perfume is a $50 billion industry and growing. and there's one flower that's found in hundreds of bottles, considered to be the most valuable scent in the business. the most beautiful flower that exists in perfumery. the most exotic and wonderful of all scents. jasmine. bbc eye investigations takes you to the heart of the jasmine trade in egypt to reveal dark secrets

in the perfume industry. children, some as young as five years old, are working in dangerous conditions throughout the night and pickers are earning as little as $1 a day, while huge profits are made by giants in the business. this investigation reveals who the real masters of the perfume industry are... ..and how they are falling short of the human rights commitments that they're promoting publicly... ..as we expose for the first time the use of child labour in the supply chains of some of the world's most luxurious fragrances.

egyptian jasmine blooms just after sunset. in order to catch the fragrance, the flower needs to be picked before it withers in the sun's heat. heba's family is one of thousands of pickers that have to start work in the middle of the night.

the pickers have to strain their eyes to find the flowers and fight through mosquitoes and pesticides, as they gather as much jasmine as possible. basmalla's eyes have started to cause her pain, and today her mother, heba, is taking her to a doctor's appointment 30km away from her village.

the doctor fees and medication were expensive, and heba and her children weren't able to work that night... ..losing a day's pay. the promises to support the communities that are growing jasmine in egypt go far beyond glossy promotional material. every layer of the supply chain has also signed a letter of commitment to the united nations, pledging to abide by un guidelines promoting safe working practices and eliminating child labour.

we took our evidence to professor tomoya obokata, the united nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery. why is accountability throughout the supply chain

voluntary and opaque, with no international regulation, despite corporate promises and clear guidelines from the un? we spoke to a senior executive who works with the fragrance house givaudan. they agreed to speak to us if we didn't reveal their identity. what you first need to realise is that the relationship between the master and the fragrance house is an informal and trust—based relationship.

if a human rights issue in the supply chain comes up, the masters meet with the fragrance house directly. the masters would never carry out specific checks at the factories or fields, for example. instead, they rely on us to instruct third—party auditing companies to prove that due diligence checks have been done. two of the main auditing firms that the masters and fragrance houses use are sedex and uebt. sedex is a global membership organisation that helps identify and manage ethical sourcing risks. the uebt ethical biotrade - standard was developed to help companies and their people in the field. _ both sedex and uebt assure their clients that they can help them source responsibly, so why has child labour been missed by some masters and fragrance houses, despite their supply chains being regularly audited?

these audit reports are not available to the public, and to obtain them, you have to be part of the supply chain, so we're contacting one of the main producers ofjasmine oil in egypt — a fakhry & co — posing as a potential buyer wanting to buy ethically sourced jasmine. after the visit to the factory, they sent us the sedex and uebt audit reports. the sedex report from a fakhry & co was glowing. however, the visit was pre—announced. they visited during the day and only the factory site was audited. 62 employees were noted to be working there,

the youngest worker being 32 years old. there was no mention of the jasmine farms or the thousands of pickers that are working throughout the night across the region. sarah dadush is a professor of law and founder of the responsible contracting project, where she works on improving human rights in global supply chains. a lot of these fragrance companies say, "0h, we have all kinds of auditing schemes in place "to ensure that there is no child labour anywhere "in oursupply chain," but what your research reveals is that those systems aren't working. the auditors are only auditing what they're paid to audit and so that may not include the jasmine fields, it may not include the price that is being paid for the jasmine.

when we went through the uebt report that a fakhry & co gave us, we found that they had visited the farms in 2023 and there was an indication of a human rights issue, although there are no further details as to what the human rights issue is and no mention of child labour. and despite this, a fakhry & co was still awarded a verification, which means the company can advertise to the rest of the industry that they offer responsibly sourced jasmine oil. we asked sedex and uebt for a comment and they said...

audit schemes are reallyjust picking up on the symptoms of a business model that isn't working for human rights. the major root cause is the price. the price is something that is very much within the control of the fragrance houses and of the masters. they are the ones that are setting the budget for how much is going to be put into producing a particularfragrance. things are changing and legislation is coming through, albeit slowly. in 2017, france passed a duty of vigilance law that requires large french companies to identify and prevent serious human rights violations through

the impact of their activities and of their suppliers by publishing annual vigilance plans. and in april 2024, the european parliament adopted the corporate sustainability due diligence directive. it's a major piece of legislation that, once enshrined in law, will eventually require eu and non—eu companies to conduct human rights due diligence across their entire value chain. if companies fail to comply and a violation occurs as a result, they may be held liable and face financial penalties. we put all of our findings to the masters of the perfume industry.

we asked the three main factories for a comment and they said...

ikat jasmine,

it's completely intoxicating. all of the entities in the perfume industry accept that they have a responsibility to respect human rights and condemn child labour, but in addition to inadequate due diligence checks on the ground and a lack of transparency throughout their supply chain, it appears that the masters have also failed to recognise

the impact that their squeezed prices have on the livelihoods of the jasmine pickers. if anything is to change, it will be a commitment that's made by the whole perfume industry to take a shared responsibility in ensuring a living wage reaches the people who pick the flowers that they rely on. so, as a consumer, how can we make sure that we're buying ethically made perfume? this shouldn't be on consumers. this is not a problem that should be for us to solve. we need law, we need enforcement of those laws, we need corporate accountability, and that cannotjust be on the consumers.

hello. well, we're past the summer solstice now, and the weather has taken a decidedly more summery turn over recent days. we've had temperatures up in the mid 20s. heading through the course of the weekend, still relatively warm, particularly by sunday. some spells of sunshine for many of us. not completely dry — a few showers in the forecast. we've got a weak weather front that's pushing its way gradually eastwards. that should clear out of the way gradually on saturday. and then we've got a bit of a westerly influence to our weather, the winds coming in from a southwesterly direction. there's that cloud initially sitting across central and eastern parts first thing saturday. breaks up through the course of the day to allow some sunshine for many areas. one or two isolated showers, particularly towards the east.

later in the day, there'll be a little bit more cloud increasing across northern ireland and northwest scotland. temperatures for stornoway for instance, 15 degrees. but for the bulk of the uk, we're looking at highs between around 18 to 22, so slightly cooler than we saw on friday. second half of the weekend and just the remnants of this frontal system that are clearing towards the east. but we're likely to start with quite a bit of cloud, you can see here for parts of northern england, wales, the south west as well. some sunshine either side of that and the cloud tending to break up again as we head through the day. things are going to be warming up, the winds coming in from more of a south, south—westerly direction, bringing some slightly warmer, more humid air. so 25 degrees, could see 26 in one or two spots on sunday. and more widely, looking at those temperatures, the high teens or the low 20s. heading through into monday, again, we've got a bit more cloud and rain across the far northwest of the uk. but for the bulk of the country, it's another dry day and it's going to feel quite warm and more humid by this stage. so temperatures for central and southeastern areas, 27 degrees or so. i think we'll all be sitting in the 20s for a time.

so this is how the jet stream is looking. it plunges towards the south, out to the west of the uk, and that's going to develop an area of low pressure, pushing it our way as we head on into tuesday. but before it gets there with that position of the jet stream, that's going to draw up some warm, humid airahead of any midweek rain. so for tuesday, we're likely to start off on a dry note. there'll still be some warm sunshine around, but you'll notice the blue colours developing as low pressure tries to creep its way in from the south and the west, i think. so that will keep things perhaps a little bit cooler across the north west of the uk. but we're still looking at temperatures in the mid, possibly the high 20s. but it does look like, as that kink in the jet stream moves its way across the uk, it will push this weather system, this frontal system, bringing some outbreaks of rain gradually from west to east. some uncertainty about the detail, the timing for this stage in the week. but i think wednesday could bring quite an unsettled sort of day with outbreaks of rain, perhaps some heavy showers in the mix, gradually just drifting their way northwards and eastwards. now, with that rain and a bit of change in wind direction, it won't be so warm across

northern areas on wednesday. we could well still hold on to the heat down towards the south east. now, we're looking towards the end of next week now and low pressure looks like it starts to develop out towards the west, probably moving in across the uk. so although temperatures will still be reasonably warm for the time of year, you can see the yellow colours with us. that's the air mass. it could turn quite unsettled as that jet stream kinks towards the south and delivers us an area of low pressure. so, first half of the coming week, mostly dry, some warm sunshine, some rain moving into the north and the west through the middle part of the week. second half of next week from about thursday onwards, and this is the picture for our capital cities. turns a little bit cooler, a little bit more showery, but there'll still be some spells of warm sunshine in between any of those showers as well. and temperatures are going to be really fairly typical for the time of year. for most of us, we're looking at the high teens or low 20s. bye— bye.

live from washington. this is bbc news. it's been called the "forgotten crisis" — sudan's brutal civil war has left thousands of people dead and millions more displaced as the un warns that famine and genocide loom. they have to stop. this war has to stop. peace is the only solution. doctors and organizations on the ground report widespread gender based violence and a growing humanitarian crisis, amid shortages of life—saving aid.

i think things are going completely in the wrong direction and i have an acute sense of nervousness that i didn't have last time. this as the un security council calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities 15 months after the war started. welcome to the bbc�*s special report on the war in sudan. sudan's brutal civil war has been spreading for months — welcome to the bbc�*s special report on the war in sudan. sudan's brutal civil war has been spreading for months — from sudan's capital of khartoum, to the western darfur region. the country was thrown into disarray when sudan's army, the saf, and a powerful paramilitary group, the rapid support forces, began a vicious struggle for power. and now, as the conflict approaches its 15th month, tens of thousands of people have been killed, and millions

are in dire need of basic necessities like food,