Nineteen found guilty of trafficking babies in Indonesia and Singapore

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1:32Hello and welcome to News Hour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London. I'm Tim Frax. We're starting the programme in South East Asia, in Indonesia, where 19 people have been convicted for their roles in an international baby trafficking network. The criminals illegally bought at least 34 babies in Indonesia and sold them for adoption, not just in their own country but also in Singapore. The ringleader was a 70-year-old woman, Lee Hsu Luan, who's been sentenced to seven years in prison. Her lawyer, Sandy Senjaya, spoke to reporters after the sentencing. Perhaps the aggravating factor for our client is that she had been previously convicted.

2:17The other defendants may never have been convicted before, which is why the prosecution demands were all ten years, but the others received sentences averaging six years, seven months, while our client got seven years. But in my opinion, that is still quite good. The BBC's Lisa Tambunan was in the courtroom in West Java for us. How did the trafficking work? Various personnel were reaching out to parents who wanted or could potentially give up their children for adoption. Sometimes even before birth, many of these parents that were targeted were those who faced economic hardship, who had difficulties raising babies or even paying for maternity care.

3:03So they got the babies from these parents, presumably in many cases paying the parents for the babies. And then what? How did they then manage to get these babies? I know that some of them went elsewhere in Indonesia, but some of them clearly ended up in Singapore. How was that arranged? Yeah, it was a sophisticated ring. The ringleader managed the operations. And also from the investigation, it was revealed that she was the one who had contacts in Singapore for those babies who were sent abroad. And you also oversaw other members who were in Indonesia who had different roles, such as being the caretaker mother after the babies were sourced and also those who took care of the documents writing down and documenting the children's identity all these elements came together to essentially move the babies from the biological parents to the adoptive family and i know that the the uh this trial talked about 34 babies.

4:13I mean, and there's, I think, a suspicion that there may be more babies who have been trafficked, but they know about 34. Do we know what's going to happen to these babies, some of them in Indonesia, some of them in Singapore? Yes, the ones in Indonesia who have been identified as victims of this trafficking ring are now under state care. So they are in orphanages being taken care of by the government. Whereas the babies who were adopted by families in Singapore, from my understanding, it's been a lot harder to trace them due to the paper trail, as well as any legal cooperation from between the two countries.

4:59And that's one of the troubles in this case is transnational crimes. And meanwhile, it must be agonising for those parents who unwittingly adopted these babies that were trafficked. Yes, they believe they went through the legal system correctly with the paperwork and any verification. And that is one of the things that's been frustrating for them because they believe they did the right thing. And now the fate of one of the children who have been adopted, as we know, the BBC has spoken to a family who have adopted one child, is still unclear. The BBC's Lisa Tambunan speaking to me from the courtroom in West Java.

5:50It's bad enough, you may think, that 34 babies have been trafficked in this way. But is that in all likelihood just a small proportion of what's actually going on? Made Martini is a criminologist and lecturer at the University of Indonesia in Depok, West Java. This situation can be related to social problems such as poverty can lead people to involved in baby trafficking. So parents can have right and obligation to take the best decision for their children. Maybe in these cases, parents think that baby adoption is a solution to give their children a better future. But on the other side, maybe there is a possibility that parents, especially mothers, actually become the victim of exploitation as a baby-producing machine or surrogate womb.

6:46In Indonesia, we have administrator problem that it's quite easy to bring baby without their parents. These trafficking issues may be related to another problem that illegal document can produce as a legal document in this situation. So why this problem? We don't know for a long time. Maybe this phenomena actually happened, but we only know as small cases. Right. It's only a small number of cases that end up being prosecuted. So the authorities are aware that this is a problem, but it's difficult, you're saying, for them to track down the perpetrators. Yes. We don't actually sometimes difficult to identify who is the real criminal, parents, mothers, or the broker, not always as a criminal mastermind.

7:45In human trafficking issues, sometimes there is a big company or organised crime behind this business. The human trafficking cases can be covered by several legal activities, such as a charity for children or legal adoption. And what's the legal status for these children now, these babies? Is there an expectation under Indonesian law or Singaporean law or even, I don't know, international law that these babies be returned to Indonesia? In Indonesia, our national identity by blood. So actually the baby in Singapore is still have a Indonesian state from Indonesia. But when we talk about the best interest of the child, so on my perspective, I think that the baby may be better stay in Singapore.

8:44because from the legal perspective, they have an issue about the parental capacity to fulfil children's rights. Parents who are convicted of involvement in the baby trafficking are legally defined as unfit. Made Martini, a criminologist in Indonesia. We had the now usual update overnight from US Central Command, the branch of the US military leading the fight against Iran. US forces, we were told in a news release, struck a wide range of Iranian offensive and defensive targets to degrade Iran's ability to continue attacking commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. Well, if that's the intention, and it's certainly one that's been stated and repeated for more than a week now, Iran says it's not working.

9:30Its military, it claims, attacked two oil tankers in the strait, as well as US air defence sites in Bahrain and Kuwait. The Jordanian military says it's also intercepted Iranian drones overnight. Jonathan Panikoff is director of the Middle East Security Initiative at the Washington-based think tank, the Atlantic Council. He served previously on the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2015 to 2020. Welcome to the programme, Jonathan, and thank you for your time. What's your assessment? I know that you're not reading the sort of the hard intel, But what's your assessment of how successful this attempt to degrade Iran's ability to interdite shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is?

10:12Thanks for having me. You're right. I think, look, there is, I think, right now a bit of an unknown in terms of what the success actually is, simply because you're talking about real-time action. Certainly the U.S. is successfully hitting its military targets. I think that's been true throughout the totality of the war. The question really is how much is it diminishing Iran's capabilities? And the reality is when you look at, for instance, drone capabilities, we know that Iran can very cheaply produce thousands upon thousands of drones and has them and frankly can use that to leverage its capacity to threaten the Strait of Hormuz, to threaten ships.

10:56So, yes, the U.S. can keep hitting hardware. I expect that it will. But Iran is still going to have leverage as we go forward here. I suppose the other leverage, though, and it's one that we hear less about and obviously see less of, is the economic pressure that the US is exerting on Iran with its blockade on Iranian ships. And if you're talking about sort of just trying to increase the pressure on the regime as a whole, I suppose you could argue that maybe that is exerting or having could have at some point some effect. I think it could. And I think it probably is. Iran's economy is at the worst state it's been since the revolution in 79.

11:42The problem is the type of pressure that you're seeing is probably going to take, frankly, months to years to have such an impact that you'd have some sort of, let's say, internal resistance. We've already seen that the population is fairly disappointed with the U.S., fairly disappointed that the lack of immediate reaction after the early January protests. And I think there's significant confusion inside Iran. And so the challenge becomes, we know the Iranian regime is always going to prioritize regime stability and the regime itself. And so from that perspective, I think it's very unlikely that you're seeing a significant amount of money getting back to the population.

12:27Yes, that could cause some problems, but that type of pressure has to be sustained, has to be consistent and takes months. And it's worth remembering that less than a month ago, the Trump administration actually released some of that pressure from oil sales in terms of the sanctions that were on Iranian oil sales. So Iran got some revenue back. Yeah, and that was all connected with this memorandum of understanding. And I just wonder how far you think that, you know, especially this whole business over the paragraph five of the memorandum of understanding as to sort of how far Iran would have sole control over passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz for a couple of months.

13:07How far, in a sense, the fudge, the vagueness of the language which allowed the MOU to be signed is what is at the root of the problem here. I think that's absolutely right. The reality is it's hard to imagine going back into, let's say, a durable peace fire under the exact same terms. What we've clearly realized is that both sides had different interpretations of what the MOU said and what the MOU meant. And that's not going to change. Iran's consistent point has been that it has access and control and sovereignty over the strait. There is almost nobody in the world who agrees with that point.

13:48But so long as that's not actually settled, it's likely to portend continued conflict over the strait for the time to come. Jonathan Panikoff, formerly on the U.S. National Security Intelligence Council, now director of the Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Thank you very much for joining us. And just to say that Kuwait says that Iran, well, it may claim that it was targeting U.S. assets in Kuwait, but actually Iran has hit several power generation and water desalination plants.

14:30coming up on the program how major league soccer the top u.s football club league is trying to make the most of america's newfound love of football or soccer after the end of the world cup i followed the premier league for a long time and after watching the u.s play the world cup i just became a fan of the mls now so i'm excited to go and watch who's going to be your MLS team. Probably the LA Galaxy. After I go to the game, I'll probably become a big fan. More from a slightly windy US in about 30 minutes or so, that report. Our main headline, this hour, 19 people in Indonesia have been convicted and jailed for trafficking dozens of babies, selling some of them for adoption in Singapore.

15:30This is News Hour from the BBC. I'm Tim Franks. If you've ever been lucky enough to travel to Italy, you'll know it's the home of the most wonderful food, one of the glorious bastions of what's known as the Mediterranean diet. But there's now growing concern over childhood obesity in the country. World Health Organization figures show Italian children are among the most overweight, even obese, in Europe. Doctors say lifestyles and eating habits have changed dramatically in recent decades. Some point to what's been called the five Ps, pizza, pasta, potatoes, protein and pane, the Italian word for bread, as symbols of a diet which has become increasingly calorie-dense.

16:10Our correspondent Sofia Batizza reports from Ponticelli on the outskirts of Naples at the epicentre of Italy's childhood obesity crisis. When it comes to food, I have not seen anywhere in the world quite like Naples. Every cafe has a little window opening onto the street filled with fresh pastries and pizza slices. It's all the classics of Naples. I'm holding the city's most popular street snack, pizza fritta. It's an entire pizza, deep fried in oil. But all this is linked to a child obesity epidemic. We've just arrived at the Britannia Hospital in Ponticelli, a suburb of Naples. Salvatore is 16 and is here with his mum, Anna.

17:02At 180 kilos, he's morbidly obese. meaning his weight is putting his health at serious risk. I can't even sign him up for the gym because he's so obese. They don't want to take on the responsibility. He weighs too much. Something could happen to him. Obesity can cause this. Salvatore is under the care of Dr Sonia Chiappetta. When obesity puts patients' lives at risk, she removes up to 90 % of their stomach. And demand is growing. World Health Organization figures show Italian children are now the second most overweight in the EU. The patients are getting younger. And normally the patient with obesity, with type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, This was a patient I saw around age of 50.

18:05Now I see these patients around age of 16, 17, 18, 20. While Dr Chiapetta treats the most severe cases, Professor Roberto Bernicanani, one of Italy's leading pediatric obesity specialists, is trying to prevent children ever needing surgery. And how young are your patients? Two, three years. So you're seeing children who are two or three who are obese? Yeah, already affected by overweight or obesity. A normal child, two, three years of age, the weight, the body weight would be around 10 kilos, but you can find out a child within, I don't know, 20 kilos, 25 kilos. Many children are unable to drink regular water.

18:52They consume a Coca-Cola can, a Fanta can or a Gatorade. Professor Berni Canani says one of the biggest challenges is that many Italian parents simply don't realise their own child is obese. They're in denial. Carmen has brought in her 10-year-old daughter, Francesca. She weighs around 60 kilos. Her throat is irritated and she struggles to swallow. You don't eat vegetables, you don't eat salad, you really don't want them. I put them next to you, but you don't want them.

19:33Last year, Italy passed a law to officially recognise obesity as a serious disease, one of the first countries in the world to do so. Doctors hope that's the first step towards treating it earlier and preventing more children from reaching the point where surgery becomes their only option. And that was Sofia Bettizze reporting from southern Italy. A stately home in North London which provided vital intelligence during the Second World War is opening to the public for the first time as a new museum. Trent Park House was used as a prison for German generals, but those generals' rooms were bugged and their conversations were monitored from secret listening stations in the basement.

20:19Giuseppe Albano is the director of the Trent Park House of Secrets Museum. Giuseppe, thank you for joining us here on NewsHour. Tell me what this secret intel was. Pleasure to be here, Tim. The secret intelligence at Trent Park had been like no other at that point in history. The entire house was bugged from top to bottom. Most of the interiors, the light fittings, stairwells, but outside even the rose bushes and gardens and garden benches were bugged. And the point of it was that between 1942 and 1945, over 100 very high-ranking German prisoners of war were interred there. Around 80 of them were generals, the rest were colonels, and they were treated very well.

21:11They were in a prison, they were imprisoned, but they were treated extremely well, they were wined, they were dined, they were taken on trips into central London, to Windsor, to Hampton Court, but they didn't realise that they were being bugged the whole time. All of the time that they were talking, secret listeners who were predominantly German speaking Jewish refugees were literally hiding in the basement, eavesdropping and recording everything. It is amazing in many ways. Amazing also that they had absolutely, well, it seems no suspicions that this might be the case. But was there any particular intelligence that then, you know, was useful or particularly useful in Britain's prosecution of the war?

22:00Yes, a lot of the military intelligence that was gathered was directly useful and was used in Britain's war effort. Not least in March 1943, a conversation between two of the generals, General Ludwig Cruvel, who was in fact the very first German general to arrive at Trent Park after being captured on the coast of Libya, and another chap called General von Thoma, they were having a conversation about Germany's V2 rocket programme, which was eavesdropped on and recorded and directly used by Britain to thwart an attack. Of course, it was immensely useful to British intelligence services to know about Hitler's secret long-range weapons programme.

22:44I suppose that's obviously key to the success that the Allies had in the war. The other side to the Second World War was, of course, the terrible atrocities that Germany was committing to Jewish people and other minorities across Europe. Was evidence gathered on that as well? Well, yes. during the war itself the extent of Hitler's atrocities was not widely known but the secret listeners who were mostly the vast majority of them were Jewish it must have been astonishingly difficult when they did overhear conversations about the Holocaust and the camps and Hitler's anti-Semitism as well as hatred and persecution of other minorities as you say However, this intelligence, unlike the military intelligence that was gathered, was not directly used.

23:47It was not used during the Nuremberg trials, which happened over a decade later in the 1950s. And the reason for that was that the British government at the time did not want the tactics to be widely known. They didn't want their potential enemies. At that time, also, the Cold War, of course, was looming, the threat from Russia, from the USSR. are, so they did not want the technology or just the sheer audacity and devious brilliance of the operation to be widely known, because they wouldn't want their enemies to know what they're capable of. Giuseppe, it all sounds fascinating and important. Thank you very much for telling us about it.

24:23Giuseppe Albano, the director of the Trent Park House of Secrets Museum.

24:31I'm Simon Jack. I'm Zing Sing. And on Good Bad Billionaire, we're exploring the life and fortune of music megastar Sir Paul McCartney. Macca. As one of the primary songwriters in The Beatles and with an extensive solo career, his work generates vast and continuous royalty streams. But were song royalties alone enough to break the billion? And earn him the title of the first British billionaire rock star? Find out in Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Listen now, search for Good Bad Billionaire wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

25:05Jimmy become a billionaire from posting videos. On Good Bad Billionaire, we're going to find out how the world's most popular YouTuber, Mr Beast, made his fortune. He's buried himself in a coffin for days. Counted to 100 ,000 on camera. And even recreated Squid Games, all in an attempt to go viral on the internet. But it all started when he gave a homeless man$10 ,000. So is he a philanthropist reshaping capitalism? Or is he just the king of the attention economy? Find out on Good Bad Billionaire. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:38Welcome back to NewsHour. A new law has come into effect across the European Union. From now on, large clothing companies won't be allowed to destroy or dispose of unsold clothes, accessories or footwear. From now on, any clothes not sold will need to be either sold at discount or donated. It's all an attempt to reduce waste and cut the impact of incinerating tons of unsold clothing every year. Marianne Guo is sustainability reporter for Politico in Brussels, and she's been speaking to Rebecca Kesby about the new law. The ban on distracting unsold goods is part of the EU's new eco-design law, which is coming into force incrementally and requires manufacturers to make sure their products last longer, are more repairable and recyclable.

26:27And textiles is sort of one of the product groups that the law is targeting. Right. So there's been a lot of concern from environmentalists over the past few years about this thing called fast fashion. But also, does this indicate that they're worried about overproduction as well? Yes, I think the EU here wants to tackle a waste problem that it has identified in the fashion industry. I mean, Europeans on average, you know, they produce about 16 kilograms of textile waste each a year. And research from the environmental agency shows that up to 9 % of clothes sold on the EU markets get destroyed before they're ever worn.

27:06And less than 1 % of textile gets recycled in the EU currently. So are there any potential loopholes then? Yeah, the ban comes with a lot of exemptions. For example, if an item cannot be resolved for safety or hygiene reasons, then a company would be allowed to destroy it. If a business has made an effort to try and donate its unsold stock, but the donation hasn't been accepted, then it would also be allowed to destroy the goods. But then the commission says as well that products will not be considered as reusable or suitable for reuse if they have a big logo or label that can't be removed from the clothing.

27:41And that has sparked some concern amongst environmental NGOs, but also some lawmakers thinking that this is going to open the door for companies to basically burn all types of branded clothing and not really respect the overarching aim, which is to not destroy these clothings. What's all this going to do to the fashion industry? Because that's obviously worth a lot of money and pays a lot of tax right across Europe. But if the thrust is going to be towards items that last longer or trying to discourage people from spending too much or buying too many different items of clothing, how is that going to affect that industry?

28:22Well, to be honest, I don't know that the ban will immediately lead to people buying clothes that last longer. I think you have to take the decision with the broader legislative context that it comes with. I mean, those clothes are not going to get destroyed anymore. Fine, but they have to go somewhere. And that means that the EU will need to improve the system by which it collects the waste, the textile waste, the clothes, the sorting infrastructure and the recycling, which, as I was mentioning earlier, isn't really happening at scale. So the overarching objective, which is to steer consumers towards more sustainable choices, is a little bit more complex than just telling brands that they no longer can destroy their unsold goods.

29:03And that was Marianne Gros speaking to Rebecca Kesby. You're with the BBC World Service and I'm Tim Franks with NewsHour. It's coming to you live from London. If you were listening yesterday, you might have heard our correspondent in Delhi telling us about the biggest protest seen in the Indian capital for some time. The demonstrations have continued today, despite yesterday's police crackdown.