Woman's Hour - 16/06/2025

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. One of the most famous faces of her time. She was a beautiful woman, a sex symbol, a Hollywood star who was never seen for who she really was. As an inventor, as a brain, a genius that history overlooked. The explosion in telecommunication sciences that was enlarged due to Lamar. That should not be forgotten. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Women's Hour Podcast. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to the programme. There were a lot of significant news stories making headlines over the weekend. One of those you're hearing also in the news bulletin

about the announcement by the Prime Minister of a full national statutory inquiry into gang-based child sexual abuse, also known as grooming gangs, which will cover England and Wales. Now this comes ahead of the release of a report later today by Baroness Louise Casey on the nature and scale of this abuse. We're going to speak to our correspondent Judith Moritz and victims advocate Maggie Oliver. Also today the government is actively reviewing how to enhance public guidance on surrogacy after a couple in their 70s recently became legal parents of a surrogate baby. They will be 89 when the child is 18. We're going to hear about that and other cases that has caused

this review. If you have thoughts on that you can text the program the number is 84844 on social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour. Also, we have the author Iris Mwanza in studio. Iris has written The Lion's Den It's a legal thriller set in a corrupt and homophobic Zambia in the 1990s lots to talk about there and Wondering whether you called Lily Allen Popstar, podcaster, she had many hats. But tongue in cheek, she talked about how she ranks her friends. It struck a chord with some. I read a column today talking about categorizing friendships under three headings, acquaintances, friends, an inner circle to help decide who gets the full attention,

time, energy and support that you have to manage. Do you do this? Or should there be such clinical calculations? Never be part of friendships perhaps. Your thoughts, text 84844, a WhatsApp message or a voice note. You can use the number 03700 100444 or indeed email us through our website. Plus I'm going to introduce you to Stephanie Brown. She is our Woman's Hour new generation thinker, all coming up. But let me begin with the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announcing a full national statutory inquiry into child sexual abuse perpetrated by gangs after previously dismissing calls for a public inquiry. Now this comes after he said he

had read every single word of an independent report into child exploitation by Baroness Louise Casey and would accept her recommendation for a full investigation. Her report as I mentioned would be published later today. Joining me first is the BBC special correspondent Judith Moritz, good to have you back on the program Judith. Can you take us through what has been announced? What does a national inquiry actually mean? A national inquiry can take various forms. I think that the actual detail of this one is yet to be spelled out. We do have some information about its shape because of course we've not long since finished covering

the seven-year long independent inquiry into child sexual abuse which was run by Professor Alexis Jane. The government said it has no wish to rerun that inquiry. This has to be different. My understanding is that it will be chaired by a single chair or a commission but it will have the ability to direct and oversee the work of local inquiries, which will feed into the umbrella national inquiry. Now, that's why I say I think the detail is yet to be clarified because we don't know which areas will feed into those local inquiries, particularly how many of them there'll be, how long it will take, the terms of reference, etc. You know, there is concern from some quarters about the length of time that this could all take, particularly for survivors of this kind of abuse who have themselves waited a long time for justice in many cases and haven't had it in many other cases. So that's something, I think the time scale, the time frame, the length of it that needs to be established

too and certainly I've heard calls from some quarters for it to be time limited so that there is an agreed approach to that from the get-go. Originally we had heard that Baroness Casey thought a new inquiry was not necessary but then we heard she changed her mind after having looked into it in recent months. Any idea what it was that changed her mind? Well I think there are several things here. First of all it's interesting that the review she is going to publish today, that the Home Office will publish, is delayed. She's taken longer about

it. She was given three months from January and yet here we are in June. So she's taken longer and my understanding is that that is because she's taken the time to get to the real detail of this by talking to survivors, by talking directly to them, having meetings with them. I know of certainly one meeting which was described to me as very emotional in which she sat down with 10 survivors and listened to their testimony, gave them that time to listen to what they want from this process. Now whether that alone is what changed her mind or whether in fact it's more to do with the scope, the scale, the profile of what she has scope, the scale, the profile of what she has found because her task here was to provide an audit to try to get a grip on the scale of this situation. It's been in and out of the headlines hasn't it

for many years and we hear it coming up time and again. There's been a litany of past inquiries and investigations, all of them with different terms of reference in different areas and yet still a feeling that nobody has quite got a handle on the full picture. And so I think she has been given this task in just short order, a few months, to pull it together and make this recommendation. And the government got ahead of it. We haven't seen her report yet but it's bound to be hard hitting because over the weekend, before publication today, the government made two announcements, not just the public inquiry that's going to happen, but also the national policing approach to

this with the National Crime Agency, who it's been announced will carry out a nationwide operation to target and jail predators who've sexually exploited children. So those two government announcements came ahead of the report publication. It leaves one to conclude that it is going to be hard-hitting. And you mentioned there that there's been so many iterations. Is it possible to summarise for our listeners some of the important points on this long and complex road that has brought us to this point? Well I mean listeners will remember the case back in Rochdale, I remember covering

that in 2012 which brought this perhaps to national attention, the Rotherham situation, Alexis J's report in 2014 and more than 10 years ago which established the scale in that town and report since then by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, local inquiries, there's been serious case reviews, there've been moments along this journey throughout which have brought it in and out of the headlines. And then of course, at the start of this this year the row which grew up when Elon Musk waded into the situation. Now that was all to do with calls in Oldham for an inquiry

there which the government had turned down and a row then began when Elon Musk made a number of attacks on X accusing Keir Starmer of being complicit in the rape of Britain, something which Starmer hit back on his record as the Director of Public Prosecutions, included him introducing a special prosecutor for child abuse and sexual exploitation. But at the heart of a lot of this, of course, is the issue of the ethnicity, the row and the difficulty over people deciding how they will tackle the consideration of the ethnicity of many of the offenders involved and that is something which Louise Casey has been asked to address in her audit and we expect her to have reported on. So it's been published at

3.30 today what do we expect in the immediate aftermath? Well we expect the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to address the House of Commons. We're expecting to hear from Louise Casey at some point later on this afternoon, the exact time of that to be determined. I think that as well the report when it's published this afternoon publicly will throw open a lot of detail here. You know, some of which we've just gone through and much more besides. And I think it will also show the extent to which many opportunities have been missed in the past to tackle this. I think that she will look back at the history and also the current situation.

Is this still happening? How is it happening? To what extent is it still happening and how can it be stopped? You'll stay with us, Judah. Thank you for that. I do want to bring in Maggie Oliver also to pick up on some of those points that you have raised. Maggie resigned from the Greater Manchester Police in 2012 to publicly speak out against what she recognised as gross failures to safeguard victims of the scandal in Rochdale. In the past few months, she has had meetings with Baroness Casey

and has taken a group of survivors to share their experiences with her, particularly on that point, because Judith was mentioning maybe those conversations changed Baroness Casey's mind. Of course, we have no verification on that, but I'd be curious in those meetings what you saw. Hi, Nula. Yeah,ula, yeah actually Judith's summary there, Judith who I know very well, was a run-through of my life really of the last 13 years and she was spot on with every point that she made. I was the person who took 10 survivors to

meet Louise Baroness Casey about three or four weeks weeks ago that's why this report has been delayed. I also met her in February and spent several hours with Annula where I shared with her all my knowledge and I have to say I don't trust people very easily but I do trust Baroness Casey and I do believe that this report will be absolutely damning and it will reflect pretty much everything that I've said for ten years and I obviously I can't say what's in the report but I trust very few people and the fact that she came to me to take ten survivors to meet her for me is a proof that she wanted to hear it from real victims, not those that have been cherry picked by the authorities, who let's be right are

responsible for decades of neglecting children. This is about children's lives having been destroyed, having been blamed for their own abuse, having been criminalised. And actually, Nuala, another national inquiry, whilst I respect and understand why victims and survivors, many of them feel they've never been heard, I would corroborate what Judith said. The devil of this inquiry is in the detail, who will lead it? You know, I spent seven years of my life putting my hope and prayers into the previous national abuse inquiry, only to find that the grooming gang, the organised network strand, was nothing but a complete and utter whitewash, with one victim allowed to speak. And we'll, you know, I don't want to spend another seven years waiting for answers that

we already know. And that's why my legal team today are issuing judicial review proceedings against this government to force them to implement those 20 recommendations from the first national abuse inquiry. What will this inquiry be? I don't know. I don't need an inquiry to tell me what's wrong. This is about gross criminal neglect at the top of policing, at the top of government, at the top of social services, deliberately turning away from very vulnerable children who are being raped on a daily basis by gangs of predominantly Pakistani Muslim men.

And that might have been a politically hot potato, but by not grasping that nettle, Nula, what the government, the protective authorities, the police have allowed is for generations of children to have their lives destroyed by the neglect of the state and it is a national scandal and unfortunately you know this inquiry is in the hands of a government and this isn't a party political point it was the Conservatives equally as neglectful as Labour but this inquiry is being put into the hands of a government led by Keir Starmer who only three months ago was saying people like me were far right extremists. Is this going to be kind of Brexit under another name, where the people want change,

but the government don't and it's another delaying tactic? And I don't have a response from Keir Starmer in that particular characterisation that you say there. I do have a statement however from, from the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, who says, the vulnerable young girls who suffered unimaginable abuse at the hands of groups of adult men have grown into brave women who are rightly demanding justice for what they went through when they were just children. Not enough people listen to them then. That was wrong and unforgivable.

We are changing that now. More than 800 grooming gang cases have already been identified by police after I asked them to look again at cases which are closed too early. Now we're asking for the National Crime Agency to lead a major nationwide operation to track down more perpetrators and bring them to justice. We mentioned the NCA, the National Crime Agency, a little previously with Judith. But what about that? Isn't that a step in the right direction? Nula, the question that every police officer and every member of the NCA will say to you is where are the extra resources coming from? This is empty promises and empty words.

You know, you don't get changed by just saying you are going to do something. You need to put resources in and training and commitment. This is just smoke and mirrors. You know, they're backed into a corner. And at the moment, this is just a PR exercise. It doesn't carry any real... But you don't believe an operation is going to go ahead? I mean, it's in the headlines.

This is coming out on the day, obviously, that the report is going to be published. Do you believe that they would mention that and make this a headline, for example, if they weren't going to carry through with it? Yes, I do believe that because they're backed into a corner. You're not going to radically overhaul the criminal justice system when it's on its knees. I mean, I've been with girls today who have been waiting six years for charges because there is not enough resources there to deal with the cases that they already have.

You're not going to deliver change without serious investment, commitment, change. And you've spoken about that previously on this programme as well, Maggie, but I'm just thinking about with the judicial review that your team are calling for to make it that previous recommendations would be enacted for example that also would take resources to enact those recommendations. Well yes but at least we would have a commitment to implement them it won't take resources to put a minister for children in the cabinet, for instance. It will take resources to gather the data about who the abusers are, but we need that as a country. You know, to present children in care being submitted to pain compliance, they are things that don't take resources. And why they have not been implemented more than three years after a seven year national inquiry

is an absolute scandal. There are many other recommendations that could be very easily implemented. To investigate, you know, historic crime, the NCA will take years. That will not offer change for future generations. It might give closure for the victims that have already been let down. I'm looking at changing the future as well so that

children today who are in care, who are living in horrible circumstances, that their lives aren't destroyed like the kids that me and my charity, the Maggie Oliver Foundation, are trying to help them pick up the pieces of broken lives. I don't want another generation to suffer that. And the judicial review will force the government to put in place the recommendations that Alexis Jay has already made. The organised network strand of that national abuse inquire was a complete and utter whitewash. I have got no faith that this next one will be any different unless Baroness Casey leads it. I do trust her and I don't believe she's gonna let us down this afternoon. So that's really interesting, that is what you're calling for Maggie, you're calling

for Baroness Louise Casey to be basically the head, the chief of the Independent Review and that is, that would be your number one pick. That would be my absolute number one pick. I mean I trusted before and I've been let down but I have to tell you that she has impressed me incredibly. You know she did an honest report into the Met last year, she closed down Rutherham Council, I spoke to her on Saturday afternoon and she listened to those survivors and she was equally as horrified as I have been for the past 15 years and I trust her to deliver

what she heard. With the victims that you have spoken to, including this morning, what are they saying for example in reaction to the National Crime Agency to lead that operation to tackle gangs? The survivors that I've been speaking to this morning feel the same as me really. They want to see action, they want to see change. They've heard all these empty promises before and actually they do not trust the government, they do not trust public officials. They have had to be dragged kicking and screaming to this point. It's not because they want to do an inquiry or they don't actually want to gather the data. They don't want to bring change. They have been put in a position where there is no alternative. And actually, I believe

it is Baroness Case's report that has forced this response over the weekend because they know full well what is in it. It won't deliver everything that I personally would like but I think in all my time on this road I think Baroness Casey has given me the most hope that somebody has listened, has heard and really is committed to bring the change that we've needed for decades. Chancellor Rachel Reeves, you will have seen Maggie as well, defended the government's decision to launch a national inquiry into grooming gangs, also called rape gangs, after months of pressure. She insisted that ministers never dismiss the concerns of victims of grooming gangs. Brief response.

Noorah, I've been banging on everybody's door for the past 13 years and none of them wanted to hear. So, you know, these words mean nothing. Where was she last year? Where were the Conservatives when they were in power? They are backed in a corner. That's the only reason they are making these comments today. They don't really care and it's about time that they took action to prevent children's lives from being completely destroyed by gross criminal neglect from those whose duty it is to protect children. They have failed repeatedly and I want to see some of them actually in prison convicted for gross neglect of duty. That is their job and they have failed. Not made mistakes, they have deliberately failed and turned away. Nothing else will satisfy me.

That is another conversation of what you've mentioned, their actual imprisonment for those that you feel were at fault. Judith, back to you. You talked about that this could potentially, that the inquiry could potentially be time limited. Any idea what that timing might have really picking up on some of those points that Maggie went obviously that feels that too much time has been wasted according to Maggie? I think this is where the you know the the conflict between trying to to get through things efficiently so that survivors who've waited this long are not kicking things down the road for many more months and years, but also ensuring that there's a point to it and that it's thorough and that it's going to

get to grips with absolutely what people want it to deal with. Now it's interesting to listen to all the points Maggie's put across there. I think a key to this in terms of working out how the inquiry will play out is going to be who is put in charge of it. They will be responsible for driving that to ensure that the timing, amongst other things, is something which is at the forefront of planning. So I think that's probably where we end up with it until we have more detail, which we'll get later on this afternoon. Do we think we'll know in short order who will lead the inquiry? I doubt we'll learn that today. I suspect that that's something that'll take a little

longer. I do though, I'm sure, know that people will not want it to take as long as it took to determine who was going to lead the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse that Maggie's talked about at length. So it needs to be a decision which is taken efficiently along with so many other things here. Judith Moritz, BBC Special Correspondent, thank you very much. Also Maggie Oliver who resigned from the Greater Manchester Police to speak out and has been an advocate for the victims. Well we also have an announcement for you this morning. Today we're finding out the names of BBC Radio 4's new generation thinkers. The new generation thinkers are early career academics who will be joining Radio 4 programmes for a year-long residency as part of a scheme

run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. They'll be bringing a scholarship in historical context to programmes on the network that includes Woman's Hour. Hundreds of academics from across the UK applied. I'm delighted to announce that the Woman's Hour academic in residence is Dr Stephanie Brown, Historical Criminologist at the University of Hull and she looks at crime, punishment, policing from the Middle Ages to the modern day. She's an expert in the history of homicide, suicide, abortion. Much of her research uncovers how gender shaped society's view of who was seen as a criminal. Dr. Stephanie Brown, you're very welcome to Women's Hour. Congratulations on being Women's Hours' New Generation Thinker. Good morning, Nuala. It's a pleasure to be here.

I'm so excited to be Woman's Hours' New Generation Thinker for 2025. Wonderful. Our researcher in residence. What drew you to criminology? So I started my academic career as a historian. All three of my degrees, my PhD is in history. And what I realised is, yes, I was drawn to history, I was drawn to the stories, but I kept returning to the question of crime,

criminal justice, suspects, victims, legal history, all of my questions centered around crime. So criminology became the natural sort of place for me. It allowed me to jump around time periods. Historians are very siloed, they will work on their, they'll have their century of expertise. It'll be very frowned upon if they move outside their period that they're an expert in but they're expected to know everything about that period and all of my questions kept coming back to crime so criminology was a more natural fit. It allowed me to look

at change and continuity across time but it also allowed me to correct connect my research to modern issues to think about what we're dealing with today to think about the legacies of some of the things I'm finding. I noticed that you talked about how justice is a series of choices. Expand on that for me. Absolutely. So what I'm interested in is the relationship between law and society. The law is not something neutral.

It's not just a list of rules that we apply. We often hear that justice is blind. Justice absolutely isn't blind. People's identity comes into the picture and one of the ones that she said I focus on more than others is gender identity. I'm really interested in how sort of traditional scripts around femininity and masculinity and how people are supposed to perform those identities and when they're seen to deviate from those identities, how they're treated in

society but also in the courtroom. What we say in the media, what we play out the discourse and narratives around the people, their actions, their victimization, that also bleeds into the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system is run by people who live in society who are as entrenched in those sort of social norms and discourses. So the two are inextricably linked. Because you also say that women and girls in the justice system have historically been considered mad, bad or sad.

Explain. Absolutely. We love to box women into these three categories. I first encountered this when I was looking at homicide and thinking about female perpetrators. Now, even today, this started in the 19th century, but pick up any newspaper go on social media if there's been a homicide perpetrated by a woman or even violence perpetrated by women. It's something that society really struggles with. Traditional femininity normative femininity is the complete opposite to violence. Men can be violent, men historically go off to war, men do quasi-military sports like

jousting and archery, but traditionally there's not a space for women. Women are supposed to traditionally nurture life, they're not supposed to end life. The idea of a female carer is sort of a moral panic for society. So in order to explain it, we can fit women into one of these boxes. Were they mad? Did they act through sort of some mental health concern, insanity, they would say in the Victorian period? Are they just bad women? Are they just evil? Are they a temptress? Are they the femme fatale, the sort of Ruth Ellis figure, I suppose, maybe more familiar to people? Or the sad. The last woman who was

executed in the UK yes, as she was framed as a bad woman, framed as rejecting traditional femininity, being very sexualised, sexualising herself, her image, being divorced, chasing men, having famous boyfriends. Not a way that a traditional woman in the 1950s should behave. And that is different to men? Absolutely. Well men are allowed to be violent. It's something that we understand. We don't have to create these narratives and these stories around it. We may not like it and we may still condemn it but we can rationalize it. We may not like it and we may still condemn it, but we can rationalise it. It's not something that we automatically struggle with and we have to sort of reconcile.

Not the moral panic as you describe it. Of course, you've been with me in studio since we began broadcasting and we've been discussing rape gangs this morning. And the victims at the heart of this story are women. How do you interpret what you're hearing and seeing on that story? So this story, the most important part of it is the women at the centre, the young women, the girls, the victims and survivors and their stories. And I was as I was getting ready this morning, I had BBC Breakfast on in the background, I was sort of frantically rushing around, getting ready, and then I stopped dead in

my tracks when I was hearing the testimony of one of the survivors. And she was talking about how she was completely failed by the authorities. And the story that she was telling, the narratives, the discourse that was coming out of it, it was something that just could have been in the Victorian period. The victim blaming, she was talking about how she was seen as perhaps sort of deviant or misbehaving. She was in care. Promiscuous, I know, as well. Absolutely, yeah. Her care notes mentioned that she was promiscuous. She didn't fit the

stereotype of what a young woman, how a girl is supposed to behave. And because of this, she wasn't taken seriously when she asked for help. And in fact, that was turned around on her and we saw victim blaming. And it's so interesting that you're able to see that but there is this trajectory, and we'll speak to you of course again, a woman's hour, but how you see it through history, how women have been viewed, whether it was the Middle Ages or Victorian. Absolutely. So one of the things I like to do is jump between historical periods, look at the change over time, because if we don't do that we can get entrenched into the idea that well it's always been like this this is how things are this sort of human nature and that it can't be changed things are sort of immutable and changeable we can't do anything about it. Well if we look back we can see

that's not true all of these narratives all of these discourses came into the social and political imagination at a point in time. Dr. Stephanie Brown, Historical Criminologist at the University of Hull and also a new generation thinker for Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for coming in. I do want to let you know as well if you want to follow the latest developments on the story of the rape gangs, do go to the live page on the BBC News website today and as that develops they will be following along and you can too. One of the most famous faces of her time. She was a beautiful woman.

A sex symbol. A Hollywood star. Who was never seen for who she really was. As an inventor, as a brain. A genius that history overlooked. The explosion in telecommunication sciences that was in large due to Lamar. That should not be forgotten. From the BBC World Service, untold legends, Hedy Lamar. Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Now, next on Woman's Hour, I want to turn to friendships and friends and rankings.

Maybe you caught I mentioned at the beginning of the program, Lily Allen, a podcaster. She recently admitted tongue in cheek, it's true, that she ranks friends. A recent edition of the podcast Miss Me on the BBC in response to a question from a listener on how she manages long-distance friendships, Lily says, I create lists of people who I like in order of how much I like them. I send that list to my assistant and I ask her to schedule the time for me to have FaceTimes with them. Okay, we're not probably going to identify with having an assistant but what about ranking of where your friends

stand? Bit of context, Dr. Tiffany Watt-Smith, cultural historian and author of Bad Friend, A Century of Revolutionary Friendships is with me in studio and the columnist and author Rebecca Reid joins us down the line. Welcome to Woman's Hour to both of you. Rebecca first, do you do this? I do and I'm not actually even that sorry about it even anymore and even worse than this, I don't just write my friends and I think not actually even that sorry about it even anymore and even worse than this I don't just write my friends and I think Lily Allen was joking mostly when she said I think I'm not But I'm not really but no, I think we all do it

I think people are just aren't very honest about it But not only do I write mine I have a relegation zone at the bottom and if I have three bad social encounters with the same person Excluding, you know if they've been horribly bereaved or fired or something like that, but normal circumstances three bad social encounters with the same person, excluding, you know, if they've been horribly bereaved or fired or something like that, but normal circumstances, three bad social encounters, they are relegated. Three strikes, they're out. Three strikes, you're out. Because life is too short to continually come home from the pub when you've given up your one free evening of the week and think, God, they didn't ask me any questions about me, they only wanted to hear about the drama in my life, they're not interested in anything good that's happening to me. I feel rubbish, so I'm not doing it anymore. But is it just acquaintances outer circle that's in

the relegation zone? Surely not your inner circle. Oh absolutely and I think we have this myth that old friendships are definitively good friendships and I really deeply used to believe that because I had lots of friends from school and university that was a sort of a hallmark that I was a good person and that I was really likeable and And actually I found that some of those friendships stopped serving either of us, not just me, but when you continually get together and all you do is talk unkindly about people you went to school or university with who you haven't seen for 10 years, that friendship is not serving you. And it's really not good for your soul if all you have in common with somebody is criticizing people who no longer

remember that you exist. We have to bring Tiffany in here. What's going on? I mean, is this a normal part of behaviour that we just haven't been speaking about before? Well, certainly people have ranked their friends for a really, really long time. I mean, one of the really oldest examples of this is Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics written in the fourth century BCE, so very, very long time ago. Quite a while ago. And he talks about perfect friendships, which are these kind of very idealized, lifelong

friendships, you know, really based in sort of soulmate, he says, you know, it's as if your one heart shared between two people. And then he talks about these kind of lesser forms of friendships. So these might be more transactional friendships, friendships of convenience, or friendships that are just based on sharing similar pleasures but not having very sort of deep and meaningful connection. So he sort of really encouraged us to take this very hierarchical, vertical idea about friendship rather than perhaps thinking about friendships in a more horizontal way in terms of the very different kinds of friendships someone might have in their life. Because I think if we come to modern day, of course, there are our friendships,

if we talk about them, categorised, acquaintances, friends, an inner circle. But what about everybody online or, you know, those friendships that continue through WhatsApp messages or texts or whatever, through DMing, but not actually meeting in real life. I'm wondering, Rebecca, where are they in the friend zone? I think that's totally fine. I really love my tier two friends who I never see in real life because they live in the wrong part of the country. Or I found some of my friends, we just had children a year apart, our children on different nap schedules. I won't see them until 2030. That's just where we are and I've accepted that and I like that

We just talk over whatsapp or we have a gossipy phone call or we send each other I refer to it as a podcast. We send each other a 20-minute voice note with all our updates I don't think that friendships have to be Perfect to be really good and I think sometimes they do exist purely behind the screen because through necessity But it's but you do have to pay attention to how they're making you feel every time you interact with them. It's so interesting you keep coming back to the feeling that you have like I would say Tiffany that there was a massive reset because of the pandemic for example like who you had before and who survived at the other end

of it you know with that depth of feeling or bond, how do you see it? Yeah, I think it's really important to note that over time moments of crisis and political instability have really changed the shape of friendships. So one example is in Mexico in the 16th century, amid the epidemics of smallpox brought by the colonizers. People very rapidly started creating systems of godparents that allowed them to bring in friends into the family unit and create all kinds of relationships of obligation and care, and so on, particularly caring for young children.

So this is a rapid sort of rethink of what friendship meant and the kind of very practical ways in which friends can support each other. This isn't just friendship as liking and who makes you feel good, this is friendship to do with the kind of commitments you're going to make. Like social structure though almost as well, if somebody is going to be around to care for somebody if you're not for example. Yes and I think that that was certainly an experience that I had during the

pandemic and I think actually probably quite a lot of people did which is when we thought about who we were going to be in a bubble with, who we were going to care for, who we were going to look out for. You know those people were often friends rather than biological families who you might be living quite far apart from and this idea that friends might be a very important form of social support in the coming decades I think is very important to think about. It's interesting the word friend as well or best friend. Do you have a best friend Rebecca? I think probably depressing my best friend is probably my fiance which is really embarrassing. It's a man, can you imagine? Here's some comments coming in. Friendships are simple, there are two

types, radiators and drains. Cuddle up to your radiator and let the drains flow away. That's a sentiment you can get behind Rebecca. That's exactly it and also I would say people always talk about fair weather friends, so the ones who are only there for you during good times. I'm the opposite. I think it's really easy to be there for people in bad times. It's the people who you can celebrate when their life's going better than yours. Those are the ones who you're really being a good friend to. Another one about Lily Allen. This is actually a very normal thing to do, categorization, and an everyday thing within the

polymory and ethical non-monogamy communities often goes hands in hands with relationship, anarchy, smorgasbord, I'm learning a lot here. But I think it's necessary to have this classification as adults, our time is precious, we simply do not have the time or energy to give equally to everyone we know.

I wouldn't want to give the same level of energy to a colleague or a distant friend as I do to a best know, I wouldn't want to give the same level of energy to a colleague or a distant friend as I do to a bestie. Tiffany? Well, I think we have in English, we have this very broad word friend, but there are other languages which are more precise in how they define. So Russian speakers speak about a kind of best friend that has a very particular word and then there's a kind of friend you might see only two or three times a year. And then there's a kind of friend that has a different word and then there's a kind of friend you might see only two or three times a year. And then there's a kind of, that has a different word, and then there's a kind of friend you might see, you've only just kind

of got to know, but you hardly know anything about their life. And when you're describing a friend to someone else, you're going to make a decision about which word you choose. And so I've got a Russian speaking friend who finds it very annoying when she speaks to English people because she has no idea which We're just friends of who they're talking about. Now, when I first started looking at friendship, I really thought that this was quite an appealing idea that allowed you to categorise. But actually, the more research I did, the more I thought there's something really valuable about the bagginess of the English word friend. It does really allow a kind of more expansive, messy idea about what friendship might look like. And it includes all those kind of more expansive messy idea about what friendship might look like and it includes all those kind of transactional friendships, transient

friendships, friendships that might take place over online as well as those more intimate friendships that we've learned to value over particularly over the last hundred years. So I think there's something valuable about this kind of rather vague word friend. Dr. Tiffany Watt-Smith, Rebecca Reid, thank you both very much for our friendly discussion that we've had and lots of food for thought there, people getting in touch 84844. Now the government is actively reviewing how to enhance public guidance on surrogacy. After a couple in their 70s recently became legal parents of a surrogate baby, despite

the judges concerns that they will be 89 years old when the child reaches 18. The husband and wife are both aged 72. They applied to the British courts for parental order after the baby was born six months earlier to a surrogate in California using the husband's sperm and a donor egg. Now this is just one of the cases to pass through the family courts over the past year with parents in their 60s and 70s. Joining me to discuss in studio is the BBC journalist Sancha Berg and the fertility lawyer who specialises in surrogacy Beverly Addison also joins us down the line. Sancha let me begin with you. These cases people may not have heard about yet. Tell me a little bit about what the judges have said in court. Well the most important of these cases was heard in February before the most senior judge in the family court

Sir Andrew McFarlane and it's a really striking case where a same-sex couple from London who were in their 60s decided that they wanted to have surrogate children. Obviously they couldn't use their women, they couldn't use their own eggs, they used donor eggs, donor sperm and all this was achieved through a clinic based in North Cyprus. There were a donor egg from a different woman but the gestational mothers, these were twins but they were carried separately, were both Ukrainian. So it was quite complicated, it was quite expensive, it cost them about £120,000. But it left them in this awful legal limbo because it turned out that the

two girls when they were born were stateless. They couldn't be North Cypriot and they couldn't be Ukrainian. And these two women spent four years getting permission to bring the children back to the UK and then they had to go to the family court to get a parental order which or in this case they went for adoption because they didn't have a genetic link with the two girls and so they couldn't qualify to be surrogate parents but Sir Andrew McFarlane the most senior judge in the family division, was very forthright about this and critical of what they'd done. He said anyone seeking to achieve the introduction of a child into their family by following

in the footsteps of these applicants should think again. And actually the Home Office also gave evidence in that case and said they, for public policy reasons, might object to future cases like this. So both the Home Office and the Family Courts were saying, look, you mustn't do it like this. But it is, of course, quite legal. There is no obstacle in law, no age limit either, to stop people doing this. But they are bringing up age as a factor, the judges.

Age was a factor in this case. It was also a factor in the very widely reported case, the K case, where the parents were both 72. And in that case, the judge said to them, please go away. I won't grant the parental order until you come back with other people, younger people, who are able to care for these children if something happens to you. So there is a concern about age certainly and I

think these cases really highlight the fact that for all it can be very difficult to achieve surrogacy in this country and it can be very difficult to adopt a baby. If you have, if you're prepared to spend a lot of money, you can go abroad and do it quite successfully. Let me bring in Beverly here. Is there any legal age limit for the surrogacy route? Good morning, Eula. No, there is no maximum age limit. The only age-related criteria that is in the law is about both parents requiring to be over the age of 18, which some may say is too young. So the law is very interesting in that regard. We also don't have any age limits on who can have a child outside of surrogacy or artificial

reproduction. So for me, it does bring in some really interesting criteria about when do we apply these sort of moral judgments on who can have a child based on their age. These cases have brought up very interesting points. Because Al Pacino for example, who was in the news, he became a father again, that was 2023 at the age of 83. But surrogacy is a controversial topic. Sanjay had mentioned there parental orders that would need to be given by the family court. What are they? Why are they important?

So a parental order is quite important because it is the way that UK law changes the legal parenthood of that child from the surrogate and her spouse or civil partner, if she has one, to the intended parents. Now, the law is very old, it's older than I am, and because of that there's a lot of medical advancements that have happened since it was introduced that the judges are now having to grapple with. So the age is one example of that, people's ability to go abroad and access surrogacy in many more countries where commercial surrogacy is legal, which

isn't in the UK, only altruistic surrogacy is legal in the UK. But there's nothing in the law that says that you can't go abroad. And so when people apply for their parental orders, the judges are in a bit of a difficult situation because when they get a hold of these cases for the first time it's when people are applying for their parental order which is at the end of this journey. The baby has been born to put it frankly. Yeah, by that time, yeah. There's a baby, nine times out of ten, they're living here in the UK with parents who really want them and surrogates who don't want them. So what do you do if you're a judge in that situation?

But also, because just to mention, the time means that situation. But also because just mentioned the time means that the baby will have already bonded with the surrogate parents so it's the judge is looking for example in the case I mentioned in February at children who've been known have been living with these mothers for four years and why would you uproot them from that where they're very well looked after they're meeting all their milestones and put them somewhere else and where else would you put them because in that case the mothers, gestational mothers, couldn't even be traced. So it really is a kind of fait accompli that these judges are

presented with. And coming back to the president of the family division of the High Court, for example, telling parents considering surrogacy abroad to think again. How important is that statement? And do you think I might come back to Beverly to find out if she thinks it will be heeded? Sanjeev first. Well, I think he intended it to be a very strong statement but in real terms the way the law works, the way people are quite free to go abroad and continue to do this, it's quite difficult to see whether that would have real impact. What

would have impact is if the law were to be changed and while the Law Commission said two years ago that the law should be changed, they set out how it should be changed, the government has said it is not a priority and they've got no time to introduce a change to the law. But I know the Home Office did say to you that they're actively reviewing how to enhance public guidance but we don't know what that would look like. We don't know what that would look like and they haven't fully responded to the proposal from the Law Commission either so perhaps in that response they will set out in more detail what they plan to do.

What was the Law Commission's recommendations? Essentially as your other interview is saying it would happen the arrangements would be agreed much earlier so when the child was born their parents would be agreed much earlier. So when the child was born, their parents would be the surrogates. I understand. Sorry, the parents would be the people who've commissioned the surrogate rather than the surrogate mother. Yeah, I understand. But Beverly, with that, do you think, think again, will have any impact

on people, for example, that you have known? No, absolutely not. I think that people know the risks when they enter into an international surrogacy arrangement and nine times out of ten the people who are going abroad for a surrogacy arrangement are doing so for two reasons. One, they can't find a surrogate here. It's a very long process if you don't have a friend or a family member who wants to help you. So that lack of availability of surrogates pushes people abroad. And the second reason they go abroad is because it's cheaper in some jurisdictions

and in other jurisdictions, it's much more expensive, but they have that security of the law allowing them to be parents from birth. So I don't think that the Office of A and D is going to stop any of these people. In fact, I think their delay and implementing the review of the law commissions is actually making it more likely that people will go abroad because it still gives them much greater security sometimes going abroad.

How much might they pay for surrogacy abroad where you can pay? It's just altruistic here in the UK. Yes, so if you're going somewhere like California, you can be paying upwards of £100,000. If you're going somewhere less expensive, such as, you know, we don't want people to go places like Georgia or Cyprus but clients who have been there pay much less, around £15,000, £20,000 sometimes. So if you're in the UK and I think the average is about £35,000 someone will pay but again... But that's considered expenses is my understanding with that particular aspect. Yeah. Really interesting.

Let us see what happens with these cases. The BBC journalist, Sanchia Berg, also a charity lawyer who specialises in surrogacy. Beverly Addison, thanks for coming on Woman's Hour. Now Iris Mwanza started out as a corporate lawyer in both her native Zambia and also in the United States. She's been deputy director in the gender equality division of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but she has gone back to her roots for her debut novel,

The Lion's Den, set in Zambia. It's in the early 1990s. And it follows Grace Zulu, a rookie lawyer, whose first pro bono case is to help the 17-year-old Willbess Molenga. It's been alleged that Willbess, who prefers the name Bessie, had sex with another man and that he has been arrested for offences against nature as homosexual sex was and is characterised in Zambian law. Iris, welcome to Women's Hour.

Thank you. Delighted to be here. Now I heard that your novel was inspired by a real story you read in a newspaper. Yes. So this was a couple of decades ago. The story was of a young, described as a boy, walking through the marketplace in a dress. And this poor kid was set upon by a mob.

And what struck me about the article was the absolute lack of empathy. The story was all about how this kid had provoked the attack. And that stuck with me, obviously, for many, many moons. And I started thinking, what would a defender look like? I was a lawyer at the time, a young corporate lawyer, and I felt frustrated because I couldn't figure out what I would do. And so maybe this book is a manifestation of that frustration which hasn't really gone away. So Bessie, as I mentioned, as Wilbeth calls himself, wears dresses, he's a dancer in a

club. His sister tells Grace, who is the defender in this, that Bessie has come out as gay, the mother is in denial about sexuality and many of the characters that we meet think that homosexuality has no place in Zambia. Why did you decide to highlight that issue? It's real. And I remember thinking that this would be historic by now when I was young. Yes. So this is early 90s. Early 90s. And if you remember those who were old enough at the time. It was a time of huge transformation. You know, the Berlin Wall was coming down.

Nelson Mandela was about to come out of prison. Countries like Zambia, it was sort of the point of regime change, or at least felt like a moment of regime change, and we thought that progress was inevitable. And now, of course course fast forward to today we are seeing that actually progress is not inevitable at all. We are going backwards and this law was on the books.

It's actually a colonial law criminalizing same sex relations. So this is pre 1964 which was Zambia's, but this is all over the continent and is still law today in Zambia and many other countries. And there is no very little movement to try to change things. Society continues to be extremely homophobic. Homosexual sex for both men and women is a criminal act subject to 14 years imprisonment. You know, I did want to take a look at what the current president is saying a couple of years ago. He said homosexuality, that's their choice. We cannot kill them for their choice. The issue is that our country, it is illegal. A decision, homosexuality is a decision they made for themselves. But remember, we must uphold the law. We are a government that's committed to the rule of law. And just recently, they said, we will not support negative

and unnatural sexual practices. We must not be shy to say, we believe in, we are African. We don't support those things. We are Christians. We don't support those things. I mean, that narrative is common across the continent. It's really disappointing. But the wording is actually very violent.

We can't kill them right we it is not us this is something that is alien it is foreign and i think that that is part of reinforcing discrimination persecution prosecution homophobia and these laws are not just sort of stagnantly on the book these these are actively persecuted and prosecuted. And I immediately, but less under the current president Hichilema than under previous, from my understanding, of any recording of it at the moment for actual prosecutions. There are prosecutions happening right now. I think that the current regime is less rabid and less aggressive, but it is still happening. And politically, it is an issue that is few politicians, if any, want to get behind it. What happened when you went to Zambia with this book, I'm wondering?

Not a lot. It's been very difficult to market this book in Zambia for the reasons mentioned before. The homophobia is so strong. There's a lot of fear. People don't want to be associated. And so I've gone around the world and I've been able to promote the book really effectively. You did have a hidden meeting though, did you? I did. I did have a meeting with the LGBTQ plus community. The community exists, it's small. It was a clandestine meeting because people really are afraid.

I said they don't want to be outed necessarily. They don't want to, Ied necessarily. They don't want to, I mean, that affects their ability to work, it affects their ability to thrive. They feel particularly, you know, as H.H., the Zambian president said, this is a Christian nation. And so you hear that a lot, and the subtext of that is, you know, LGBTQ plus community does not exist or they're not welcome in this community. So it sounds like that hasn't changed that much from

the 90s and it's a great read your book as well I have to say but what about the situation for women for a couple of minutes? Grace's mother who is the, you have your protagonist, is Grace. Her mother complains about Grace having too much school, too much education that was kind of turning her head and not making her compliant and following expectations. Has that changed in Zambia, the situation for women? You're obviously an amazing example of reaching the upper echelons of education. I think it depends. So Grace is a rural, she starts off as a young girl living in the village,

and it is very difficult for girls to get through the education system. I think if you live in a city in modern day, I think the chances are probably closer to 50-50. But they're difficult choices. You know, when families are poor and they are having to make a choice of who to educate between a boy and a girl, most of the time the choice will be a boy. But I think for rural dwellers, people who grow up as subsistence farmers, very, very difficult. And the expectation, as in the story, is that the girl will get married, get married young. We know that child marriage still exists, but even if it's not technically child marriage, young, you know, teenagers, I think, is too young to get married for sure. And that cuts off so many opportunities, not just for them,

but also for their children. We know that when women are less educated, that means their children are less educated. And means their children are less educated. And the flip side is true, too. Zambia comes across as very beautiful. There's little details, groundnuts wrapped in newspaper cones, lots of the use of local words, which you also manage to make us understand. A lot of people don't really know that much about Zambia, including myself, actually, until I was reading this book and looking back into some of its history. Why is that, do you think, in our last 30 seconds?

I think it's a relatively small country. It's a peaceful country. It is beautiful and you know, I talk a lot about the lushness and the sort of plethora of trees and flowers, trees and flowers, fruits and vegetables. It's a gorgeous place but I think we are a victim of not making enough noise and sometimes good news is not that exciting on the global scale. Iris Mwanza, thank you so much. Her book is The Lion's Den. And on that point, anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success. That one coming in, Oscar Wilde via Irene. See you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. How is it that some brands and products really capture our imagination,

seem to be ahead of the game but then somehow end up toast. I'm Sean Farrington, presenter of the BBC Radio 4 series Toast which unpicks what went wrong with big business ideas. We hear from people directly involved in building the successes. They were looking for us to build scale quickly, gain a dominant market position and that's what we did. And get expert insight into why they faltered. So in effect, Woolworths was being drained of cash and people tried damned hard to save it. From FHM Magazine to Woolworths via Nike's fitness band and FreeServ's internet service.

Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds. One of the most famous faces of her time. She was a beautiful woman. A sex symbol. A Hollywood star. Who was never seen for who she really was. As an inventor, as a brain. A genius that history overlooked.

The explosion in telecommunication sciences that was enlarged due to Lamar. That should not be forgotten. From the BBC World Service, untold legends, Hedy Lamar. Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.