this is bbc news. the headlines... most of hong kong's metro system remains shut after a day which saw stations and businesses attacked in violent anti—government protests. demonstrators defied a ban on face masks dring the unrest. chief executive carrie lam has defended her decision to invoke emergency powers. the us secretary of state mike pompeo has dismissed questions about donald trump's attempts to push ukraine and china to investigate democratic rival joe biden as a "silly gotcha game". leading democrats have issued a legal order demanding the white house hand over more documents on its dealings with ukraine. the british foreign secretary has urged america to reconsider its decision to let a diplomat‘s wife — who was involved in a fatal car crash — claim diplomatic immunity to leave britain. 19—year—old harry dunn died

in the collision in august. now on bbc news, in part one of undercover with the clerics, bbc arabic‘s nawal al maghafi investigates the exploitation of vulnerable girls and young women, tricked into so—called ‘pleasure marriages‘ in iraq. a warning that you may find some of the content and language in this programme upsetting. muslim clerics acting like pimps. undercover in baghdad, we expose a secret world of sexual exploitation. widows of war forced to become prostitutes.

men of god giving religious guidance on how to abuse children. in this holy sex trade, even children are for sale. the office ayatollah sistani, one of one of the most senior clerics of shia islam, tells us these are crimes that should be punished.

millions visit this holy shrine, and many couples come here to get married. just walking around a shopping walking around a shopp arcade and we are close to the main. in this society where sex for unmarried couples is for that end, a pleasure marriage allows a man to pay for a temporary wife but they are illegal in iraq, and we have found they are used to exploit women. i have to be discreet filming this but we are here to investigate allegations that some of the clerics here are grooming women for high—level prostitution and even acting like pimps.

pleasure marriage or muta'a is a shia practise. many say that it is sanctioned by islamic law and could be good for couples. tell me about muta'a marriage, what are the rules behind it? the man pays for a sexual relationship.

but the clerics says that if the woman was poor, that man would be helping her. but what is the difference between muta'a marriage and prostitution? 15 years of war have had a devastating effect on iraq's women. a million have been widowed, and many more are still displaced. clerics have told us pleasure marriages were a way of helping

vulnerable women, but we'd started to hear stories of abuse. we are concealing the real names of the women we spoke to. her husband was killed in an is bombing, soon after, she and her two children lost their home. farfrom helping her, she says the cleric exploited her.

the only way to get evidence on camera of what clerics were doing behind closed doors was to go undercover. first, our reporter had to get his hidden cameras through the security corridor. his task would be difficult and dangerous. we are concealing his identity. when i was arrived, i was really scared. because i had a secret camera, and if they found this, no way can i run away. posing as a potential client,

he arranged to meet several clerics. i just went to this office and started asking them if you do a temporary pleasure marriage. some of them said yes. this man has an office opposite the main shrine. my cover story was i am an iraqi living in london coming to baghdad for a short trip. our reporter pretended he'd met a girl and wanted to have sex with her. he asked if the cleric would do a pleasure marriage.

the cleric said it was better not to have a written contract. without a contract, he said, it is easier to cover your tracks. the cleric was giving advice on how to use a woman for sex and then get rid of her. we heard evidence that they say

this, but to see it myself, it was really shocking. i did not believe he told me, "have sex with her and then just leave her in the street, basically." his services came at a price. we found an expert on islamic law. who could help us interpret our evidence. in iraq, he had been a high—ranking cleric, but he started speaking out against the clerical establishment. after receiving death threats, he is now living in exile in london. oh, my god.

he told me this cleric was breaking islamic law, and his advice could put a woman in danger. if she were caught with a man, she risks being charged with prostitution. despite being illegal in iraq, we found pleasure marriage was widely available. out of ten clerics we spoke to, eight said they perform them.

one of them was this man, his title means he claims descent from the prophet muhammad. our reporter told him he met a girl and wanted to have sex. he said pleasure marriages allowed a man to do pretty much whatever he wanted. it is illegal to rent

a hotel room in iraq unless you are properly married, but he said that was no problem. i wanted to find out about the men who use clerics to do pleasure marriages. i was meeting a married professional in his 40s. speaking anonymously, ali, not his real name, tells me he regularly does them, sometimes just for an hour.

to me, it sounded like prostitution. but ali said he wanted it to be halal. as we talked, he revealed some men were paying clerics for pleasure marriages with children.

we were discovering one of iraq's darkest secrets. clerics making money helping men who wanted sex with very young girls. this man was prepared to talk about it. our reporter had told him he had met a 13—year—old virgin and asked whether a pleasure marriage would be halal. vaginal sex was forebidden, according to the cleric, but other things, he said, were permissible.

he said he was a follower of grand ayatollah ali al—sistani, iraq's most senior shia cleric. he has in the past written that if a child under nine was promised in marriage or temporary marriage, sexual touching was religiously permitted.

we approached the ayatollah‘s office to clarify his religious advice on this matter. in a statement he said times had changed, and this had been erased from his current books. to continue our investigation, we've come to the most important site for shia muslims. this is the biggest shia pilgrimage site in the world, tens of millions of pilgrims come here every year. we'd already seen how clerics helped men break the law and even do pleasure marriages with minors. we wanted to see if the religious authorities in this holy city condemned the practise.

we've heard about pleasure marriages, muta'a marriages, do you do them here? but in the streets around the shine, some clerics were giving very different advice. this man said he was a member of one of iraq's powerful and well armed shia militias. our reporter pretended he'd met a young girl who was still a virgin.

we showed this footage to a woman who runs a network of women's shelters across iraq. nine years old? they are opening a shop for paedophiles, inviting them from all over the world. the girl is looked at as a piece of merchandise.

and using the merchandise in specific ways is allowed, by the virginity is kept for that big sale that they will do in the future. the big sale is marriage. she told me that some families see girls as a financial burden and want to marry them off but parents can only find a husband if there daughter's virginity is guaranteed. pretending he had a real girl in mind, our reporter asked what would happen if he did take the girl's virginity during a pleasure marriage.

they are speaking of how a man can get away with this crime of raping a young girl. to just leave her and go. what does this mean for the girl involved ? if the males of the family are aware of what happened to her, they will be killing her, and then the honour of the male patriarchs of the family is preserved. it is always the girl and the women who are paying the price. i interviewed a girl who is at grave risk of violence from her relatives. she lost her virginity in a pleasure marriage. and for her safety, we filmed an actor telling her story using her exact words.

a few weeks later, the man took her to a cleric. she was only 14. her parents knew nothing about it. when she tried to stop seeing the man, he turned to blackmail.

she had been groomed by a sexual predator with the help of a cleric. we wanted to see how difficult it would be to get a cleric to do a pleasure marriage with a very young girl. it turned out to be easy. he took our reporter to a waiting taxi. our reporter had told him he wanted to do a pleasure marriage with a 13—year—old virgin,. with a 13—year—old virgin. he did not ask to meet the girl in person or talk to herfamily. he agreed to do the ceremony over the phone. basically another colleague of mine, she was in the hotel, when he rang the phone, she was on the other end of the phone and was ready to answer.

i am now thinking this marriage would not be that simple. the only question he asked was what is your name? and then he did the ceremony without any questions.

in just a few minutes, he had paid $200 for a pleasure marriage with a girl he believed to be only 13. for her, the consequences of her teenage pleasure marriage have been disastrous. her family are now pressuring her to get married. she told us something similar had happened to her cousin, with fatal results.

she is in such an impossible situation, which she thought she is in such an impossible situation.

what she thought was her teenage love story has ended up ruining her entire future. and if it was not for the cleric convincing her that it was religiously 0k, this would have never happened. in the next episode, after months of preparation, we set out to catch a cleric in the act of pimping. hello. set to be lots of surface water on the roads this morning as we start sunday. heavy, persistent, overnight rain still there to begin with, particularly across central, southern scotland, north and east england, where the greatest risk of some minor flooding will be as we go through sunday and that travel disruption. you can see that rain there on the chart to begin with, easing off a little bit through the day but never too far away, still some

outbreaks of rain coming, even a rumble of thunder with that towards parts of east anglia and the south—east. further west, a drier, brighter day compared with saturday. a few showers drifting down, western scotland, and pretty blowy towards the south—west corner, we could see winds touch gale force at times. as we go into sunday evening and overnight, the rain finally eases off in eastern areas, but then more wet and windy weather arrives in the west to take us into monday morning rush—hour. eastern areas a little bit cool, admittedly, but it should be drier than it will be this morning. but rain will push in here. in fact, throughout this coming week, there will more rain at times, and it will always remain a little bit on the windy side. bye for now.

this is bbc news — welcome if you're watching here in the uk or around the globe. i'm reged ahmad. our top stories... more protests in hong kong, as demonstrators defy a ban on face masks. hong kong's leader accuses them of destroying the territory. the us secretary of state dismisses the latest attempts by democrats to push forward their impeachment inquiry into president trump. when the world doesn't focus on the things that are right, the things that matter, the things that impact real people's lives and instead you get caught up in some silly gotcha game. the mother of a teenager, killed in a crash involving the wife of a us diplomat — says the uk must put pressure on her to return and face justice. and why six elephants were found dead at the foot