it was hard to explain to those young men why i was so moved. was it because they had saved a life? was it because the child had come so close to dying? or was i weeping for those other babies? girls, all of them, who had

been thrown away or murdered, in the 30 years i have been following this story.

the woman confessing to killing newborn baby girls, dharmi devi, is a midwife. and she was not the only one. i shot this footage

nearly 30 years ago. i was a young reporter back then, hungry forstories. i had heard about a case of infanticide in katihar, close to my hometown, so i set off into the villages of bihar to see if it was true. were baby girls still being killed at birth? at the time, almost all babies in rural bihar were born at home. so, i began by talking to the women who delivered them. the midwives. what i found then still shocks me.

hakiya was the first of the midwives to speak plainly on camera.

hakiya is talking about upper—caste families. the midwives came almost entirely from the lower castes. they often told me they did not want to kill baby girls.

but refusing orders from these families was unthinkable. after hakiya spoke up, other midwives found the courage to tell their stories. rani was the next to confess. of all the midwives, she looked the most troubled.

rani died a long time ago. so did hakiya and dharmi. but there was one midwife who would not confess.

i did not know it at the time, but it was this midwife, siro devi, whose story i would follow for the next three decades. i was not the only one troubled by these killings. in the �*90s, anila kumari ran an ngo that worked

with the midwives. long before they confessed to me, it was anila who had earned their trust and guided me into their world. she was also among the first to document the scale of the killings. in 1995, while working on a report, anila had spoken to 35 midwives, including some of the women i had filmed.

if the 1995 report's estimates are accurate, more than 1,000 baby girls were being murdered every year in one district by just 35 midwives. according to the report, bihar at the time had more than half a million midwives. the names of the midwives were changed to protect their identities. hakiya is mentioned, rani is there and so is siro.

siro had been a midwife

since she was a child. she was doing this work when i met her 30 years ago. she's still doing it today.

year after year, i went back to visit siro and saw how hard it was for her to make ends meet. she was the sole breadwinner, raising two sons and three daughters... ..three daughters who all needed a dowry in order to be married. a dowry could be anything — cash, jewellery, utensils. but for many families in india, the girl has to bring something as a condition of marriage.

it is the dowry system that makes sons into assets and daughters into liabilities. all the midwives told me this is the reason why so many baby girls were killed at birth. over the years, a trust

had grown between us. but only once in three decades did siro confess that she had killed baby girls with her own hands.

by the time i filmed the confessions, some of the midwives working with anila had started saving baby girls from being killed by their own families. these girls would be young women now, almost 30. some of them had been adopted, but no—one knew where they were.

encouraged by the training they had received, this small group of midwives saved at least five baby girls and brought them to anila. one child died. the otherfour were put up for adoption. according to anila, one girl stayed in patna,

one went to america, one to the uk, and one girl was adopted by a family in pune. the report from the �*90s made no mention of the girls who had been saved. but it contained the name medha shekhar.

in the 1990s, medha was working in patna, documenting cases of infa nticide. soon after, the babies rescued by the midwives started arriving at her ngo. she helped send at least one of those babies to an adoption agency in pune.

hello there. it was an unseasonably chilly start to friday morning with a touch of frost for some, but lots of blue sky and sunshine throughout the day and we started to draw in that warmer feeling air. now that trend is just set to continue over the next few days. so warmer by day, milder by night, too. for the weekend — some sunshine, but also some outbreaks of rain here and there, too. you can see all of the sunshine clearly with the lack of cloud on the satellite picture here. we will see this front just gradually continue to push its way further eastwards through the rest of the night, bringing outbreaks of rain across northern ireland and western scotland. more cloud here, too, and some of the cloud will seep down into northern england. it's windy out towards the northwest, but look at much of england and wales — dry with clear skies again. and while it's not quite as cold as it was last night here, temperatures rurally

could still drop, perhaps as low as 3 or 4 degrees celcius. and then on saturday, well we're set to keep a lot of that sunshine across england and wales through the day. it will stay dry here, more cloud towards the north and probably some more in the way of high cloud through the afternoon turning the sunshine hazy. meanwhile, across northern ireland, western scotland we'll see outbreaks of rain push eastwards. taking their time to reach eastern scotland — dry here for much of the day. highs of 16 to 19 degrees, so already feeling warmer. and then on sunday, our front continues to slip southwards and eastwards across from northern england, down through wales, the midlands and eventually into south east england, but there will be some sunshine ahead of our front. it will stay dry during the daylight hours, 20 degrees so warm and sunshine developing behind the front, too, with some showers scattered across northern and western scotland. so here's our area of high pressure that's going to keep us largely dry and settled into next week. it's gradually pushing further eastwards over the next few days, but on monday we could start off the day with those

lighter winds, with some areas of mist and fog that could take a little time, perhaps to lift and clear through the morning. but they will do so and there'll be some sunshine emerging and temperatures will be higher. so we're looking at 15 to 21 degrees, perhaps north to south. and those temperatures could rise even further — low to mid 20s potentially, especially in the south as we head through the middle of next week. lots more sunshine to come.

live from washington. this is bbc news. kamala harris and donald trump continue to make their case to voters — we'll assess another tumultuous week in the us presidential election race. for trump — concerns over the level of crime remain a focus. bbc verify will assess the statistics he's pointing to. in north dakota, a judge has struck down an abortion ban that was passed last year. a leading pollster will examine how important this issue is to voters. and then there's fracking.

as trump highlights harris�* shift in position on this, we'll unpack why fracking matters politically. hello, i'm ros atkins. welcome to bbc news. across the half hour — we're going to look in detail at another extraordinary week in this us election campaign. we've had the debate, rallies, a trump press conference, albeit one where there were no questions for the first half an hour. and there have been all sorts of clashes and claims — on fracking, on crime, on abortion, and on cats and dogs being eaten in ohio — there's no evidence on that, by the way. it's been a lot. and we'll start with the issue of abortion. in 2022 the us supreme court overturned roe v wade — which guaranteed a woman's right to obtain an abortion. and the political and legal consequences of that have continued to play out.

it was a major part of the trump—harris debate.