Assignment: The child rescue con

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 July 2024

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Project Rescue Children claims to save children from trafficking and abuse across the world, but the BBC has uncovered evidence of false and misleading social media posts. The charity's director, Adam Whittington, has raised thousands of pounds from sponsors and donors. But the BBC’s Hayley Mortimer has found that unsuspecting children are being used as props, and the rescue centres have no children. Project Rescue Children rejects the BBC's findings and says its work has benefitted hundreds of children worldwide.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Haley Mortimer and for this week's edition of assignment here on the BBC World Service
0:05.1	I'm in a busy marketplace in the Gambia, West Africa.
0:10.8	It's December the 17th, 2022, just before 930 a.m.
0:19.0	A charity has received intelligence that a newborn baby is going to be handed over to traffickers here today.
0:26.0	A team of volunteers position themselves amongst the congested alleyways, watching and waiting, looking for anything suspicious. Within minutes, two men are spotted walking towards a basket basket left lying on the ground, covered with a golden blanket.
0:48.5	The volunteers start shouting as one of the men grabs the handle and begins to run.
0:54.0	As they reach out to grab him, the man drops the basket and disappears into the crowd.
1:02.0	Nestled inside. and disappears into the crowd.
1:07.0	Nesseled inside a newborn baby girl. They name her Maria.
1:09.0	It means a miracle.
1:12.0	It was probably one of our highlights for the year rescuing her and it was just really a needle in a haystack type of situation.
1:20.0	Adam Whittington, the CEO of a charity called Project Rescue Children or PRC.
1:25.8	A one day old baby that our awesome team rescued. She's doing so well and she's going
1:31.8	to be completely taken under PRC's wing.
1:34.7	I was working on another documentary about child protection in the Gambia when I first came
1:39.6	across PRC posters stocked to a wall near the beach.
1:43.4	Curious, I searched the name online and found Adam and all of his videos.
1:48.5	He's a former police officer who posts horrific and heroic accounts of saving children from the worst situations
1:55.7	imaginable.
1:56.7	Wife and they then chopped him up in pieces in front of his girls.
2:01.6	To find that their children are being kidnapped and sacrificed.
2:04.4	I also confirm now everything I state is factual as in all my posts and videos.
	...

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