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 herto 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. 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 herto a doctor's appointment 30km away from her village. the doctor fees and medication were expensive, and heba 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. 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 cannot just be on the consumers. hello there. wednesday was the warmest day of the year so far, with 31 celsius reached in wisley in surrey. but that's the last of these sorts of temperatures for now. it does look like for the rest of the week, into the weekend, it's going to be turning fresher for all areas and the winds will be picking up as well. but we'll still have quite a bit of sunshine around. now, the change is all courtesy of this area of low pressure, pretty deep for the time of year, pushing to the north and the west of the country, where it'll bring significant winds and some rain. but the cold front associated with it will spread across the country, pushing the warm and humid air back out to the near continent. this is the cold front — barely anything on it as it reaches southern and eastern england. but it will bring a change to the air temperature. plenty of sunshine here, but windy with showers or long spells of rain for north—west england, north wales, northern ireland and into scotland. so temperatures here much lower than of late. highs of 2a to 25 degrees across the south—east. but warmer along north sea coasts, as we've lost the onshore breeze. but it will be a very blustery end to the day for thursday. gales across the far west of scotland, far north of northern ireland, showers or longer spells of rain, whereas i think as we head through thursday nights across much of england and wales, it should be largely dry with some clear spells. lighter winds the further south that you are. but it will be a cooler night to come for all, with temperatures 10 to around 12 degrees. so as we head into friday, then, we see that area of low pressure pulling away from the north of the uk, but it will take its time. it stays quite windy, blustery, with outbreaks of rain across scotland, whereas for england and wales, closer to a ridge of high pressure. so the further north that you are, it will be windier with showers or longer spells of rain. the further south that you are, variable cloud, but some good spells of sunshine. and i think for many, it will stay dry on friday. temperatures perhaps reaching around 23, maybe 2a degrees. otherwise, it's the mid to high teens further north, so you can see that cooler trend is continuing. into the start of the weekend, bit of a question mark on it, but it looks like this area of weather fronts will bring thicker cloud and outbreaks of rain to the central slice of the uk through the day. to the north of it, it stays quite blustery with sunshine and showers, feeling cool. but some good sunny spells across the south and south—east could put temperatures up to around 25 celsius, so feeling quite warm again, but cooler further north. but as we head into part two of the weekend, it does look like it'll be cloudy with some further spots of rain and feeling cooler for all. live from washington. this is bbc news. bolivian police arrest the leader of an attempted coup, hours after the presidential palace was stormed by soldiers. kenya's president william ruto withdraws his controversial finance bill that led to deadly protests. and with less than 2a hours to go until us president biden and former president trump meet on the debate stage, we'll talk about what's at stake. hello, i'm helena humphrey, good to have you with us. we begin in bolivia, where president luis arce seems to have defeated a military coup attempt led by a rebel military leader who deployed hundreds of soldiers and armoured vehicles to the city of la paz, claiming he wanted to "restructure democracy." this is the moment generaljuanjose zuniga, leader of the coup attempt, and former commander of the bolivian armed forces, was arrested by police who took him away in a car while speaking to reporters outside a military barrack. the president and vice president then took to the main square of la paz to greet supporters. the public prosecutor's office now says it will launch a criminal investigation into general zuniga and those who backed him. on wednesday, hundreds of soldiers and armoured vehicles surrounded government buildings in the capital. they fired shots at government supporters who tried to stop them. an army tank knocked down the main gate of the presidential palace while troops entered the building. general zuniga said there would be a change of government and announced that he would release political prisoners. rumours have been swirling for days that the general was on the verge of being dismissed.