle shells. The team is told that there will be a surprise raid on the farm, but it turns out that the police had asked a local politician and turtle farm owner to guide them. Instead of freeing the turtles, the police officers spend their time taking photos of each other with the animals.

As the team leaves Indonesia, it's clear that unless there's a change of public opinion and the government ends corruption and begins to enforce its laws, there will be very little to stop species like the orang-utans and green turtles from disappearing altogether.

 

6/10: Burundi: Boys Behind Bars

Fri 13 May, 7:25pm, Channel 4

Reporter Ramita Navai and director Wael Dabbous travel to Burundi to expose the plight of hundreds of children locked up for years without trial in adult prisons, among some of the most dangerous criminals in the country. And they meet one man who has dedicated his life to freeing them; for many of these children, Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa is the only hope they have.

Burundi has no juvenile justice system and children above the age of 15 are tried as adults. By law any child under that age should not be imprisoned, but in a country recovering from civil war and where record keeping is scant, many underage children are slipping through the net and are being locked up. There is no legal aid, and there are only 106 lawyers for a population of over eight million people. This is one of the reasons why three quarters of children are being held for long periods without trial.

While wrongly imprisoned for two years, 62-year-old Pierre found the body of a child prisoner who had been murdered. The incident affected him deeply and he decided to spend the rest of his life defending victims of injustice.

The Unreported World team travels with Pierre to a prison in Ruyigi province, one of the poorest parts of the country. They find more than 20 children in the jail, several of whom look younger than 15. Many of them say they have been locked up having been accused of minor offences, such as stealing a bag of rice. Nestor tells Navai he is 12 and has been there for two months. ‘My family never liked me. That's why they sent me here. They've left me here to die,' he says.

Navai and Dabbous travel with Pierre to Mpimba prison, the country's most notorious jail, which houses some of the most dangerous criminals. It was built for 800 prisoners but there are now more than 3300. The team finds nearly 100 boys sleeping in one cell, nearly all of whom are being held without trial. There's no room to lie down or sit, so the boys are all forced to stand.

One of them, Claude, says he is 13 years old. He has been accused of rape but appears to be the victim of a dispute between families. Like other children, he may have been falsely accused of a crime in order to settle a score. He's been held for five months without trial and says older prisoners abuse the children. Pierre decides to investigate his case.

The team travels with Pierre to Claude's home province of Bubanza, where he meets the magistrate in charge of the case. He reveals that hospital records showed Claude's alleged victims had in fact not been raped and that there was a feud between Claude's family and another family. Claude doesn't have a birth certificate as he was born during the civil war, and Pierre needs to prove he is under 15 to get him out of jail. He travels to his home village, where Claude's mother tells him she thinks he is 14 and that he had actually been accused of inappropriately touching his neighbours' children.

Back in Mpimba prison, the team meets some of the 100 female prisoners locked in with the 3000 men. There are also 24 babies and toddlers living in the jail, nearly all of whom were born inside. One prisoner tells Navai that that some women are forced to have sex for money in order to survive, and become pregnant.

Burundi's Director of Prisons tells Unreported World that a lack of resources makes it impossible to hold women and children separately. He also admits that under-15s are being illegally imprisoned and blames corrupt magistrates and policemen and a lack of proper records.

Pierre is still negotiating with Claude's neighbours, who are demanding compensation to allow Claude to return to the village. The magistrate says that Claude cannot be released if his mother does not pay the compensation, as his life will be in danger and the villagers may kill him. His mother has nothing to give. While there is no way of knowing how long Claude will be behind bars, Pierre is still fighting to get him released.

3/10: Nigeria: Sex, Lies and Black Magic

Fri 8 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director James Jones travel from Italy to Africa to reveal how human traffickers are using black magic to coerce and trap Nigerian women into a life of prostitution in Europe. Women are made to swear an oath of loyalty to their traffickers in an elaborate ritual that compels them to pay back extortionate sums of money. If they ever break free or report their traffickers, they believe they will be cursed.

The team begins their journey in northern Italy. As many as 20,000 Nigerian women work as prostitutes on Italy's streets. They meet Rita, who tells Kleeman she sleeps with up to ten men a day, seven days a week, for 20 Euros a time. After five years of prostitution, Rita still hasn't paid off the 50,000 Euro debt she owes her traffickers. She is also forced to pay them 300 Euros a month in "rent" to solicit from her particular patch of pavement beside a highway.

Rita says customers had beaten her badly in the past but she has no choice but to continue working on the streets. She tells Kleeman she has sworn to repay the debt to her traffickers in a traditional West African religious ritual which she calls "juju". She fears she and her family will die or go mad if she incurs the wrath of the spirits by breaking her oath.

The Unreported World team flies to the southern Nigerian state of Edo, where 80 per cent of Nigerians trafficked into Europe begin their journey. In the village of Ewhoini they learn that almost every family has a relative abroad. Kleeman and Jones meet Elonel, who tells them that he earns money by helping traffic women from here to work for his sister in Italy.

Elonel introduces Kleeman to a woman who's just about to make the trip. Vivian, 23, used to make her living selling tomatoes at the local market. She tells Kleeman that there are no jobs in her town so she has decided to go to Europe to earn money to take care of her brothers and sisters at home. She knows she will have to pay her traffickers back, and that she might have to work as a prostitute to do it at first, but has no idea how much they will ask for.

Vivian says that Elonel is her boyfriend. He's made all the travel plans for her and has booked her in to see a juju priest. She believes the juju ceremony will bring her luck, but she will also swear an oath of loyalty to Elonel and his sister during the ritual that will ensure they get paid whatever sum they ask of her. Elonel tells Kleeman that he doesn't feel at all guilty about sending his girlfriend to a life of prostitution as he simply needs the money.

The team are given rare access to film the juju ceremony. The juju priest, "Dr" Stanley, marks Vivian's body and makes her kneel at his shrine as she swears her oath. He claims he has the power to give women cancer if they break the promises they make before him. For those like Vivian who believe in juju, there's no way of hiding from the spirits. Dr Stanley tells Kleeman that countless others have sworn oaths of loyalty to different traffickers at his shrine.

Getting women to give evidence against their traffickers is a serious challenge because of the conspiracy of silence created by the ritual. The team joins the government's anti-trafficking agency as they conduct a special juju ceremony to free a repatriated victim from her oath.

Before Vivian leaves Nigeria, Kleeman has a final opportunity to warn her about the reality of life on Italy's streets. When Kleeman tells her she'll be working for years as a prostitute to pay off an extortionate sum, Vivian doesn't believe her. Her determination to improve her life has made it easy for traffickers to exploit her, and the juju oath has made it impossible for her to change her mind.

4/10: Pakistan: Defenders of Karachi

Fri 15 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Peter Oborne and director Edward Watts travel to Pakistan's largest city Karachi where last year more civilians were killed in political, ethnic and criminal violence than died across the whole of Pakistan in terrorist attacks. While the state seems unable to control the violence, the Unreported World team spends time with a few courageous individuals who are risking their lives to hold the line against anarchy.

In the last 60 years the population of Karachi has risen from 300,000 to nearly 20 million. The pressure for homes, water and food - compounded by high levels of unemployment - has lead to furious conflict between the rival ethnic groups, with around 1300 people killed in gangland violence last year.

Most of Pakistan's ethnic groups - including Pashtuns, Mohajirs, Sindhis and Baluch - live in segregated neighbourhoods in Karachi with each area ruled by criminal gangs. While shootings occur all over the city, Lyari district is especially violent because different ethnic groups are engaged in a struggle for territory from which they control extortion rackets and the drugs trade.

Oborne and Watts spend time with Saleem Mohammad, an ambulance driver with the Edhi charity, which provides a free ambulance service. It's desperately needed in a country without a functioning welfare state, and every day the staff are overwhelmed with requests for help.

When a job comes through the initial information is often wrong. So Saleem can't be sure of what dangers he's heading in to, as even ambulance drivers are targeted and killed by gangs. The team travels with Saleem to the scene of a gang shootout where a young man has been shot and his father had just driven him from the scene. Back at the hospital, the victim, Shohed, tells Oborne he had been caught in the crossfire.

The team follow Saleem to the funeral of two activists from an Islamist political party who have been gunned down. Saleem is present as high profile funerals often come under attack. It's claimed the activists were targeted by a rival political group. The killings suggest disturbing links between mainstream political parties and the gangs. Oborne is told that party workers are routinely assassinated, with 447 murdered last year.

Most of the bodies are brought to a morgue run by the Edhi charity. The daily confrontations with death are taking their toll on Saleem. He reveals he has become hardened to tragedy.

In the western outskirts of the city the team meet police officer Nasrullah Khan. His job is so dangerous he travels everywhere with two bodyguards as he's suffered numerous attacks. He tells Oborne that at least 100 of his officers have been killed in the past year. The violence is so extreme that he lives and sleeps in his office, only seeing his wife and children once a week.

Later that night the team receives news that the police have come under attack. They arrive at the hospital to find chaotic scenes with Edhi ambulance staff helping the injured policemen into the emergency ward. At least six policemen have been injured and one killed in a random attack: this time by a policeman, though nobody knows the cause.

Before they leave Karachi, Oborne and Watts visit Saleem's family. They know when he leaves for work they may never see him again. Many fear Pakistan is in danger of collapsing in to failed state with desperate consequences for the rest of the world. But Oborne concludes that with the presence of ordinary people as brave and self-sacrificing as Saleem there is every cause for hope.

7/10: Mexico: Living with Hitmen

Fri 20 May, 7:30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Evan Williams and Director Alex Nott traveled to Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico's border with the United States, to experience the daily life of a journalist who has been called one of the most courageous women in Mexico.

Mexico's drug wars have been well reported but there is a frightening new phenomenon that is going largely unnoticed. A growing number of journalists are being killed and disappeared as they try to report on the drug violence and the growing links between the cartels and the corrupt police and politicians.

Luz Sosa is chief crime reporter on El Diario, the main newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, a city where more than 3000 were murdered last year as powerful drug cartels fight for control of routes to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the US.

 

Luz spends her days travelling from one crime scene to another trying to ascertain the truth of what's happened and provide a record of the conflict, which is spiraling out of control and in which hundreds of women, grandmothers and even babies have been murdered in revenge attacks or warnings.

Someone - possibly the drugs cartels, or the security services, or both - is targeting her, and several colleagues have already paid the ultimate price. Just two years ago Luz's predecessor, crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, was shot dead in front of his home as he was about to take his children to school. No one knows for sure who killed him but Luz says he had written about the links between the cartels and corrupt politicians.

Nearby in the office there is another small flower by the photograph of Luis Carlos Santiago, a 21-year-old photographer. In September last year, Luz got a call that there was another murder. They arrived to find their young colleague dead. It was after she wrote up this story that she too received a direct threat. Her front-page article was found next to a severed human head on the outskirts of the city.

A single mother of two, she says she's never sure whether that day will be the one where she doesn't come home to her kids. Her mother says she prays every day for her daughter's safety and that she will see her again at the end of the day.

The team also meets TV journalist Arturo Perez. He tells Williams that crime gangs, corrupt officials or police could be responsible for the killing and disappearances of journalists but there is never any credible investigation into these killings.

Just across the border in the United States, Williams and Nott meet one of Juarez's leading journalists, who has been given asylum. He claims that after he published an investigation into corrupt officials linked to the cartels he received a threat from an official in the state governor's office that he would be the next journalist to die. He also claims that some police are involved in extortion with the drug gangs, and that they take their orders from corrupt politicians involved with the drug business. ‘They can do anything, they use their weapons and uniforms for this as they know they will never be prosecuted,' he says.

 

5/10: China's Lost Sons

Fri 22 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Oliver Steeds and producer Matt Haan travel to China to follow one father's inspirational search for his son, who was abducted and sold into slavery. They expose one of the untold stories behind China's economic boom, discovering how thousands of young men with mental impairments have been kidnapped and forced to work in brick factories.

The Unreported World team begin their journey in Sanyuan town in central China, where they meet 62-year-old farmer He Zhimin. Steeds discovers that He Wen - his son who has the mental age of a child and used to live at home - went missing last June. Mr He said a woman approached his son at the local market, offered him a job and money and then abducted him. Mr He believes the woman was part of a trafficking gang and that his son has been abducted and forced in to a life of slavery.

The disappearance was reported to the police, but Mr He claims they have done very little and he's been left to search for his son on his own. He tells Steeds that a few months ago, He Wen was spotted in a nearby town. Eyewitnesses told him his son was being forced to work in local brick factories, which have a reputation for using forced labour supplied by trafficking gangs.

With hundreds of brick kilns across the county, Mr He has an almost impossible task. In the last nine months he has visited 40 kilns and come across many other cases of mentally impaired people who have been abducted into slavery. As a result of his investigations, he's been threatened and at times violently attacked.

Now, he thinks he may have another lead. The team travels with Mr He to a brick factory where he believes his son might be held. Labourers claim He Wen was forced to carry hot bricks from the oven and was beaten all over his body if he didn't work hard enough. Sadly they discover the factory was recently abandoned.

Just over a month beforehand, Mr He had received a call in response to one of his posters. A mentally impaired man fitting his son's description had been found wandering the streets. Mr He introduces the Unreported World team to the man he found - Liu Xiaoping - along with his family. Xiaoping is 30, but he has the mental age of a child. He reveals to Mr He that he worked alongside his son in a brick factory.

Xiaoping's father says his son was also groomed like He Wen and enslaved in brick factories for 10 months. He says his son was chained up at night. If he wasn't working hard enough in the day a hot metal rod was burnt across his face. Xiaoping's injuries got so bad that he couldn't work and he was thrown out onto the streets where Mr He found him.

Mr He also introduces the team to another father, Mr Li, who says his son disappeared from the street outside his house. He believes he was abducted and is now being forced to work in a brick factory. Since December he's printed off over 10,000 little cards with details of his son on the back but has heard nothing. In an emotional scene, the two men agree that 'If they're alive, we want to see them in person; if they're dead, we want to see their corpses. But both of us have the same thought. We shouldn't give up.'

Steeds and Haan move on and meet Yang Bin, who works for the only organisation helping families track down mentally impaired relatives who've been abducted. By his estimation, there could be at least 10,000 currently enslaved. He says it is difficult to prosecute the traffickers and brick factory owners because often the testimonies of people with mental impairment are not accepted in Chinese courts even when there is substantial evidence.

The team travels with Yang Bin to Sichuan province where they have heard of a case where over 100 people with mental impairments have been abducted. Yang Bin says a trafficking gang had been arrested in December, accused of abducting people from a government-run welfare centre. The team is told the authorities are trying to prevent any further reporting of this incident and is followed by secret police before being detained, interrogated and then driven to the train station and ordered to leave the province.

Steeds and Haan visit Mr He with Yang Bin. He has agreed to help Mr He, who says no witness statements have been taken by the police and he hasn't even been allowed to register He Wen as a missing person. Yang fears local police officers could be colluding with some of the brick factory owners. Mr He receives more potential sightings of his son from several eyewitnesses at a nearby brick factory: the same one where Xiaoping claims he was held. The team investigates, filming secretly, but unfortunately there's no sign of He Wen. The manager denies all allegations. Despite another dead-end Mr He vows never to give up searching.

8/10: The Battle for Ivory Coast

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and Director Alex Nott arrive in Abidjan, the commercial capital of the Ivory Coast in West Africa to report on the escalating political crisis.  Instead they find themselves one of the few television crews to be there as terrifying violence tears apart a city that had been described as the Paris of West Africa.

For four months President Laurent Gbagbo has clung to power - despite losing elections.  As the team arrives fighters loyal to Alassane Outtara, who has won the UN-backed elections, are advancing towards the presidential palace. 

On arrival, the team quickly discovers the Gbagbo regime mobilizing its most feared supporters, the Young Patriots. Rhodes and Nott are able to gain access to their leader, Charles Ble Goude, who's known as the "General of the Streets'.  He has a history of inciting violence against the regime's rivals and the UN has placed sanctions on him.  He agrees to let them accompany him to a series of mass rallies.

 

Most Gbagbo supporters come from the south and are Christian. The supporters of the new President Alessane Outtara come mainly from the north and are Muslim. There's a very strong nationalist sentiment at the rallies, Ble Goude supplies the team with bodyguards as he says that foreigners would be lynched without them. 

The rallies are a call to arms and Ble Goude whips up the young masses in to a frenzy - inciting them to join the army and fight against the Outtara forces - and also the UN and French peacekeepers in Ivory Coast.  That night, the team films as the Young Patriots set up checkpoints robbing almost everyone they stop and there are reports that elsewhere they are murdering people who they suspect are Outtara supporters.

The team visits the Malian embassy, which has become a refugee centre.  There are tens of thousands of workers from neighbouring Mali in Ivory Coast but the Gbagbo supporters hate them as they have strong ethnic ties with Ouattara supporters. One refugee says the police and army came to his house regularly, demanding money and forcing him to do press ups, while stamping on his hands.

The team decides to try to visit the Abobo neighbourhood, whose residents had voted for Ouattara. In retaliation the Gbagbo regime has cut off their water and sent soldiers to shoot innocent residents. The city is full of check points run by soldiers and Young Patriots and the team is robbed at gunpoint. They turn back but manage to reach another opposition neighbourhood which is coming under fire from the regime.  

By now Ouattara's forces have reached the edge of the City. They are heading towards the Presidential palace where they believe Gbagbo is hiding. This is a short distance away from the team's hotel. Nott and Rhodes are trapped but manage to film the oncoming battle outside as French troops take on Gbagbo's tanks and heavy weapons.

Foreigners in the hotel are targeted and the team is forced to take refuge while suspected Gbagbo gunmen search the building. The soldiers kidnap the hotel manager and two foreign businessmen and their security guard. They haven't been heard of since then. Rhodes and Nott join an evacuation convoy organised by the French, but even that comes under fire from Gbagbo supporters.

In the final hours of this civil war the team is able to drive out into the city. There are dozens of bodies on the streets and the city is still lawless. Ouattara's victorious forces are looting shops and businesses and even fighting each other.

Filming victims at a hospital, a group of young men - probably defeated Young Patriots -arrives and start to attack Nott and Rhodes. The Ivory Coast may now have a democratically elected president, but the Young Patriots are still very much alive and waiting for revenge.

 

9/10: Breaking into Israel

Fri 3 June, 7:30pm, Channel 4

 

Reporter Ramita Navai and director Paul Kittel travel through the Sinai desert on the trail of thousands of African immigrants seeking a new life in Israel. They reveal how desperate families fleeing conscription, torture and conflict in East Africa risk being shot by border guards and held ransom by people smugglers.

The team arrives in the Sinai desert in north-east Egypt just over a month after the revolution that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Smuggling from Egypt to Israel has gone on for years, but now the smugglers are focussed on people rather than goods. Navai and Kittel visit a smugglers' safe house where 100 Eritrean migrants are crammed into four small rooms terrified that they will be arrested by Egyptian border guards.

 

Eritrea produces more refugees than almost any other country in the world, with nearly 2,000 people escaping every month. Twenty-one-year-old Joseph has been in the smugglers' hands for over a month and has paid them $2000. He tells Navai that the Eritrean regime forcibly conscripts men and women and deserters can be tortured or killed. Another man, Sammy, says he has deserted the army and that torture, starvation and slave labour are commonplace. He also tells the team that conscription can be indefinite.

For the refugees, Israel's fast-growing economy promises safety and prosperity. The team talks to the mastermind of a people-smuggling ring transporting migrants into the country. He tells Navai that it is a sophisticated operation run by Bedouins in three different countries and that one smuggler can transport up to 4000 migrants to Israel every two years.

Later that night the team is driven deeper into the desert, less than a mile away from the Israeli border. The refugees are about to embark on one of the riskiest parts of their journey. Most of the 260km border is open, but Egyptian guards have been accused of using a shoot-to-kill policy against anyone found trying to cross into Israel illegally and 86 people have reportedly been killed crossing the border. The Egyptian authorities deny using a shoot-to-kill policy but say lethal force is justified to stop illegal activity.

The team crosses over into Israel as the migrants face the next stage of their journey; they must get further than 50km from the border or face being handed back to the Egyptian authorities if they're captured. The team receives a call from another refugee, Tadsse. He has been captured but has been detained rather than handed over to the Egyptians.

Navai and Kittel head north to Tel Aviv: Israel's business capital and the goal for the refugees. They meet 25-year-old Eritrean Kidane Isaac who was smuggled over four years ago and now lives there legally and helps recently arrived immigrants. He tells Navai that many of the 20,000 Eritreans who have made it to Israel are now safe but destitute. He rents a tiny shared room in a flat with 16 other refugees.

He also claims that in recent months there has been a disturbing new development: smuggling gangs have started to hold refugees for ransom, extorting cash from relatives who already live abroad. He says men have been killed and women raped. The team travels to a medical centre that treats up to 700 Eritreans every month, who say they've been abused at the hands of their kidnappers. 

With evidence suggesting nearly 200 Eritreans are being held hostage in the Sinai desert for ransom, Kidane talks to one smuggler insisting on $13,000 for each person being held. The smugglers are threatening to kill them if they don't get paid. Israel has appealed to the Egyptian authorities to investigate these kidnappings but so far no cases have been pursued. Israel is now building an electronic fence to keep African migrants out, but with the ongoing violence in their country, it seems clear that Eritreans will continue to seek refuge here and in Europe and take any risk on the way.

 

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

Fri 25 Mar, 7.30pm, Channel4

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and producer Richard Cookson begin their journey at a leprosy colony on the outskirts of Hyderabad in the south east of the country. They meet local leader Narsappa, who caught the disease 30 years ago. Like some of the other residents in the colony he has been cured and is no longer contagious. Despite this they are all forced to live together because they're not welcome anywhere else. 

Narsappa tells Rhodes that when he was diagnosed, his neighbours shunned him and his mother grieved for him as if he was dead. He was abandoned at the local hospital when he was just ten years old. Narsappa says he's now driven to stop others going through the same experience. 

At a funeral that night for another sufferer, the discrimination many face is brought home. Narsappa's friend has died and has to be buried in a patch of waste ground next to the public cemetery. Even after death some believe the disease is still contagious so those affected are buried in graves away from everyone else. 

In 2005, the Indian government declared that leprosy had been eliminated. However, the Unreported World team obtains leaked documents which suggest the official figures don't show the true scale of the disease. In one Indian state, health workers found the number of people infected was five times the official estimate. 

Rhodes and Cookson accompany Narsappa and a group of colony residents to the local health directorate to demand supplies for their clinic, which has run out of stock. But, like on previous visits, they leave with only promises. 

The team moves on to Naini Hospital in Allahabad. It's India's largest leprosy hospital and is run by UK based charity The Leprosy Mission. Senior surgeon Dr Premal Das tells Rhodes that his hospital saw 3,000 new leprosy cases last year - more than any previous year - but the budget has been cut by 20 per cent because it is practically impossible to raise money for leprosy when the government claims it has been eliminated. 

The team films one of his patients - 16-year-old Pooja - as she undergoes surgery to correct deformities in her hand. The next day the crew follow Pooja home after weeks in hospital, but how will she be received and will she overcome the stigma so many of her fellow patients have to endure? 

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

Fri 25 Mar, 7.30pm, Channel4

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

2/10: Congo: The Children Who Came Back from the Dead

Fri 1 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Ed Braman travel to Eastern Congo to witness the remarkable work of one man who liberates the child soldiers who have been forced to fight in one of the world's longest-running conflicts. While they are fortunate enough to film the moments several dozen youngsters are released, the team also discovers that hundreds more are being abducted as rebels and the army prepare for a new round of fighting.

2/10: Congo: The Children Who Came Back from the Dead

Fri 1 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Ed Braman travel to Eastern Congo to witness the remarkable work of one man who liberates the child soldiers who have been forced to fight in one of the world's longest-running conflicts. While they are fortunate enough to film the moments several dozen youngsters are released, the team also discovers that hundreds more are being abducted as rebels and the army prepare for a new round of fighting.

The Unreported World team are in the mountainous and densely forested province of North Kivu with Henri Ladyi. He has been invited to a secret meeting with members of the ADF/NALU rebel group who are hiding out in the hills. He has been told by a member of the group there are lots of child soldiers - many of them forcibly recruited - who need clothes and medicine. And there is an opportunity for Henri to see if he can get them released.

In a remarkable scene, around a dozen children suddenly appear out of the undergrowth. They are armed with bows and poison-tipped arrows. Some of them are extremely young: perhaps not even teenagers. The team films some tense negotiations before one of the rebel commanders begins a bizarre ritual. The children are each slapped and punched, but Henri tells Hartley that this is a good sign as it is a way of ensuring that the children leave behind their lives as soldiers. 

The team accompanies Henri and the children to the town of Beni. It's the first night in some time they have spent away from the forest, in a proper bed, with a change of clothes.

The youngest tells Hartley his fighter's name is Kambale but he thinks his real name is Justin, although he doesn't seem sure. He says that he was born in the forest and grew up living with the rebels who are on the run and who are being hunted down by the government army, and that this is the only life he has known.

But even as Henri is liberating child soldiers near Beni, it appears that rebels elsewhere in North Kivu are on an aggressive recruitment drive. One local tells Hartley that in Massisi 150 boys have disappeared and in his own area 80 boys have gone missing. He claims one boy was shot and killed for refusing to join up. The team drives to Kitchanga. When they arrive they find the schools deserted. One teacher tells Hartley that between 150 and 200 students have just vanished over the past few weeks.

The team is called by Henri to accompany him to another tense and dangerous meeting with a rebel army called the Mayi Mayi. After several weeks of negotiations, Henri has persuaded them to give up a group of their child soldiers. The Mayi Mayi are one of the most fearsome of Congo's rebel groups, hostile to the government and with a taste for magic. 

Henri leads the team into the hills near the town of Butembo, where they wait nervously. After a while 14 children emerge, including two little girls: Edwige and 11-year-old Marve. They tell Hartley that the rebels think that child soldiers give them a special magical power. Some of them are given the job of doctors while others are told to cast spells on stones, which they then throw in battle to explode like grenades.

Harley and Braman return to the villages where the released children are trying to fit back in to their former lives. They find Marve with her grandmother, who says she plans for the girl to join the family business as a seamstress. But Justin is still subdued and withdrawn. He says all he wants to do is play football with other kids in the village. Just as they are leaving, the team are able to film Justin finally invited to do just that.

10/10: Indonesia's Wildlife Warriors

Fri 10th June, 7:30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and producer Rodrigo Vazquez travel to Indonesia to highlight the work of young environmental activists battling to save endangered species such as orang-utans and sea turtles. They visit a vast market where critically endangered animals are sold as pets or for the Chinese medicine trade and uncover allegations of corruption and harassment of the campaigners.

 

 

The island of Borneo in Indonesia has one of the planet's last big forests, but every hour an area the size of three football pitches is cut down to be used for palm oil production. The Unreported World team joins one team of young, local environmentalists who are trying to rescue the orang-utan, which, because of the loss of its habitat, is heading for extinction.

They arrive at a rescue operation for orang-utans kept illegally by local people as pets. The local chief tells Hartley that the loss of forest has brought people into conflict with orang-utans. A farmer who captured one baby orang-utan says he thinks they are a nuisance. Environmental activist Ali tells Hartley that some palm oil farmers see orang-utans as vermin and that local people collect a $10 reward when they bring in an orang-utan's head or severed hand. He says the few infants that are spared end up in cages or are sold as pets in private zoos across Asia, and that middle men can pay just US$25 to a poacher or plantation worker for a baby orang-utan, which, if smuggled to Thailand, is worth about US$25,000.

Local people tell the team that they want the forest to remain intact because they can get everything they need for their income from the forest, but it is being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They say the land clearances have taken away their livelihoods and they are now poorer than ever. 

At a rehabilitation centre for orang-utans, another activist called Hardi says his work has exposed corruption and criminal networks involved in the wildlife trade and brought him into conflict with the authorities. He claims the authorities are not interested in saving orang-utans and their objective is to see more palm plantations established. The team speaks to an official from the Forestry Ministry who insists it is guarding rainforests from illegal deforestation and protecting endangered species. The official says that if they obtain enough evidence they arrest and prosecute poachers or orang-utan traders.

Posing as tourists, Hartley and Vazquez visit the huge Jatinegara animal market in Jakarta. Hundreds of animal species in Indonesia are on the brink of extinction and protected by law. But most of these species, the team is told, are on sale as pets or for body parts to be used in Far Eastern medicine in a trade worth millions of dollars. The team films numerous rare birds, reptiles, apes and a small primate called the slow loris.

In Jakarta they met another campaigner, 31-year-old Irma Hermawati, who has been threatened and beaten by wildlife traders. They travel with her to Bali to investigate reports a turtle farm is keeping animals in appalling conditions, and then selling them for religious sacrifice.

Later an informer shows Hartley photos and samples of souvenirs he claims are being fashioned from the shells of wild turtles. The team visits the farm, where staff say they are breeding turtles and that the sale of products here is legal under Indonesian law. Next to the farm, there is a shop selling souvenirs made from turtle shells. The team is told that there will be a surprise raid on the farm, but it turns out that the police had asked a local politician and turtle farm owner to guide them. Instead of freeing the turtles, the police officers spend their time taking photos of each other with the animals.

As the team leaves Indonesia, it's clear that unless there's a change of public opinion and the government ends corruption and begins to enforce its laws, there will be very little to stop species like the orang-utans and green turtles from disappearing altogether.

 

6/10: Burundi: Boys Behind Bars

Fri 13 May, 7:25pm, Channel 4

Reporter Ramita Navai and director Wael Dabbous travel to Burundi to expose the plight of hundreds of children locked up for years without trial in adult prisons, among some of the most dangerous criminals in the country. And they meet one man who has dedicated his life to freeing them; for many of these children, Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa is the only hope they have.

Burundi has no juvenile justice system and children above the age of 15 are tried as adults. By law any child under that age should not be imprisoned, but in a country recovering from civil war and where record keeping is scant, many underage children are slipping through the net and are being locked up. There is no legal aid, and there are only 106 lawyers for a population of over eight million people. This is one of the reasons why three quarters of children are being held for long periods without trial.

While wrongly imprisoned for two years, 62-year-old Pierre found the body of a child prisoner who had been murdered. The incident affected him deeply and he decided to spend the rest of his life defending victims of injustice.

The Unreported World team travels with Pierre to a prison in Ruyigi province, one of the poorest parts of the country. They find more than 20 children in the jail, several of whom look younger than 15. Many of them say they have been locked up having been accused of minor offences, such as stealing a bag of rice. Nestor tells Navai he is 12 and has been there for two months. ‘My family never liked me. That's why they sent me here. They've left me here to die,' he says.

Navai and Dabbous travel with Pierre to Mpimba prison, the country's most notorious jail, which houses some of the most dangerous criminals. It was built for 800 prisoners but there are now more than 3300. The team finds nearly 100 boys sleeping in one cell, nearly all of whom are being held without trial. There's no room to lie down or sit, so the boys are all forced to stand.

One of them, Claude, says he is 13 years old. He has been accused of rape but appears to be the victim of a dispute between families. Like other children, he may have been falsely accused of a crime in order to settle a score. He's been held for five months without trial and says older prisoners abuse the children. Pierre decides to investigate his case.

The team travels with Pierre to Claude's home province of Bubanza, where he meets the magistrate in charge of the case. He reveals that hospital records showed Claude's alleged victims had in fact not been raped and that there was a feud between Claude's family and another family. Claude doesn't have a birth certificate as he was born during the civil war, and Pierre needs to prove he is under 15 to get him out of jail. He travels to his home village, where Claude's mother tells him she thinks he is 14 and that he had actually been accused of inappropriately touching his neighbours' children.

Back in Mpimba prison, the team meets some of the 100 female prisoners locked in with the 3000 men. There are also 24 babies and toddlers living in the jail, nearly all of whom were born inside. One prisoner tells Navai that that some women are forced to have sex for money in order to survive, and become pregnant.

Burundi's Director of Prisons tells Unreported World that a lack of resources makes it impossible to hold women and children separately. He also admits that under-15s are being illegally imprisoned and blames corrupt magistrates and policemen and a lack of proper records.

Pierre is still negotiating with Claude's neighbours, who are demanding compensation to allow Claude to return to the village. The magistrate says that Claude cannot be released if his mother does not pay the compensation, as his life will be in danger and the villagers may kill him. His mother has nothing to give. While there is no way of knowing how long Claude will be behind bars, Pierre is still fighting to get him released.

3/10: Nigeria: Sex, Lies and Black Magic

Fri 8 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director James Jones travel from Italy to Africa to reveal how human traffickers are using black magic to coerce and trap Nigerian women into a life of prostitution in Europe. Women are made to swear an oath of loyalty to their traffickers in an elaborate ritual that compels them to pay back extortionate sums of money. If they ever break free or report their traffickers, they believe they will be cursed.

The team begins their journey in northern Italy. As many as 20,000 Nigerian women work as prostitutes on Italy's streets. They meet Rita, who tells Kleeman she sleeps with up to ten men a day, seven days a week, for 20 Euros a time. After five years of prostitution, Rita still hasn't paid off the 50,000 Euro debt she owes her traffickers. She is also forced to pay them 300 Euros a month in "rent" to solicit from her particular patch of pavement beside a highway.

Rita says customers had beaten her badly in the past but she has no choice but to continue working on the streets. She tells Kleeman she has sworn to repay the debt to her traffickers in a traditional West African religious ritual which she calls "juju". She fears she and her family will die or go mad if she incurs the wrath of the spirits by breaking her oath.

The Unreported World team flies to the southern Nigerian state of Edo, where 80 per cent of Nigerians trafficked into Europe begin their journey. In the village of Ewhoini they learn that almost every family has a relative abroad. Kleeman and Jones meet Elonel, who tells them that he earns money by helping traffic women from here to work for his sister in Italy.

Elonel introduces Kleeman to a woman who's just about to make the trip. Vivian, 23, used to make her living selling tomatoes at the local market. She tells Kleeman that there are no jobs in her town so she has decided to go to Europe to earn money to take care of her brothers and sisters at home. She knows she will have to pay her traffickers back, and that she might have to work as a prostitute to do it at first, but has no idea how much they will ask for.

Vivian says that Elonel is her boyfriend. He's made all the travel plans for her and has booked her in to see a juju priest. She believes the juju ceremony will bring her luck, but she will also swear an oath of loyalty to Elonel and his sister during the ritual that will ensure they get paid whatever sum they ask of her. Elonel tells Kleeman that he doesn't feel at all guilty about sending his girlfriend to a life of prostitution as he simply needs the money.

The team are given rare access to film the juju ceremony. The juju priest, "Dr" Stanley, marks Vivian's body and makes her kneel at his shrine as she swears her oath. He claims he has the power to give women cancer if they break the promises they make before him. For those like Vivian who believe in juju, there's no way of hiding from the spirits. Dr Stanley tells Kleeman that countless others have sworn oaths of loyalty to different traffickers at his shrine.

Getting women to give evidence against their traffickers is a serious challenge because of the conspiracy of silence created by the ritual. The team joins the government's anti-trafficking agency as they conduct a special juju ceremony to free a repatriated victim from her oath.

Before Vivian leaves Nigeria, Kleeman has a final opportunity to warn her about the reality of life on Italy's streets. When Kleeman tells her she'll be working for years as a prostitute to pay off an extortionate sum, Vivian doesn't believe her. Her determination to improve her life has made it easy for traffickers to exploit her, and the juju oath has made it impossible for her to change her mind.

4/10: Pakistan: Defenders of Karachi

Fri 15 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Peter Oborne and director Edward Watts travel to Pakistan's largest city Karachi where last year more civilians were killed in political, ethnic and criminal violence than died across the whole of Pakistan in terrorist attacks. While the state seems unable to control the violence, the Unreported World team spends time with a few courageous individuals who are risking their lives to hold the line against anarchy.

In the last 60 years the population of Karachi has risen from 300,000 to nearly 20 million. The pressure for homes, water and food - compounded by high levels of unemployment - has lead to furious conflict between the rival ethnic groups, with around 1300 people killed in gangland violence last year.

Most of Pakistan's ethnic groups - including Pashtuns, Mohajirs, Sindhis and Baluch - live in segregated neighbourhoods in Karachi with each area ruled by criminal gangs. While shootings occur all over the city, Lyari district is especially violent because different ethnic groups are engaged in a struggle for territory from which they control extortion rackets and the drugs trade.

Oborne and Watts spend time with Saleem Mohammad, an ambulance driver with the Edhi charity, which provides a free ambulance service. It's desperately needed in a country without a functioning welfare state, and every day the staff are overwhelmed with requests for help.

When a job comes through the initial information is often wrong. So Saleem can't be sure of what dangers he's heading in to, as even ambulance drivers are targeted and killed by gangs. The team travels with Saleem to the scene of a gang shootout where a young man has been shot and his father had just driven him from the scene. Back at the hospital, the victim, Shohed, tells Oborne he had been caught in the crossfire.

The team follow Saleem to the funeral of two activists from an Islamist political party who have been gunned down. Saleem is present as high profile funerals often come under attack. It's claimed the activists were targeted by a rival political group. The killings suggest disturbing links between mainstream political parties and the gangs. Oborne is told that party workers are routinely assassinated, with 447 murdered last year.

Most of the bodies are brought to a morgue run by the Edhi charity. The daily confrontations with death are taking their toll on Saleem. He reveals he has become hardened to tragedy.

In the western outskirts of the city the team meet police officer Nasrullah Khan. His job is so dangerous he travels everywhere with two bodyguards as he's suffered numerous attacks. He tells Oborne that at least 100 of his officers have been killed in the past year. The violence is so extreme that he lives and sleeps in his office, only seeing his wife and children once a week.

Later that night the team receives news that the police have come under attack. They arrive at the hospital to find chaotic scenes with Edhi ambulance staff helping the injured policemen into the emergency ward. At least six policemen have been injured and one killed in a random attack: this time by a policeman, though nobody knows the cause.

Before they leave Karachi, Oborne and Watts visit Saleem's family. They know when he leaves for work they may never see him again. Many fear Pakistan is in danger of collapsing in to failed state with desperate consequences for the rest of the world. But Oborne concludes that with the presence of ordinary people as brave and self-sacrificing as Saleem there is every cause for hope.

7/10: Mexico: Living with Hitmen

Fri 20 May, 7:30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Evan Williams and Director Alex Nott traveled to Ciudad Juarez, on Mexico's border with the United States, to experience the daily life of a journalist who has been called one of the most courageous women in Mexico.

Mexico's drug wars have been well reported but there is a frightening new phenomenon that is going largely unnoticed. A growing number of journalists are being killed and disappeared as they try to report on the drug violence and the growing links between the cartels and the corrupt police and politicians.

Luz Sosa is chief crime reporter on El Diario, the main newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, a city where more than 3000 were murdered last year as powerful drug cartels fight for control of routes to smuggle cocaine and heroin into the US.

 

Luz spends her days travelling from one crime scene to another trying to ascertain the truth of what's happened and provide a record of the conflict, which is spiraling out of control and in which hundreds of women, grandmothers and even babies have been murdered in revenge attacks or warnings.

Someone - possibly the drugs cartels, or the security services, or both - is targeting her, and several colleagues have already paid the ultimate price. Just two years ago Luz's predecessor, crime reporter Armando Rodriguez, was shot dead in front of his home as he was about to take his children to school. No one knows for sure who killed him but Luz says he had written about the links between the cartels and corrupt politicians.

Nearby in the office there is another small flower by the photograph of Luis Carlos Santiago, a 21-year-old photographer. In September last year, Luz got a call that there was another murder. They arrived to find their young colleague dead. It was after she wrote up this story that she too received a direct threat. Her front-page article was found next to a severed human head on the outskirts of the city.

A single mother of two, she says she's never sure whether that day will be the one where she doesn't come home to her kids. Her mother says she prays every day for her daughter's safety and that she will see her again at the end of the day.

The team also meets TV journalist Arturo Perez. He tells Williams that crime gangs, corrupt officials or police could be responsible for the killing and disappearances of journalists but there is never any credible investigation into these killings.

Just across the border in the United States, Williams and Nott meet one of Juarez's leading journalists, who has been given asylum. He claims that after he published an investigation into corrupt officials linked to the cartels he received a threat from an official in the state governor's office that he would be the next journalist to die. He also claims that some police are involved in extortion with the drug gangs, and that they take their orders from corrupt politicians involved with the drug business. ‘They can do anything, they use their weapons and uniforms for this as they know they will never be prosecuted,' he says.

 

5/10: China's Lost Sons

Fri 22 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Oliver Steeds and producer Matt Haan travel to China to follow one father's inspirational search for his son, who was abducted and sold into slavery. They expose one of the untold stories behind China's economic boom, discovering how thousands of young men with mental impairments have been kidnapped and forced to work in brick factories.

The Unreported World team begin their journey in Sanyuan town in central China, where they meet 62-year-old farmer He Zhimin. Steeds discovers that He Wen - his son who has the mental age of a child and used to live at home - went missing last June. Mr He said a woman approached his son at the local market, offered him a job and money and then abducted him. Mr He believes the woman was part of a trafficking gang and that his son has been abducted and forced in to a life of slavery.

The disappearance was reported to the police, but Mr He claims they have done very little and he's been left to search for his son on his own. He tells Steeds that a few months ago, He Wen was spotted in a nearby town. Eyewitnesses told him his son was being forced to work in local brick factories, which have a reputation for using forced labour supplied by trafficking gangs.

With hundreds of brick kilns across the county, Mr He has an almost impossible task. In the last nine months he has visited 40 kilns and come across many other cases of mentally impaired people who have been abducted into slavery. As a result of his investigations, he's been threatened and at times violently attacked.

Now, he thinks he may have another lead. The team travels with Mr He to a brick factory where he believes his son might be held. Labourers claim He Wen was forced to carry hot bricks from the oven and was beaten all over his body if he didn't work hard enough. Sadly they discover the factory was recently abandoned.

Just over a month beforehand, Mr He had received a call in response to one of his posters. A mentally impaired man fitting his son's description had been found wandering the streets. Mr He introduces the Unreported World team to the man he found - Liu Xiaoping - along with his family. Xiaoping is 30, but he has the mental age of a child. He reveals to Mr He that he worked alongside his son in a brick factory.

Xiaoping's father says his son was also groomed like He Wen and enslaved in brick factories for 10 months. He says his son was chained up at night. If he wasn't working hard enough in the day a hot metal rod was burnt across his face. Xiaoping's injuries got so bad that he couldn't work and he was thrown out onto the streets where Mr He found him.

Mr He also introduces the team to another father, Mr Li, who says his son disappeared from the street outside his house. He believes he was abducted and is now being forced to work in a brick factory. Since December he's printed off over 10,000 little cards with details of his son on the back but has heard nothing. In an emotional scene, the two men agree that 'If they're alive, we want to see them in person; if they're dead, we want to see their corpses. But both of us have the same thought. We shouldn't give up.'

Steeds and Haan move on and meet Yang Bin, who works for the only organisation helping families track down mentally impaired relatives who've been abducted. By his estimation, there could be at least 10,000 currently enslaved. He says it is difficult to prosecute the traffickers and brick factory owners because often the testimonies of people with mental impairment are not accepted in Chinese courts even when there is substantial evidence.

The team travels with Yang Bin to Sichuan province where they have heard of a case where over 100 people with mental impairments have been abducted. Yang Bin says a trafficking gang had been arrested in December, accused of abducting people from a government-run welfare centre. The team is told the authorities are trying to prevent any further reporting of this incident and is followed by secret police before being detained, interrogated and then driven to the train station and ordered to leave the province.

Steeds and Haan visit Mr He with Yang Bin. He has agreed to help Mr He, who says no witness statements have been taken by the police and he hasn't even been allowed to register He Wen as a missing person. Yang fears local police officers could be colluding with some of the brick factory owners. Mr He receives more potential sightings of his son from several eyewitnesses at a nearby brick factory: the same one where Xiaoping claims he was held. The team investigates, filming secretly, but unfortunately there's no sign of He Wen. The manager denies all allegations. Despite another dead-end Mr He vows never to give up searching.

8/10: The Battle for Ivory Coast

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and Director Alex Nott arrive in Abidjan, the commercial capital of the Ivory Coast in West Africa to report on the escalating political crisis.  Instead they find themselves one of the few television crews to be there as terrifying violence tears apart a city that had been described as the Paris of West Africa.

For four months President Laurent Gbagbo has clung to power - despite losing elections.  As the team arrives fighters loyal to Alassane Outtara, who has won the UN-backed elections, are advancing towards the presidential palace. 

On arrival, the team quickly discovers the Gbagbo regime mobilizing its most feared supporters, the Young Patriots. Rhodes and Nott are able to gain access to their leader, Charles Ble Goude, who's known as the "General of the Streets'.  He has a history of inciting violence against the regime's rivals and the UN has placed sanctions on him.  He agrees to let them accompany him to a series of mass rallies.

 

Most Gbagbo supporters come from the south and are Christian. The supporters of the new President Alessane Outtara come mainly from the north and are Muslim. There's a very strong nationalist sentiment at the rallies, Ble Goude supplies the team with bodyguards as he says that foreigners would be lynched without them. 

The rallies are a call to arms and Ble Goude whips up the young masses in to a frenzy - inciting them to join the army and fight against the Outtara forces - and also the UN and French peacekeepers in Ivory Coast.  That night, the team films as the Young Patriots set up checkpoints robbing almost everyone they stop and there are reports that elsewhere they are murdering people who they suspect are Outtara supporters.

The team visits the Malian embassy, which has become a refugee centre.  There are tens of thousands of workers from neighbouring Mali in Ivory Coast but the Gbagbo supporters hate them as they have strong ethnic ties with Ouattara supporters. One refugee says the police and army came to his house regularly, demanding money and forcing him to do press ups, while stamping on his hands.

The team decides to try to visit the Abobo neighbourhood, whose residents had voted for Ouattara. In retaliation the Gbagbo regime has cut off their water and sent soldiers to shoot innocent residents. The city is full of check points run by soldiers and Young Patriots and the team is robbed at gunpoint. They turn back but manage to reach another opposition neighbourhood which is coming under fire from the regime.  

By now Ouattara's forces have reached the edge of the City. They are heading towards the Presidential palace where they believe Gbagbo is hiding. This is a short distance away from the team's hotel. Nott and Rhodes are trapped but manage to film the oncoming battle outside as French troops take on Gbagbo's tanks and heavy weapons.

Foreigners in the hotel are targeted and the team is forced to take refuge while suspected Gbagbo gunmen search the building. The soldiers kidnap the hotel manager and two foreign businessmen and their security guard. They haven't been heard of since then. Rhodes and Nott join an evacuation convoy organised by the French, but even that comes under fire from Gbagbo supporters.

In the final hours of this civil war the team is able to drive out into the city. There are dozens of bodies on the streets and the city is still lawless. Ouattara's victorious forces are looting shops and businesses and even fighting each other.

Filming victims at a hospital, a group of young men - probably defeated Young Patriots -arrives and start to attack Nott and Rhodes. The Ivory Coast may now have a democratically elected president, but the Young Patriots are still very much alive and waiting for revenge.

 

9/10: Breaking into Israel

Fri 3 June, 7:30pm, Channel 4

 

Reporter Ramita Navai and director Paul Kittel travel through the Sinai desert on the trail of thousands of African immigrants seeking a new life in Israel. They reveal how desperate families fleeing conscription, torture and conflict in East Africa risk being shot by border guards and held ransom by people smugglers.

The team arrives in the Sinai desert in north-east Egypt just over a month after the revolution that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Smuggling from Egypt to Israel has gone on for years, but now the smugglers are focussed on people rather than goods. Navai and Kittel visit a smugglers' safe house where 100 Eritrean migrants are crammed into four small rooms terrified that they will be arrested by Egyptian border guards.

 

Eritrea produces more refugees than almost any other country in the world, with nearly 2,000 people escaping every month. Twenty-one-year-old Joseph has been in the smugglers' hands for over a month and has paid them $2000. He tells Navai that the Eritrean regime forcibly conscripts men and women and deserters can be tortured or killed. Another man, Sammy, says he has deserted the army and that torture, starvation and slave labour are commonplace. He also tells the team that conscription can be indefinite.

For the refugees, Israel's fast-growing economy promises safety and prosperity. The team talks to the mastermind of a people-smuggling ring transporting migrants into the country. He tells Navai that it is a sophisticated operation run by Bedouins in three different countries and that one smuggler can transport up to 4000 migrants to Israel every two years.

Later that night the team is driven deeper into the desert, less than a mile away from the Israeli border. The refugees are about to embark on one of the riskiest parts of their journey. Most of the 260km border is open, but Egyptian guards have been accused of using a shoot-to-kill policy against anyone found trying to cross into Israel illegally and 86 people have reportedly been killed crossing the border. The Egyptian authorities deny using a shoot-to-kill policy but say lethal force is justified to stop illegal activity.

The team crosses over into Israel as the migrants face the next stage of their journey; they must get further than 50km from the border or face being handed back to the Egyptian authorities if they're captured. The team receives a call from another refugee, Tadsse. He has been captured but has been detained rather than handed over to the Egyptians.

Navai and Kittel head north to Tel Aviv: Israel's business capital and the goal for the refugees. They meet 25-year-old Eritrean Kidane Isaac who was smuggled over four years ago and now lives there legally and helps recently arrived immigrants. He tells Navai that many of the 20,000 Eritreans who have made it to Israel are now safe but destitute. He rents a tiny shared room in a flat with 16 other refugees.

He also claims that in recent months there has been a disturbing new development: smuggling gangs have started to hold refugees for ransom, extorting cash from relatives who already live abroad. He says men have been killed and women raped. The team travels to a medical centre that treats up to 700 Eritreans every month, who say they've been abused at the hands of their kidnappers. 

With evidence suggesting nearly 200 Eritreans are being held hostage in the Sinai desert for ransom, Kidane talks to one smuggler insisting on $13,000 for each person being held. The smugglers are threatening to kill them if they don't get paid. Israel has appealed to the Egyptian authorities to investigate these kidnappings but so far no cases have been pursued. Israel is now building an electronic fence to keep African migrants out, but with the ongoing violence in their country, it seems clear that Eritreans will continue to seek refuge here and in Europe and take any risk on the way.

 

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

Fri 25 Mar, 7.30pm, Channel4

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

Reporter Seyi Rhodes and producer Richard Cookson begin their journey at a leprosy colony on the outskirts of Hyderabad in the south east of the country. They meet local leader Narsappa, who caught the disease 30 years ago. Like some of the other residents in the colony he has been cured and is no longer contagious. Despite this they are all forced to live together because they're not welcome anywhere else. 

Narsappa tells Rhodes that when he was diagnosed, his neighbours shunned him and his mother grieved for him as if he was dead. He was abandoned at the local hospital when he was just ten years old. Narsappa says he's now driven to stop others going through the same experience. 

At a funeral that night for another sufferer, the discrimination many face is brought home. Narsappa's friend has died and has to be buried in a patch of waste ground next to the public cemetery. Even after death some believe the disease is still contagious so those affected are buried in graves away from everyone else. 

In 2005, the Indian government declared that leprosy had been eliminated. However, the Unreported World team obtains leaked documents which suggest the official figures don't show the true scale of the disease. In one Indian state, health workers found the number of people infected was five times the official estimate. 

Rhodes and Cookson accompany Narsappa and a group of colony residents to the local health directorate to demand supplies for their clinic, which has run out of stock. But, like on previous visits, they leave with only promises. 

The team moves on to Naini Hospital in Allahabad. It's India's largest leprosy hospital and is run by UK based charity The Leprosy Mission. Senior surgeon Dr Premal Das tells Rhodes that his hospital saw 3,000 new leprosy cases last year - more than any previous year - but the budget has been cut by 20 per cent because it is practically impossible to raise money for leprosy when the government claims it has been eliminated. 

The team films one of his patients - 16-year-old Pooja - as she undergoes surgery to correct deformities in her hand. The next day the crew follow Pooja home after weeks in hospital, but how will she be received and will she overcome the stigma so many of her fellow patients have to endure? 

1/10 - India's Leprosy Heroes

Fri 25 Mar, 7.30pm, Channel4

The team travels to India where millions affected by the disease are pushed to the margins of society, ostracised by their friends and families. Based on targets set by the World Health Organization, the Indian government claims it has eliminated leprosy. However Unreported World reveals the numbers of new cases in some areas could be much higher than previously estimated.

2/10: Congo: The Children Who Came Back from the Dead

Fri 1 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Ed Braman travel to Eastern Congo to witness the remarkable work of one man who liberates the child soldiers who have been forced to fight in one of the world's longest-running conflicts. While they are fortunate enough to film the moments several dozen youngsters are released, the team also discovers that hundreds more are being abducted as rebels and the army prepare for a new round of fighting.

2/10: Congo: The Children Who Came Back from the Dead

Fri 1 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and director Ed Braman travel to Eastern Congo to witness the remarkable work of one man who liberates the child soldiers who have been forced to fight in one of the world's longest-running conflicts. While they are fortunate enough to film the moments several dozen youngsters are released, the team also discovers that hundreds more are being abducted as rebels and the army prepare for a new round of fighting.

The Unreported World team are in the mountainous and densely forested province of North Kivu with Henri Ladyi. He has been invited to a secret meeting with members of the ADF/NALU rebel group who are hiding out in the hills. He has been told by a member of the group there are lots of child soldiers - many of them forcibly recruited - who need clothes and medicine. And there is an opportunity for Henri to see if he can get them released.

In a remarkable scene, around a dozen children suddenly appear out of the undergrowth. They are armed with bows and poison-tipped arrows. Some of them are extremely young: perhaps not even teenagers. The team films some tense negotiations before one of the rebel commanders begins a bizarre ritual. The children are each slapped and punched, but Henri tells Hartley that this is a good sign as it is a way of ensuring that the children leave behind their lives as soldiers. 

The team accompanies Henri and the children to the town of Beni. It's the first night in some time they have spent away from the forest, in a proper bed, with a change of clothes.

The youngest tells Hartley his fighter's name is Kambale but he thinks his real name is Justin, although he doesn't seem sure. He says that he was born in the forest and grew up living with the rebels who are on the run and who are being hunted down by the government army, and that this is the only life he has known.

But even as Henri is liberating child soldiers near Beni, it appears that rebels elsewhere in North Kivu are on an aggressive recruitment drive. One local tells Hartley that in Massisi 150 boys have disappeared and in his own area 80 boys have gone missing. He claims one boy was shot and killed for refusing to join up. The team drives to Kitchanga. When they arrive they find the schools deserted. One teacher tells Hartley that between 150 and 200 students have just vanished over the past few weeks.

The team is called by Henri to accompany him to another tense and dangerous meeting with a rebel army called the Mayi Mayi. After several weeks of negotiations, Henri has persuaded them to give up a group of their child soldiers. The Mayi Mayi are one of the most fearsome of Congo's rebel groups, hostile to the government and with a taste for magic. 

Henri leads the team into the hills near the town of Butembo, where they wait nervously. After a while 14 children emerge, including two little girls: Edwige and 11-year-old Marve. They tell Hartley that the rebels think that child soldiers give them a special magical power. Some of them are given the job of doctors while others are told to cast spells on stones, which they then throw in battle to explode like grenades.

Harley and Braman return to the villages where the released children are trying to fit back in to their former lives. They find Marve with her grandmother, who says she plans for the girl to join the family business as a seamstress. But Justin is still subdued and withdrawn. He says all he wants to do is play football with other kids in the village. Just as they are leaving, the team are able to film Justin finally invited to do just that.

10/10: Indonesia's Wildlife Warriors

Fri 10th June, 7:30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Aidan Hartley and producer Rodrigo Vazquez travel to Indonesia to highlight the work of young environmental activists battling to save endangered species such as orang-utans and sea turtles. They visit a vast market where critically endangered animals are sold as pets or for the Chinese medicine trade and uncover allegations of corruption and harassment of the campaigners.

 

 

The island of Borneo in Indonesia has one of the planet's last big forests, but every hour an area the size of three football pitches is cut down to be used for palm oil production. The Unreported World team joins one team of young, local environmentalists who are trying to rescue the orang-utan, which, because of the loss of its habitat, is heading for extinction.

They arrive at a rescue operation for orang-utans kept illegally by local people as pets. The local chief tells Hartley that the loss of forest has brought people into conflict with orang-utans. A farmer who captured one baby orang-utan says he thinks they are a nuisance. Environmental activist Ali tells Hartley that some palm oil farmers see orang-utans as vermin and that local people collect a $10 reward when they bring in an orang-utan's head or severed hand. He says the few infants that are spared end up in cages or are sold as pets in private zoos across Asia, and that middle men can pay just US$25 to a poacher or plantation worker for a baby orang-utan, which, if smuggled to Thailand, is worth about US$25,000.

Local people tell the team that they want the forest to remain intact because they can get everything they need for their income from the forest, but it is being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They say the land clearances have taken away their livelihoods and they are now poorer than ever. 

At a rehabilitation centre for orang-utans, another activist called Hardi says his work has exposed corruption and criminal networks involved in the wildlife trade and brought him into conflict with the authorities. He claims the authorities are not interested in saving orang-utans and their objective is to see more palm plantations established. The team speaks to an official from the Forestry Ministry who insists it is guarding rainforests from illegal deforestation and protecting endangered species. The official says that if they obtain enough evidence they arrest and prosecute poachers or orang-utan traders.

Posing as tourists, Hartley and Vazquez visit the huge Jatinegara animal market in Jakarta. Hundreds of animal species in Indonesia are on the brink of extinction and protected by law. But most of these species, the team is told, are on sale as pets or for body parts to be used in Far Eastern medicine in a trade worth millions of dollars. The team films numerous rare birds, reptiles, apes and a small primate called the slow loris.

In Jakarta they met another campaigner, 31-year-old Irma Hermawati, who has been threatened and beaten by wildlife traders. They travel with her to Bali to investigate reports a turtle farm is keeping animals in appalling conditions, and then selling them for religious sacrifice.

Later an informer shows Hartley photos and samples of souvenirs he claims are being fashioned from the shells of wild turtles. The team visits the farm, where staff say they are breeding turtles and that the sale of products here is legal under Indonesian law. Next to the farm, there is a shop selling souvenirs made from turtle shells. The team is told that there will be a surprise raid on the farm, but it turns out that the police had asked a local politician and turtle farm owner to guide them. Instead of freeing the turtles, the police officers spend their time taking photos of each other with the animals.

As the team leaves Indonesia, it's clear that unless there's a change of public opinion and the government ends corruption and begins to enforce its laws, there will be very little to stop species like the orang-utans and green turtles from disappearing altogether.

 

6/10: Burundi: Boys Behind Bars

Fri 13 May, 7:25pm, Channel 4

Reporter Ramita Navai and director Wael Dabbous travel to Burundi to expose the plight of hundreds of children locked up for years without trial in adult prisons, among some of the most dangerous criminals in the country. And they meet one man who has dedicated his life to freeing them; for many of these children, Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa is the only hope they have.

Burundi has no juvenile justice system and children above the age of 15 are tried as adults. By law any child under that age should not be imprisoned, but in a country recovering from civil war and where record keeping is scant, many underage children are slipping through the net and are being locked up. There is no legal aid, and there are only 106 lawyers for a population of over eight million people. This is one of the reasons why three quarters of children are being held for long periods without trial.

While wrongly imprisoned for two years, 62-year-old Pierre found the body of a child prisoner who had been murdered. The incident affected him deeply and he decided to spend the rest of his life defending victims of injustice.

The Unreported World team travels with Pierre to a prison in Ruyigi province, one of the poorest parts of the country. They find more than 20 children in the jail, several of whom look younger than 15. Many of them say they have been locked up having been accused of minor offences, such as stealing a bag of rice. Nestor tells Navai he is 12 and has been there for two months. ‘My family never liked me. That's why they sent me here. They've left me here to die,' he says.

Navai and Dabbous travel with Pierre to Mpimba prison, the country's most notorious jail, which houses some of the most dangerous criminals. It was built for 800 prisoners but there are now more than 3300. The team finds nearly 100 boys sleeping in one cell, nearly all of whom are being held without trial. There's no room to lie down or sit, so the boys are all forced to stand.

One of them, Claude, says he is 13 years old. He has been accused of rape but appears to be the victim of a dispute between families. Like other children, he may have been falsely accused of a crime in order to settle a score. He's been held for five months without trial and says older prisoners abuse the children. Pierre decides to investigate his case.

The team travels with Pierre to Claude's home province of Bubanza, where he meets the magistrate in charge of the case. He reveals that hospital records showed Claude's alleged victims had in fact not been raped and that there was a feud between Claude's family and another family. Claude doesn't have a birth certificate as he was born during the civil war, and Pierre needs to prove he is under 15 to get him out of jail. He travels to his home village, where Claude's mother tells him she thinks he is 14 and that he had actually been accused of inappropriately touching his neighbours' children.

Back in Mpimba prison, the team meets some of the 100 female prisoners locked in with the 3000 men. There are also 24 babies and toddlers living in the jail, nearly all of whom were born inside. One prisoner tells Navai that that some women are forced to have sex for money in order to survive, and become pregnant.

Burundi's Director of Prisons tells Unreported World that a lack of resources makes it impossible to hold women and children separately. He also admits that under-15s are being illegally imprisoned and blames corrupt magistrates and policemen and a lack of proper records.

Pierre is still negotiating with Claude's neighbours, who are demanding compensation to allow Claude to return to the village. The magistrate says that Claude cannot be released if his mother does not pay the compensation, as his life will be in danger and the villagers may kill him. His mother has nothing to give. While there is no way of knowing how long Claude will be behind bars, Pierre is still fighting to get him released.

3/10: Nigeria: Sex, Lies and Black Magic

Fri 8 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Jenny Kleeman and director James Jones travel from Italy to Africa to reveal how human traffickers are using black magic to coerce and trap Nigerian women into a life of prostitution in Europe. Women are made to swear an oath of loyalty to their traffickers in an elaborate ritual that compels them to pay back extortionate sums of money. If they ever break free or report their traffickers, they believe they will be cursed.

The team begins their journey in northern Italy. As many as 20,000 Nigerian women work as prostitutes on Italy's streets. They meet Rita, who tells Kleeman she sleeps with up to ten men a day, seven days a week, for 20 Euros a time. After five years of prostitution, Rita still hasn't paid off the 50,000 Euro debt she owes her traffickers. She is also forced to pay them 300 Euros a month in "rent" to solicit from her particular patch of pavement beside a highway.

Rita says customers had beaten her badly in the past but she has no choice but to continue working on the streets. She tells Kleeman she has sworn to repay the debt to her traffickers in a traditional West African religious ritual which she calls "juju". She fears she and her family will die or go mad if she incurs the wrath of the spirits by breaking her oath.

The Unreported World team flies to the southern Nigerian state of Edo, where 80 per cent of Nigerians trafficked into Europe begin their journey. In the village of Ewhoini they learn that almost every family has a relative abroad. Kleeman and Jones meet Elonel, who tells them that he earns money by helping traffic women from here to work for his sister in Italy.

Elonel introduces Kleeman to a woman who's just about to make the trip. Vivian, 23, used to make her living selling tomatoes at the local market. She tells Kleeman that there are no jobs in her town so she has decided to go to Europe to earn money to take care of her brothers and sisters at home. She knows she will have to pay her traffickers back, and that she might have to work as a prostitute to do it at first, but has no idea how much they will ask for.

Vivian says that Elonel is her boyfriend. He's made all the travel plans for her and has booked her in to see a juju priest. She believes the juju ceremony will bring her luck, but she will also swear an oath of loyalty to Elonel and his sister during the ritual that will ensure they get paid whatever sum they ask of her. Elonel tells Kleeman that he doesn't feel at all guilty about sending his girlfriend to a life of prostitution as he simply needs the money.

The team are given rare access to film the juju ceremony. The juju priest, "Dr" Stanley, marks Vivian's body and makes her kneel at his shrine as she swears her oath. He claims he has the power to give women cancer if they break the promises they make before him. For those like Vivian who believe in juju, there's no way of hiding from the spirits. Dr Stanley tells Kleeman that countless others have sworn oaths of loyalty to different traffickers at his shrine.

Getting women to give evidence against their traffickers is a serious challenge because of the conspiracy of silence created by the ritual. The team joins the government's anti-trafficking agency as they conduct a special juju ceremony to free a repatriated victim from her oath.

Before Vivian leaves Nigeria, Kleeman has a final opportunity to warn her about the reality of life on Italy's streets. When Kleeman tells her she'll be working for years as a prostitute to pay off an extortionate sum, Vivian doesn't believe her. Her determination to improve her life has made it easy for traffickers to exploit her, and the juju oath has made it impossible for her to change her mind.

4/10: Pakistan: Defenders of Karachi

Fri 15 Apr, 7.30pm, Channel 4

Reporter Peter Oborne and director Edward Watts travel to Pakistan's largest city Karachi where last year more civilians were killed in political, ethnic and criminal violence than died across the whole of Pakistan in terrorist attacks. While the state seems unable to control the violence, the Unreported World team spends time with a few courageous individuals who are risking their lives to hold the line against anarchy.

In the last 60 years the population of Karachi has risen from 300,000 to nearly 20 million. The pressure for homes, water and food - compounded by high levels of unemployment - has lead to furious conflict between the rival ethnic groups, with around 1300 people killed in gangland violence last year.

Most of Pakistan's ethnic groups - including Pashtuns, Mohajirs, Sindhis and Baluch - live in segregated neighbourhoods in Karachi with each area ruled by criminal gangs. While shootings occur all over the city, Lyari district is especially violent because different ethnic groups are engaged in a struggle for territory from which they control extortion rackets and the drugs trade.

Oborne and Watts spend time with Saleem Mohammad, an ambulance driver with the Edhi charity, which provides a free ambulance service. It's desperately needed in a country without a functioning welfare state, and every day the staff are overwhelmed with requests for help.

When a job comes through the initial information is often wrong. So Saleem can't be sure of what dangers he's heading in to, as even ambulance drivers are targeted and killed by gangs. The team travels with Saleem to the scene of a gang shootout where a young man has been shot and his father had just driven him from the scene. Back at the hospital, the victim, Shohed, tells Oborne he had been caught in the crossfire.

The team follow Saleem to the funeral of two activists from an Islamist political party who have been gunned down. Saleem is present as high profile funerals often come under attack. It's claimed the activists were targeted by a rival political group. The killings suggest disturbing links between mainstream political parties and the gangs. Oborne is told that party workers are routinely assassinated, with 447 murdered last year.

Most of the bodies are brought to a morgue run by the Edhi charity. The daily confrontations with death are taking their toll on Saleem. He reveals he has become hardened to tragedy.

In the western outskirts of the city the team meet police officer Nasrullah Khan. His job is so dangerous he travels everywhere with two bodyguards as he's suffered numerous attacks. He tells Oborne that at least 100 of his officers have been killed in the past year. The violence is so extreme that he lives and sleeps in his office, only seeing his wife and children once a week.

Later that night the team receives news that the police have come under attack. They arrive at the hospital to find chaotic scenes with Edhi ambulance staff helping the injured policemen into the emergency ward. At least six policemen have been injured and one killed in a random attack: this time by a policeman, though nobody knows the cause.

Before they leave Karachi, Oborne and Watts visit Saleem's family. They know when he leaves for work they may never see him again. Many fear Pakistan is in danger of collapsing in to failed state with desperate consequences for the rest of the world. But Oborne concludes that with the presence of ordinary people as brave and self-sacrificing as Saleem there is every cause for hope.