Unreported World

Channel 4’s critically acclaimed, award winning world affairs strand returns with a startling film from the Indonesian island of Java - home to the planet’s most polluted river and a textile industry supplying some of the world’s biggest fashion brands.

Reporter Evan Williams and director Marcel Mettelsiefen travel to Baghdad to meet the extraordinary young dancers and musicians at Iraq’s only music and ballet school, who are battling to keep their art alive against the rising tide of sectarian violence in the city It’s the run up to the elections at the end of April and up to 300 people are being killed in Baghdad every week by car bombs and assassinations. But, hidden away from the violence, the school is a refuge of culture and artistic expression. 162 students from across the city attend and ranging from six to 17 years old, they are chosen for their artistic ability for music and dance. The school’s star student is 17-year-old Leezan Salam, who has studied there for ten years and is just two months from graduation. “When you enter the school you enter a place of hope and peace. Outside you hear the sounds of car bombs and gunfire. Inside the school, everything is beautiful,” she tells Williams. Pianist Mohammed Ramsey is one of Leezan’s best friends and they are both on the brink of the biggest decision of their lives: what to do when they leave the school. Leezan will have to leave Iraq if she wants to continue her ballet. Mohammed’s future as a piano player is uncertain. Every day they, like the rest of the pupils, risk their lives by crossing Baghdad to reach the school. Just six weeks ago Leezan and Mohammed’s best friend – musician Ali Nouri - was killed by a bomb as he went home from school. He used to take Leezan home every day until one day she heard a bomb had gone off. “I called Ali’s phone and a stranger picked it up,” she tells Williams.”I said “Who is this?” The guy said “if you know this person call his family. Please. Call the family and tell them he’s dead’... As Williams talks to Thena Ibrahim, the School Registrar, they are interrupted by a chilling reminder of the violence outside. Seven car bombs have just been detonated across the city lea

This powerful edition of Unreported World documents the lives of Thai children as young as seven who fight in the brutal sport of Muay Thai, knocking out their opponents with elbows, knees and feet, as well as fists. It can leave the kids brain-damaged, but adult gambling on these unpredictable fights is big business, and their families put enormous pressure on the kids to fight and win. The film records one child as he runs miles inside a rubber suit in 30-degree heat to make the weight for his fight. Reporter Mary-Ann Ochota and director Daniel Bogado follow 11-year old Nat Thanarak, one of the best child boxers in the North of the country. He is preparing for the biggest match of his career so far, against a 12- year old champion from another province. Nat will get a fee for the fight, but his chance of earning big money comes from gambling. His whole village has raised a stake to bet on him. If Nat wins, he’ll get a cut. There are more than 30,000 professional child fighters taking part in Muay Thai, which is considered one of the toughest martial arts in the world. Although they sometimes fight for a fee of as little as £4, their winnings can make them breadwinners for their families and local heroes in their villages. Nat trains seven days a week, four hours a day, before and after school. As well as getting fit for the fight, he also needs to make the weight for his category. And to do this, he needs to shed three kilos – ten per cent of his body weight – over the next week. He dresses in a rubber sweat suit designed to help him lose water while he runs 8km in temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius. Nat’s mother works as a nanny in Bangkok, sending home money when she can, but it’s not enough to support the family. Nat’s dad doesn’t have a job and tells Ochota that if his son wasn’t boxing, he would have to find work in Bangkok, leaving Nat to live with their grandparents. While Nat trains, the team films some of the fights held ev

Reporter Marcel Theroux and Director James Brabazon travel to South Africa, a country where at least thirty vehicles are carjacked every day. The country’s cars are routinely fitted with satellite trackers, so that if they are carjacked by thieves an armed response unit can track them. The Unreported World team is in the country’s capital, Pretoria, a city where this type of crime is acute. They are with Andries Hlongwane - who works for a private security firm– following him as he chases the gunmen and recovers stolen cars. It’s dangerous work for a private security industry that now accounts for seven per cent of all jobs in South Africa. Theroux and Brabazon begin the film in hot pursuit of a carjacked vehicle. Andries and his partner find it abandoned, but they keep their guns drawn - there’s a good chance the carjackers are still watching to see if anyone has followed the car’s satellite tracker. The team waits for police officers to arrive to help out, but suddenly across the road they hear the cries of a woman being robbed. Andries races to her aid, his gun drawn, and chases of the robbers. A few minutes later a passing driver warns the team he’s just driven through a gang of armed carjackers at a junction less than 100 yards away. The police arrive and almost immediately there’s a fusillade of shots. Just five minutes from the South African parliament, the carjackers have no compunction about firing automatic weapons to make good their escape. Next Andries scrambles into action to track down a hijacked delivery van. He finds it abandoned in a poor township. The shocked driver tells Theroux he’s convinced the gunmen were going murder him The hijackers eventually fled with the equivalent of around £30 in cash and a few loaves of bread. The police turn up to investigate, but locals tell Theroux it’s a rarity to see the police in this township. The lack of police protection in many areas is one reason that explains the 400,

Unreported World visits a remote area of Madagascar where the dead make the rules. A set of taboos, handed down from long-dead ancestors, controls what you eat, when you work and every aspect of how you behave. Reporter Kiki King and director David Fuller visit the town of Mananjary, on the isolated east coast, to reveal how one taboo against twins leads to children being abandoned and mothers becoming outcasts. No one is sure how the taboo against twins, and the belief that they bring bad luck, arose, but most stories talk about an ancient battle that caused a tribe to flee their village. One mother forgot one of her twins and when the villagers returned to save it, they were all massacred. The tribe's elders then declared it taboo to raise twins. Ursula, the mother of twins Giovanni and Venua, says that when they were born her husband told her to abandon them and refused to recognise them legally. Ursula refused to give them up and moved in with her sister and mother. Then her mother got sick and died. She tells King that her family and neighbours blamed the death on the twins: 'Everyone said that her death was her punishment because she didn't respect her culture: the ancestors.' King and Fuller also meet Carolin, who is considered especially unlucky as she has given birth to three sets of twins. She says she has had to move house around 30 times, because her neighbours feared the twins. Now she lives in a tiny tent and is struggling to feed her family. Living alongside her, in what amounts to a small refugee camp for twins, are six other families who have all had to flee their villages. The nearby CATJA orphanage is home to a dozen sets of twins, but none of them are orphans; their parents are alive and living nearby. Over the years, hundreds of twins have passed through the centre, which is funded by a French charity. While the team are there, an abandoned newborn twin is brought in. Nobody knows who she belongs to; only the villag

Reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Adam Pletts manage to film on both sides of the lines in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, where Sunni Muslim fighters are besieging an Alawite neighbourhood in a conflict mirroring that happening in Syria. Guru-Murthy uncovers a vicious low-level war of sniping, assassinations and kneecappings, and meets commanders and gunmen who revel in killing their neighbours, and whose hate has taken over their lives. The Unreported World team visits the house of one of the local Sunni commanders, Abu Ali, who used to run a snooker hall. Together with his 30 fighters, Ali monitors the Alawite houses in Tripoli's Jabal Mohsen enclave, located on the hill above the Bab al Tabbaneh Sunni district of the city. Also at the house is one of Abu Ali's henchmen: a man whose speciality is kneecapping those Alawites who have to venture from their neighbourhood into the city centre. He tells Guru-Murthy that he has so far kneecapped around 45 people and is planning to shoot more in the coming days. The Alawites regularly return fire into the Sunni district. In the streets around Ali's house, keeping out of sight of the Alawite guns is part of daily life, with sniper curtains hanging across side streets to block the view. The team cross to the other side of the frontline, to meet Kamal Sana, a former taxi driver. He and his friends are remembering a neighbour who was shot by a sniper a few days before. The windows of Kamal's children's bedroom have been blown in by a mortar landing outside. Kamal's wife, Rola, says that over the last three years living here has become terrifying. But this is their family home and they don't want to leave. Kamal tells the team about the automatic weapons he keeps at home and says his fighters use 'anything it takes' but he's not willing to discuss where the weapons come from. Kamal's neighbour, Ali Assir, tells Guru-Murthy that he used to be a taxi driver until he was dragged out of his car in T

In an eye-opening episode, reporter Ade Adepitan and director Andrew Carter travel to Kingston to investigate the growth of homophobic attacks in Jamaica and to meet the gay and transgender group who've ended up living in a storm drain, where they suffer shocking violence, attacks and insults because of their sexuality. Jamaica has a reputation for intolerance of homosexuality. Male gay sex is punishable by 10 years' hard labour and violent hostility is entrenched in the island's culture. Unreported World meets one group of gay and transgender people who are now living in a gully, which is usually designed to carry floodwater and rubbish from the city. It's hot, crowded, infested and filthy. But it's the only place these 25 people can call home. There are no facilities: cooking and washing-up are done in the gutter. Water comes from a broken pipe under a road bridge. And it's not in a poor part of town, but in the middle of New Kingston, the capital's business district. Most homosexuals in Jamaica work hard to hide their sexuality. Those who are openly 'out' are in the firing line. Krissy, who's 21, was born male but believes her true gender is female. She says she didn't feel safe expressing this at home, so she's lived on the streets on and off since she was 12. Apart from her sister, she hasn't seen most of her family for years. Krissy tells Adepitan that together with other homeless gay and transgender friends, she initially lived in a squat. But, under pressure from the neighbours, the site's owner chased the group away and levelled the place. They went from squat to squat, being moved on each time by police or landlords, and eventually ended up at the gully. Many of those living in the gully didn't finish school, and without an address it's difficult to get a job. Sachaberry, who has been homeless for two years, says the only way she can make a living is by selling her body. But it's a dangerous business. She tells Adepitan that o

In 2014 people shouldn’t die in pain. Access to palliative drugs ought to be a basic human right. Morphine was isolated by scientists more than 200 years ago and has been sold by medical drug companies since 1827. It is relatively cheap, very safe when used under medical supervision and stops excruciating pain dead. And yet according to the World Health Organisation around 80 per cent of the world’s morphine supply is consumed by six rich countries.

Unreported World provides a unique view of what life is like for the health workers battling Ebola in Sierra Leone and the families affected by the virus. As the only television crew to spend two weeks embedded in field hospitals and quarantine units, reporter Shaunagh Connaire and director Wael Dabbous were in Sierra Leone at a critical phase when there was still a chance to contain the virus. In the time they were there though it was clear the battle to contain it was being lost. This Ebola outbreak has claimed nearly 2000 lives. The World Health Organization warns the virus could ultimately infect more than 20,000 people. Without the bravery and determination of those battling the virus, the figures would be far higher.

Unreported World investigates how dog thieves are stealing thousands of pet dogs from family homes in Vietnam to meet the demand for dog meat. The crime wave has provoked outrage across the country and led to the mob killing of scores of dog thieves. Reporter Nelufar Hedayat and director Daniel Bogado reveal disturbing evidence of how dogs are stolen, transported and slaughtered in an illegal trade that has shocked the nation.

Unreported World visits Lebanon to reveal the plight of some of the most vulnerable refugees fleeing the war in Syria: disabled people, many of whom are children. Talking to the children, their families and the organisations trying to help them, producer David Fuller and new reporter Giles Duley, a photographer who lost his legs and an arm to a landmine in Afghanistan, reveal how the refugees and the Lebanese government are struggling to cope as the crisis worsens.

Reporter Marcel Theroux and director Billy Dosanjh meet some of the thousands of young Russian models hoping for a career in fashion. Demand from the Far East is driving the search for new models and the Unreported World team follow the trail, from scouting in shopping malls in Siberia to attending casting calls in China, where the work and conditions are a lot harder than the models had hoped, and models can end up in debt to their agencies.

Reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy and director Hugo Ward travel to India where the government's drive to help the country's development through widespread electrification is pitting villagers who want the benefits of electricity against campaigners who are worried about the environmental impact of vast open-cast mines on the forests that provide a livelihood and food for tribal communities.

Reporter Ade Adepitan and director Nick Blakemore travel to Honduras to meet the inspirational head teacher who's battling to give his pupils the best chance of survival in one of the most dangerous places on Earth. San Pedro Sula has the highest murder rate in the world. Two notorious gangs - Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 - are fighting for control of the city. The only way out for many families is to attempt the dangerous route into the US. In the four months before Unreported World's visit, 2500 unaccompanied children from the city were arrested crossing illegally into the United States. Adepitan and Blakemore are in Chamelecón, at the centre of the gang battle. They are there to meet Hector, an extraordinary head teacher trying to convince local kids that education is the way to a better future, rather than risking their lives with the people smugglers.

Libya is so dangerous most foreigners have left. Embedded in Tripoli's fire station, reporters Seyi Rhodes and Laura Warner gained a vivid snapshot of life in a disintegrating country.

Reporter Kiki King and Director Daniel Bogado visit Uganda to follow the inspirational work of the sign language teachers who are trekking deep into the countryside to transform the lives of deaf children and adults, who have never been able to communicate until now.