17/10/2016 Reporters

Well, now on BBC News, it is time for Reporters.

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

you the best stories from across the globe.

In this week's programme: Defectors from Daesh.

access to Syrian camps for former jihadists and their families

TRANSLATION: They use people like human meat.

You give your life to them and I hope I can get out soon

I am Jay, this is my son, Kane, and we are voting for Donald Trump.

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

we meet one of the many families divided over who to vote for.

We report 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 having a baby the next year is incomprehensible.

Chris Buckler visits Londonderry in Northern Ireland and asks

if there could be proof in the legend.

People can call me whatever they like.

As the Formula E motor racing championships get

going in Hong Kong, we find out what all the fuss

Actually, the breeze seems noisier than the car.

It's a very eerie but a special feeling.

They are jihadist fighters, many who have come

They have defected from the so-called Islamic State.

The BBC has had exclusive access to a secret internment camp

for around 300 former 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

As we report, many of them to want to go home.

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 and across the Middle East

They are defectors and prisoners of war,

so few of them want to show their faces.

In retreat, many of them brought their families with them.

In the headscarf is one man who joined the so-called

Now a captive, he renounces the group.

TRANSLATION: They used people like human meat.

You give your life to them so they start to control your life.

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.

Its commander showed me the details of dozens of prisoners.

Some will be returned to Europe if the authorities promised

TRANSLATION: We refer them to courts and they go according to the gravity

If they have committed murder then they may be executed.

Some are jailed just because they still hold

The Islamic State's order is collapsing.

They are losing territory and an increasing number of people

Joining IS was easy but leaving is difficult.

It was hard, really hard, says this defector who is held

We have also learnt 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

but these European jihadists want to come back.

In four weeks' time Americans will finally vote

Which makes the fact that Donald Trump is waging war

on his own Republican Party all the more remarkable.

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.

We have gone to meet one such family in Lancaster,

In a key battleground state of Pennsylvania,

the Ingram family are facing their own conflict.

My name is Cathy Ingram and I am voting for Hillary Clinton.

I am Jay and this is my son Kane and we are voting for Donald Trump.

I think she is totally crazy because she is voting for Hillary.

She thinks I'm totally crazy because I'm voting for Trump.

His questions were all attacks on Trump.

At dinner, talk of politics is unsurprisingly lively.

Jay's vote for Donald Trump is a vote against Hillary Clinton,

the candidate his wife Cathy is supporting.

So even though she has a little bit of a storied past and ideas

that really need to be pushed through that the Democratic

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

She comes off as a good person, seriously?

She reminds me of an evil school teacher.

He's 230 and hits the golf ball 280, so he is in fine shape.

A self-confessed liberal, Jay backed Bernie Sanders

in the primaries this year, and he voted for Barack Obama twice.

I really believed what he said, the fall that I am. He seemed to just

sit around, tell jokes and look pretty.

Their older son is getting ready to cast his ballot

I could not bring myself to vote for Hillary.

There are too many strikes against her.

A lot of people like to make excuses for what happened but she will

literally say anything to get elected.

The tables are as split as this state where it looks close

between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

I met a lot of people and nobody comes out and says I'm

But they'll come to me after I have made a putt and say,

I'm voting for Trump.

I don't think the passion is out there for either candidate

The undecided voters in Pennsylvania are clear to this election.

The undecided voters in Pennsylvania are key to this election.

One thing is certain, whatever the outcome,

expect sparks to fly in this house after polling day.

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.

Sex trafficking has become widespread there.

We have travelled there to investigate this ruthless trade.

Hila is 26 and a survivor of human trafficking.

Here in a women's shelter in Bucharest she is trying

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

She was trafficked not once, not twice but three times around

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 the afternoon I would have 15 clients and then

in the evening through to the next morning they would bring another 20.

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

Many victims of trafficking come from remote villages.

Nicharest in Eastern Romania appears stuck in a bygone era.

Many of the houses do not have running water.

The traffickers have targeted this place and the British woman who runs

the local community centre says a girl goes missing every month.

They are young vulnerable teenagers who fall in love with the pimps

who are normally older guys and they are attracted

by the Mercedes and the Audis that the pimps are

One was trafficked to Germany for prostitution.

Now with her life back on track she has come to the community centre

to warn the local kids of the dangers.

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

She hopes she can make the teenagers of the village think twice.

A village like Nicarest really struggles to offer its young

and the jobs and the opportunities that they may want in

They act in effect like real-life Pied Pipers.

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

who trafficked women and girls to Italy for five years.

TRANSLATION: I don't know if this is exploitation but when the girl

agrees I do not think this is exploitation.

How would you feel if that was your sister,

You really don't think that it is someone's daughter.

You think just that you have to make money and that is it.

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

I have to start again from scratch, so I would not be sorry to do

In the village, the worry is another three girls may be

Some may go willingly to escape their poverty but the life

that awaits them, no-one could ever knowingly wish for it.

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

We have just arrived in a small village.

This is where they run the Save the Children programme

Keep It Real and I will speak to some young girls

So right now I am with this beautiful girl.

We are at her school and she has been telling me about her stories

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

With the help of her brother and sister, they managed

to persuade her parents that child marriage was not a good thing.

She is now at school and is number one, number one in her class.

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

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 the lovely Salam

She was married at 13 years old and by the time

she was 14 she was pregnant with her first child.

When she was nine months pregnant, she left her husband

because 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

Something that he totally went back on.

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

that a 13-year-old should not have to do.

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

and then the next year having a baby, to me,

It is something that I cannot believe is happening in this

But the lovely Salam has a bright future ahead of her.

And it was truly an honour for her to share her story with me.

It's long been known for its welcoming Scandinavian

attitude to foreigners but Norway is getting tough on immigration.

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 5000 migrants, mainly

Most crossed from Russia at the Storskog border point,

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 to Norway here, taking the so-called Arctic route

The flow of refugees has since come to a halt,

the 200m-long fence will help to secure the checkpoint

in the event of any future mass migration.

I'm on the Norwegian side of the fence, and just

over there, around 100m away, is the Russian border.

I'm not allowed to film in that direction

because of security restrictions, but here is the new fence.

It is four metres tall and around three millimetres thick and it costs

In the nearby town of Kirkenes, the new fence has had

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, us local, so near Russia.

We want to build bridges to Russia, not to 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,

It is right, too, because it's not just the Syrian

Norway's capital Oslo is nearly 2,000km away from the border

crossing but it was here that the decision to build

According to the State's secretary for the Minister 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 you also have to remember that the fence

It is nothing compared to what we already have.

The fence is due for completion at the end of this month

but in the last week, a set back for construction.

Border officials say a section of the barrier that's been erected

ten centimetres too close to Russia and it will have to be dug out.

Ireland is a land rich in mythical tales about giants.

Now there's a thought that those legends might be built more

Scientists are working to try and identify people carrying

Researchers are finding it's more commonly carried by people

in County Londonderry in Northern Ireland.

Chris Buckler has been there to find out, is there any truth

These stone circles aren't the only link to history here in Mid-Ulster.

That's a title that comes not just from myths and Legends.

Among those strolling these shopping streets are a select group of people

who carry what's 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 its likely,

he would have grown to almost seven feet tall if he hadn't been treated

for a genetic disorder that caused gigantism.

No, not at all, people can call me what they like and most

However, gigantism is a condition that can be life-threatening.

My mother passed it to me, and she never knew that.

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.

Born in Mid-Ulster in the 1700s, he became

It is 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.

People could develop blindness, severe headaches

and die prematurely, but with effective therapy,

I think that problem can be alleviated

quite substantially, so the emphasis really is on early

Irish folklore is full of tales of giants, not least Finn MacCool

who it's claimed built Antrim's Giant's Causeway.

Researchers believe in at least some of the many stories,

With the gene still present in the population here,

they have been carrying out tests to try to

There is clearly a giant hotspot in the middle of Northern Ireland.

We were surprised as well because a lot

of the people we found really are no different than anybody else.

They are normal height, stature, and so on.

Of course, it's the complications that maybe one or two

generations down the line in their children or grandchildren,

that's what we are hoping to prevent with this.

There was probably at least some truth in the centuries of stories

But it is likely that throughout their heart was a gene

that caused considerable pain and problems.

That's why many want the idea of generations of giants to be

Now, you have no doubt heard of Formula 1

It's the race series for electric cars and the new season started this

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.

FILE VOICEOVER: Batteries supply the only juice that this car needs.

The electric car has come along some way

since it was a bit of a novelty in the 1960s.

The mechanism is so simple, a child could drive it.

Now they claim to be the future, and the glitz and glamour

of third Formula E World Championship gets back on the road

and these machines are not as easy to drive.

The car is so tricky to drive, it's so intricate and requires

I think it's the toughest category I have ever done

including Formula 1, including GP2, Formula 3.

One thing that hasn't changed is how eerily quiet they are.

If this was a Formula 1 pit lane, we wouldn't be able

Almost half of the noise of a Formula 1 car.

They can reach speeds of 140mph, but it is their sudden acceleration,

their takeoff 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 glycerine.

Part of the sport's drive to become the environmentally-friendly future

Now we can quite easily make an electric car that's practical

for 90% of people for their transportation needs,

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

the tech but also 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

ANNOUNCER: Bird takes victory in Argentina!

But if Sam is to be at the forefront this season, he will meet his car

back in one piece after handing me the keys so I could get an exclusive

I feel quite hemmed in, especially around my jowls.

But this electric go-kart is worth a cool $1 million,

Suddenly your stomach is left behind you, more so than in a fuel car.

It's the torque, that acceleration, it feels very different.

The breeze seems noisier than the car!

It's a very eerie but a special feeling.

I was taking it easy, nudging 70mph, but if I wanted extra

speed in the 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 know of any other sport where a fan can

Not even the fan boost scheme could help my speed but at least

Yeah, back in one piece, I can breathe again.

That's all from Reporters for this week.

From me, Philippa Thomas, goodbye for now.