15/10/2016 Reporters

Welcome to Reporters. I'm Philippa Thomas.

From here in the BBC newsroom, we send out correspondents to bring

you the best reports from across the globe.

In this week's programme: Defectors from Daesh.

Quentin Somerville gets exclusive access to a Syrian camp for former

so-called Islamic State jihadists and their families

TRANSLATION: They use people like human meat.

I hope I can get out soon and live my life normally.

Hello, my name is Cathy Ingram, and I'm voting for Hillary Clinton.

I am Jay Ingram and this is my son Cade, and we are voting for Trump.

With less than four weeks to go until the US election,

Rajini Vaidyanathan meets one of many families divided

Poppy Delevingne reports from Ethiopia on a global trade

in which a girl under the age of 15 gets married every seven seconds.

I have a 13-year-old cousin, and the idea of her getting

married and then, even next year, having a baby...

to me, is just totally incomprehensible.

Chris Buckler visits Londonderry in Northern Ireland and asks,

could there be some truth in the legend?

Do you object to being called a giant?

No, not at all, people call me what they like,

As the Formula E motor racing championships get

going in Hong Kong, Mike Bushell finds out what all the fuss

Actually, the breeze seems noisier than the car!

It's a very eerie, but a special feeling.

They're jihadist fighters, many who have come from all over

the world, that share one thing in common.

They have defected from the so-called Islamic State.

The BBC has had exclusive access to a secret internment camp

for around 300 former IS militants and captured fighters,

including French, Dutch and Polish nationals

They are being held at the prison, operated by a rebel group that

claims it is trying to rehabilitate them, and in some cases,

then release them, and as Quentin Somerville reports,

Where do jihadists go when their beloved Islamic State

Some are being held here, at a secret camp in northern Syria.

The men are from Europe, across the Middle East,

They are defectors and prisoners of war, so few want

In retreat, many have brought their families with them.

He joined the so-called Islamic State from Holland.

Now a captive, he renounces the group.

TRANSLATION: They use people like human meat.

You give your life to them, so they are going to start to take

I know I will get into trouble, that this is what I choose,

I know I will get into trouble, but this is what I choose,

I hope I can get out soon and live my life normally.

These are Egyptians, Tunisians, Holland...

The camp is run by the rebel group Jaish Al Tahrir.

Its commander showed me the details of dozens of prisoners.

Some will be returned to Europe if the authorities promise to jail

them, but others will face Syrian justice.

TRANSLATION: We refer them to courts and they roll according

If they have committed murder, then they might be executed.

Some are jailed just because they still hold

The Islamic State's core is collapsing.

They are losing territory, and an increasing number of people

Joining IS was relatively easy, but leaving is difficult.

"It was hard, really hard," says this defector,

We have also learned that European intelligence agencies

are on a mission in northern Syria to find, capture

They are working alongside some rebel groups to create a kind

of underground railroad which will bring IS group supporters

For now, they are held in Syria, but these European jihadists

Quentin Sommerville, BBC News, Istanbul.

In four weeks' time, Americans will finally vote

in their presidential election, which makes the fact that

Donald Trump is waging war on his own Republican party

But it's not just the Republicans who are divided.

Many families are finding themselves at odds, some siding

with Hillary Clinton, others with Donald Trump.

Rajini Vaidyanathan has gone to meet one such

family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, facing

In the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, the Ingram family

Hello, my name is Cathy Ingram, and I'm voting for Hillary Clinton.

I'm Jay Ingram, this is my son Cade, and we're voting for Trump.

I think she's totally crazy because she's voting for Hillary,

and she thinks I'm totally crazy because I'm voting for Trump.

And obviously one of us is right.

These questions are all attacks on Trump.

At dinner, talk of politics is unsurprisingly lively.

Jay's vote for Donald Trump is as much a vote against

Hillary Clinton, the candidate his wife Cathy is supporting.

She wants to do the best for the country, so even though

she has a little bit of a storied past, and she has some ideas that

really need to be pushed through that on the Democratic side

she hasn't been able to push through...

You believe she comes off as a good person,

She reminds me of the evil school ma'am, the schoolteacher.

I mean, you know, she's old, she's overweight, just like...

No, he is, what, he's 230 and hits a golf ball 280, so he's fine.

A self-confessed liberal, Jay backed Bernie Sanders

in this year's primaries and voted for Barack Obama

I really believed he was going to do things.

I believed what he said, fool that I am.

He seemed to like to just sit around and tell jokes and look pretty.

Their elder son Cade is getting ready to cast his ballot

for the first time, and he's with his dad.

I could not bring myself to vote for Hillary,

there's just too many strikes against her.

A lot of people like to make excuses for what happened, but...

She'll literally say anything to get elected.

We never threw one attack at Hillary and you think...

The table's as split as this state, where it is looking close

between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

I golf every day of the week, and I meet a lot of people,

and nobody comes out and goes "I'm voting for Trump."

But, they'll come up to me after I've made a putt,

I just don't think the passion is out there behind anyone,

The undecided voters in Pennsylvania are key this election.

Whatever the outcome, expect sparks to fly in this house

Rajini Vaidyanathan, BBC News, Lancaster.

Thousands of people are being trafficked across the world

and forced into a life of prostitution or domestic slavery.

Most come from a handful of countries.

One of them is Romania, where sex trafficking

Naomi Grimley has travelled there to investigate

Mihaela, who's 26, is a survivor of human trafficking,

and here in a women's shelter in Bucharest, she's trying

Looking on is her baby girl, fathered by her last trafficker.

She was trafficked not once, not twice, but three

TRANSLATION: When crossing the border, I had a gun to my head,

and they told me to give them the ID and to smile.

In the mornings and afternoons, I'd have 15 clients,

then in the evenings through to the next morning,

In the end, it was a client racked with guilt who helped her to escape.

Many of the victims of trafficking come from remote villages.

This village in eastern Romania appears stuck in a bygone era.

Many of the houses don't have running water.

The traffickers have targeted this place, and the British person

who runs the local community centre says a girl goes

The girls fall for the "loverboy" scheme.

They are mostly young, vulnerable teenagers,

who fall in love with the pimps, who are normally older guys.

The girls are very attracted by the Mercedes and the Audis that

Juana was trafficked to Germany for prostitution.

Now with her life back on track, she's come to the community

centre to warn the local kids of the dangers.

I tell the girls not to trust the guys so easy.

Juana hopes she'll make the village's teenagers think twice.

A village like this really struggles to offer its younger people the jobs

and the opportunities that they might want

in the 21st century, and the traffickers exploit that.

They act, in effect, like real-life pied pipers.

We went to a jail an hour north of Bucharest to meet a man

who trafficked women into Italy for five years.

TRANSLATION: I don't know if it's exploitation,

but when a girl agrees, I don't think that this is exploitation.

But how would you feel if it was your sister

You really don't think that it's someone's daughter, you think just

After all I've done, they have taken everything from me.

I've got nothing, I have to start again from scratch,

so I wouldn't be sorry to do it all again.

Back in the village, the worry is that another three

Some may go willingly to escape their poverty,

but the life that awaits them - no one could ever

Naomi Grimley, BBC News, eastern Romania.

One girl under the age of 15 is married every seven seconds.

That's the shocking conclusion of a new report by the charity

The study says girls as young as ten are forced to marry much older men,

in countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, India and Ethiopia.

The British model Poppy Delevingne recently went to Ethiopia to see

the problem first-hand, and this is her video diary.

So, we've just arrived in a small village.

This is where they run the Save the Children Keep It Real

programme, and I'm going to be speaking to some young girls

Pleased to meet you, how are you?

OK, so right now I am with this girl.

We are at her school, and she's just been telling me

all about her stories about child marriage.

She was 11 years old when she was propositioned to be married.

And with the help of Save the Children's Keep it Real

programme, she learned about all the problems within child

marriage, and with the help of her brother and sister,

they managed to persuade her parents that child marriage

She is now at school, and is number one...

And she even told me that I should ask the teacher if that

I hear that you were married as a child.

Would it be OK for me to come to your home and hear all about it?

So, I spent my afternoon with this girl, who was a victim

When she was just 13 years old, she was married.

By the time she was 14 she was pregnant with her first

child, but when she was nine months pregnant, she left her husband

as he was physically abusive, and moved back in with her family.

But not only that, when she was engaged to him,

he promised her that she would still have an opportunity

to have an education, something he totally went back on,

and instead, she did house chores and had to work unbearable hours,

something a 13-year-old really shouldn't have to do.

I have a 13-year-old cousin, and the idea of her getting married

and then even next year having a baby, to me, is just...

totally incomprehensible, and something that I can't believe

is happening in this world today still.

But she has got a bright future ahead of her,

and it was truly an honour that she shared her story with me.

It has long been known for its welcoming Scandinavian

attitude to foreigners, but Norway is getting

The number of people seeking asylum has fallen dramatically this year,

some deterred by strict new entry rules.

Norway is also putting up a steel fence along its border with Russia.

That follows an influx of 5,000 migrants, mainly

Most cross from Russia at the Storskog border point,

one of the most northerly outposts of the Schengen zone,

from where Howard Johnson sent us this report.

This is Norway's new and controversial border

It's being built next to the Storskog border point,

the northernmost road crossing into Europe's Schengen

Last year, around 5,500 asylum seekers, many from Syria,

crossed from Russia into Norway here, taking the so-called

The flow of refugees has since come to a halt, but officials say

the 200-metre-long fence will help secure the checkpoint in the event

So, I'm on the Norwegian side of the fence here,

and just over there, around 100 meters away,

I'm not allowed to film in that direction because of security

restrictions, but here is the new fence.

It's four metres tall and around three millimetres thick, and it

In the nearby town of Kirkenes, there's been a lukewarm reception.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, authorities here have worked

to improve ties with Russia, including visa-free travel

for residents on both sides of the border.

Leaders of the local municipality say the fence is a backward step.

It's really embarrassing for us, as locals, so near Russia.

We want to build bridges to Russia, not build fences.

But what do Russians make of the fence?

These market traders cross into Kirkenes every week

to sell Russian goods to Norwegians and tourists.

TRANSLATION: If the Norwegian authorities are building fences,

they must need it, and it's right, too, because it's not just Syrian

Norway's capital, Oslo, is nearly 2,000 kilometres away

from the border crossing, but it was here that the decision

According to the State Secretary for the Ministry of Justice,

the debate about the fence has become a storm in a teacup.

We have a very good working dialogue with the Russian authorities,

and we also have to remember that the fence on the Russian side

If I remember correctly, it's 200 kilometres,

which means that this is nothing compared to what we already have.

The fence is due for completion by the end of this month,

but in the last week, a setback for construction.

Border officials say a section of the barrier has been erected ten

centimetres too close to Russia and will have to be dubbed...

INTERFERENCE. Ireland is rich in mythical tales

about giants, and now there is a thought that those

legends may be built more Scientists are working to identify

people carrying what Researchers have found it is more

commonly carried people Researchers have found it is more

commonly carried by people in County Londonderry

in Northern Ireland. Chris Buckler has been

there to find out, is there any These stone circles are not the only

link to history here in Mid Ulster. This is a land of giants,

and that's a title that comes not Among those strolling these shopping

streets are a select group of people who carry what has become known

as the giant gene. That's me when I was

seven, eight years old. At his height, he stood almost six

feet 11 inches tall, and it's likely he would have grown

to well over seven feet tall if he hadn't been treated

for a genetic disorder Do you object to being

called a giant? No, not at all, people can

call me what they like, However, gigantism is a condition

that can be life-threatening. My mother passed it to me,

and she never knew that. And many people still, to this day,

are passing the gene on without knowing it,

and that will continue. DNA evidence shows Brendan

is related to Charles Byrne, whose skeleton is on display

in a London museum. He was more than seven

and a half feet tall. Born in Mid Ulster in the 1700s,

he became famous in London But it's only a decade

since scientists worked out a genetic link to the condition,

which affects the pituitary gland, causing abnormal growth and many

other medical problems. 20% of people who carry the gene

will develop the disease, so people could develop blindness,

severe headaches and die prematurely, but with effective

therapy, I think that problem can be alleviated quite substantially,

said the emphasis is really on early Irish folklore is full of tales

of giants, not least Finn McCool, who is claimed to have built

Antrim's famous Giant's Causeway. Researchers believe in at least some

of the many stories, And with the gene still present

in the population here, they have been carrying out tests

to try to identify There's clearly a giant hotspot

in the middle of Northern Ireland. We were surprised as well,

because a lot of people we found really are no

different than anybody else, they are normal height,

stature and so on, but of course, it's the complications that maybe

one or two generations down the line, in their children

or grandchildren - that's what we're hoping

to prevent with this. There was probably at least some

truth in the centuries of stories told about giants,

but it's likely that at their heart was a gene that caused

considerable pain and problems. That's why many want the idea

of generations of giants to be Chris Buckler, BBC News,

Mid Ulster. Now, you've no doubt

heard of Formula 1, Well, it's the race

series for electric cars, and the new season started this week

in Hong Kong. There are three British drivers

competing this year, including Sam Bird, who finished

fourth last season. Before he left for his first race

in Hong Kong, Mike Bushell took his car for a spin,

and discovered why, in this sport, the fans can directly

influence the outcome. Batteries supply the only juice

that this car needs. The electric car has come a long way

since it was a bit of a novelty. The mechanism is so simple that even

a child could drive it. Now they claim to be the future,

and the glitz and glamour of the third Formula E World

Championship gets back on the road this weekend, and these machines

are not as easy to drive. This car's so tricky to drive,

it's so intricate, and requires I think it's the toughest category

I've ever done, including Formula 1, One thing that hasn't

changed, really, is how If this was a Formula 1 pit lane,

we wouldn't be able Almost half the noise

of a Formula 1 car. It can reach speeds of 140 mph,

but it is this sudden acceleration and take-off speed, if you like,

that makes them stand out, The batteries that provide this

speed could soon be able to last At the moment, the drivers swap

cars halfway through. The batteries are charged

by generators powered by glycerin, part of the sport's drive to be

the environmentally friendly future Now we can quite easily make

electric cars practical for 90% of people, for most of their needs,

so I think half the job of Formula E is not only to develop the tech,

but also to change perceptions. This is the future whether we like

it or not. This is high-tech,

innovative technology, and we are at the forefront of it,

and long may that continue. And if Sam is to be at the forefront

this season, he will need his car back in one piece after handing me

the keys so I could get an exclusive I feel quite hemmed in,

especially around the gills, but this electric go-kart,

if you like, is worth a cool Suddenly your stomach

is left behind you, It is the torque, that acceleration,

it just feels very different. Actually, the breeze seems noisier

than the car! It's a very eerie,

but a special feeling. I was taking it easy,

nudging 70 mph, but if I wanted extra speed in a race,

I could turn to the fans. The drivers receiving most votes

online get a three-second power It's just a way of

communicating with the fans. Do you have any other sport

where a fan can actually Not even the fan-boost scheme,

though, could help my speed. But at least the car

got back safely. Yes, back in one piece,

I can breathe again! And that's all from

Reporters for this week. From me, Philippa Thomas,

goodbye for now. We have seen different sides to

Orton today, a huge contrasts in the weather.