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Bad People

58. Africa Eye: Black Market Babies

Bad People

BBC

True Crime

4.41.1K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Klenice grew up in a village in rural Western Kenya. When both her parents passed away, she dropped out of school and started working to support herself. The father of her first child also died unexpectedly and by the age of 22 she was a single mother. What drives a mother to sell her own child? And who facilitates such a sale? In 2019, BBC Africa Eye launched an investigation into Kenya’s black market for babies. Presenter Njeri Mwangi worked on the yearlong undercover operation and joins Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen to discuss the result, the documentary ‘The Baby Stealers’. Who buys babies on the black market? And how much should a journalist intervene to stop a sale? Njeri talks about the individual stories that most affected her, the fallout once the documentary was published, her hopes for the future and even the feminist motorcycle club she’s part of, the Throttle Queens. The episode contains audio from the documentary by BBC Africa Eye, The Baby Stealers. Warning: This episode contains references to child trafficking, kidnap, and suicide. CREDITS Presenters: Dr Julia Shaw and Sofie Hagen Producer: Louisa Field Assistant Producer: Simona Rata Music: Matt Chandler Editor: Rami Tzabar Academic Consultant, The Open University: James Munro #BadPeople_BBC Commissioning Assistant Producer: Adam Eland Commissioning Executive: Dylan Haskins Bad People is produced in partnership with The Open University and is a BBC Audio Science Production for BBC Sounds.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to tell you why I love podcasting.

0:04.5

I'm Sasha Johansson, I'm an Assistant Commissioner for the BBC and I work on making podcasts.

0:11.1

My real passion is discovering unbelievable unheard stories and working with the biggest

0:16.9

stars who can really bring those stories to life.

0:20.1

I love the whole process of making podcasts from the spark of an idea to hearing the final

0:26.0

edit.

0:27.0

There's nothing like it.

0:28.0

What makes BBC podcast special is that we're working for you, so whatever we commission

0:32.6

has to reflect the things that you care about and love, wherever you are in the UK.

0:37.0

So if you like this BBC podcast, there's so much more to discover.

0:40.6

Have a listen on BBC Sounds.

0:42.1

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

0:47.6

Three, two, one.

0:51.0

Have you ever wanted or needed something so much that you would have gone to the black

0:56.4

market to get it?

0:58.1

When I was a teenager, I really, my local record store had this cardboard cutout of Will Smith

1:03.6

because men in black had just come out and I wanted that so desperately and you couldn't

1:08.9

buy it that if I had known where the black market was, they would have seen this 12-year-old

1:14.5

just be like, do you have the latest cardboard cutout of Will Smith?

1:19.6

But fortunately, the record store let me take it.

1:22.3

I feel like in my dark view of the black market, I would have been like, oh, you're asking

1:27.6

us to like kidnap Will Smith, you'd be like, no, no, just the cardboard cutout from the

...

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