Woman's Hour - 25/03/2025

Episode Date: March 24, 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. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, this is Clare MacDonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to a brand new week on Woman's Hour. Great to have your company. Netflix drama Adolescence has touched a nerve worldwide. It's now topped streaming charts in 71 countries. The single shot four-parter centres on a 13 year old boy, Jamie, accused of

murdering his female classmate. One episode focuses on the pre-trial assessment between Jamie and his clinical psychologist. Well today we'll hear from both a clinical and forensic psychologist about what it's actually like to be in that room. Staying with the theme of teenage boys, those aged between 15 and 17, they are the age group most likely to be targeted by sextortion. That is when an individual is blackmailed with intimate images whether fake or genuine. The National Crime Agency today launches a month-long social media campaign. We'll hear from them. And to a landmark

exhibition on in Manchester right now it's called Women in Revolt, Art and Activism in the UK 1970 to 1990. It covers women using art and music as a means of protest. The curator was inspired by her mum. So tell me this morning, how has your mum inspired you to revolt, to protest? Or is there a generational flip? Maybe your daughter or son has inspired you. Tell me all about it this morning. You can text the the program the number is 84844 text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media we are at BBC Woman's Hour and you can email through our website as ever or you can send me a whatsapp message or voice note using the number 03700 100444 7100 100 444 that text number again 84844. And speaking of women protesting, let's start this morning with this news. Last night saw the fifth night of fierce protests across

Turkey after the main rival politician to the country's president Erdogan was formally arrested and charged with corruption having been detained on Wednesday. We're talking about Ekrem Emamoglu who is the Mayor of Istanbul and has been declared as the CHP, the Republican People's Party's 2028 presidential nominee just in the last few hours. Erdogan has condemned the demonstrations and accused the CHP of trying to disturb the peace and polarise our people. Women are being seen on the streets in their thousands and Imamolu's wife Dilekkaya Imamolu addressed crowds outside of the Istanbul City Hall yesterday. Let's talk about this further with the BBC's Emily Wither, live from Turkey now,

along with Turkish feminist activist Feride Erlap, sorry, welcome both of you. Hello, good morning. Good morning. Emily, let's start with you. We've seen a lot of footage on social media of women throughout these protests. We've seen Turkish women demonstrate over fairly specific issues prior to this but just give us an idea what proportion of the protesters did women make up? I mean there are many women on the street. I'd say that there's just as many men as there is women. And for young women in particular we have to remember that they've only known the rule of one man, President Edwin. He's been in power now for 22 years, and they're very worried about what their future looks like. I think what's interesting about these protests is that they are drawing in a wide range of people across the political spectrum. And when you speak to protesters,

they tell you that they're not on the streets because of politics, because they necessarily support the opposition, but because they are worried that their country is sinking deeper into autocracy. They say that they're on the streets fighting for the future of their democracy in Turkey. And you know, for women, there are many issues here, like the economy is in a particularly bad way. And we know that when it comes to the economy, women are particularly hard hit. Inflation is running at 39 percent here. And men's employment pre the economic crisis was actually increasing.

But but for women, employment here has has decreased. So we know that women are really hard hit by the economic problems here. There's also a big problem here with violence against women, particularly femicides. And I have also noticed going to these demonstrations that there are women in the crowd who have bought their children out. I spoke to one mother who was there with her 11 year old and she said that she was fighting for his future because she wanted him to live in a democratic country and she didn't want to see the country sliding deep into an authoritarian regime.

So they're speaking up and we're seeing them on the streets. How important are women, Emily, when it comes to Erdogan's base of support? So that's a really good question because I think if we look particularly among Muslim women, they are the ones that have really helped propel him to power for these last two decades. Erdogan for years was seen as a hero for Muslim women because they saw him as their protector because he scrapped a ban on wearing headscarves in public institutions in 2013. But I think after 20 years in power, many Muslim women say that they fear the government is becoming increasingly conservative. And

that doesn't appeal to a younger generation of Muslim women. They feel that some of their hard fought for rights are now being lost because in order for President Erdogan to stay in power and to have a majority in the parliament, he's been pushed towards some extremist coalition partners. And some Muslim women that I've spoken to say that they feel that the government now is pursuing anti-gender policies that no longer speak to them. President Erdogan has actually declared 2025 as the year of the family. He wants to instil more traditional values in society and he thinks women should have at least three children and that just doesn't appeal to a lot of young women here. They don't like to be told what to do and what is interesting is that it's increasingly

not appealing to a lot of young Muslim women too. Well let's bring in Feride Alp now. Feride I guess a lot of what you've just heard from Emily comes as no surprise to you at all. Why do you think we're seeing so many women on the streets of Turkey? Well women, it hasn't been these protests alone that have brought women out into the streets. Emily was very correct in saying that women have been protesting for many many years. So there's been longstanding bans against protests in Turkey. Ever since the Gizeh uprising in 2013, we've seen increasing police oppression, pressure

out on the streets. Many protests being banned, including March 8 International Women's Day protests, have been banned consecutively in the last, since 2019, basically. But despite this, despite all of this pressure on public demonstration, women have basically been the only force that have actually still been able to keep the streets, been able to be out on the streets, voice their displeasure and their kind of indignation against everything going on on the streets in this increasingly authoritarian climate. So women know basically probably better than most factions of society here in Turkey what

it means to live under a one-man rule and have been protesting against that one-man rule. Particularly we saw this when Turkey withdrew from the Istanbul Convention because Erdogan decided one midnight and put out a presidential decree saying we will leave this convention that protects women from violence against women and then too we saw major eruption of protests. So basically women know that the streets are the only way to

kind of defend our lives and defend our rights. One of those women we saw on the streets last night, in fact, in front of City Hall in Istanbul was the wife of Imamoğlu, Dilek Kaya. She was addressing the crowds, she was saying I'm with you, I stand with you, what do you think to her involvement? So on the one hand, while protests in the streets are very much kind of dominated by women and women's kind of political representation of their own voices, when you look at macro politics in women's representation, we see that there aren't really that much women who have kind of been allowed into that very male space of politics in Turkey. Very, very low women's representation in parliament,

very, very low women's representation in municipalities as well. So it's actually a bit appalling and shocking that the major opposition party in kind of running this latest couple of days of protest have basically almost no women's representation in kind of in those spaces where speeches are being given. We see that all the politicians who are kind of addressing the people are all men. And this also actually says something about the kind of discrepancy between that level

of macro politics and the reality out on the streets, where it's mostly kind of young women out there who are trying to kind of speak for their lives. Diliki Momolo is there in her capacity as the spouse, the wife of Ekremi Momolo, who was arrested. She is becoming an increasingly important political figure and good on her in terms of the way that she galvanizes and the way that she speaks. But we, of course, as feminists and young women

and women out here have been protesting for many years, believe that women have to be in politics in a capacity more than the wife of, basically. I think we deserve a lot more than that and we're going to achieve a lot more than that. What's the block then? Why aren't women going into politics? They don't see it as a place for them or are they being blocked? What's happening? mostly, but also because politics is inexpensive. I mean, Emily was also talking about how the economic crisis hits women more than anyone, because women's employment is incredibly low. In Turkey it's historically never gone over 30 percent, really. Women are employed in very flexible jobs, in insecure jobs, because also of this notion of what she explained as the family and traditional gender roles.

So women, even when they go into employment, are seen as a supportive role, so supporting men who are actually supposed to bring in the bread. But increasingly that's really not the case. However, we see that women are not equal in employment, not equal in terms of the education we receive. And therefore, we're not as rich as men. And politics is business for the rich. And mainstream politics basically

does its best to block out women. But the streets are a different issue. And young women have made their presence felt on the streets. We are getting reports here that women are being arrested and potentially targeted. We can't verify those, but what can you tell us? It's quite brutal out there, to be honest. And the reason why you can't verify it is because there's a massive crackdown against reporters and women's organizations as well.

All of our Twitter accounts, our social media accounts are being suspended and withheld. Basically feminist organizations, women's organizations, leftist organizations, news outlets, independent journalists have been facing not just arrests, but also shutdowns of their accounts. So they're being prevented from reporting. So basically it's up to individuals to report the violence that they've been facing. Their internet kind of bans, so the curtailing of internet has been a serious issue. People can't access the internet properly in Turkey.

That's why you can't verify what's going on. But I can say that in past protests as well, and in this one, we see intense police violence and targeted particularly in a very kind of sexist way towards young women who are out there at night on the street defying those traditional gender roles. We've seen women being kicked in the vagina, women being strip searched after being arrested. It's a form of sexual violence. Strip searches are used, weaponized as a form of sexual violence. This is all very serious. And the point is to try to intimidate protesters and also young women as part of those protesters from coming out and staking a claim to their lives. Let's go back to Emily finally.

Emily, have you heard anything along those lines? What have you witnessed out there as a BBC correspondent? Well, I have witnessed a lot of violence to try and break up the protests. It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, the police are firing tear gas, they're firing pepper spray, they are launching water cannons and they are also arresting a lot of people. And it's interesting because a lot of women protesters that I've spoken to have said that one of the reasons they're out is because they don't feel safe in Turkey anymore, they don't feel

safe when it comes to violence against women and And I'll just pick up on something that Farideh said there. When Istanbul pulled out of the convention in 2021, that was the law that prevented and combated violence against women. The government here said that it had been hijacked by people attempting to normalize homosexuality and that it went against Turkish social and family values. And they said that domestic laws would protect women instead. And many women over the years have told me that they don't feel protected by these domestic laws. And actually what we've seen, now the government don't keep official figures, they're counted instead by women's organisations. But what we've seen is femicide rising in this country, particularly

in the home. So just last year there were 394 femicides and 258 of them were suspicious deaths. And I'll never forget a quote that one women's rights expert told me here, and that was, you know, a lot of women just seem to accidentally fall from balconies here and we know that a lot of the violence does happen in the home here so just from March last year to March this year 239 women were killed by male family members so violence against women is a big issue here and it is one of the things that are bringing women out onto the streets. Thank you so much for joining us. That's the BBC's Emily Wither joining us live from Turkey

and you also heard the voice of Turkish feminist activist Feride Alp undoubtedly a story we will return to here on Woman's Hour. Now since its release the TV programme Adolescents has caused widespread discussion around how social media is shaping our teenagers lives. For those who haven't yet seen it the four-part series follows the fallout from 13-year-old Jamie's arrest on suspicion of murdering his female classmate Katie.

His social media accounts show he had been radicalized by misogynistic posts. His parents are caught completely unaware. During the show Jamie is questioned by a psychologist in order to understand his feelings towards women for a pre-trial assessment. The conversation at times jovial, at times strained and at times angry. Here's a clip of Erin Doherty who portrays psychologist Bryony talking to Jamie played by Owen Cooper. I'm interested in what being a man feels like for you. I don't know.

It's too big a question, right? And the fight's too small a question. Which is why it's more useful for me to see where the conversation goes and stare it a bit into what you think of your dad and your granddad for instance. The type of men you think they are rather than saying so Jamie what do you think being a man feels like? So Jamie what do you think being a man feels like? It's not a trick, it's just a conversation. So do you think it would be okay if we speak about your dad a bit? A clip from the TV show Adolescents produced by Warp Films, Matriarch

Productions and Plan B for Netflix. Joining me now are two women who know what it's like to be in that room having those difficult conversations. Dr. Amani Milligan, a clinical psychologist and Dr. Ruth Tully, a consultant forensic psychologist. Welcome both of you. Hi. Thank you so much for dropping by the Woman's Hour studio. Dr. Amani Milligan, let's start with you first of all. You did a great TikTok post on this with your professional head on and you said it ticks so many boxes. What it's like for somebody like you to be there, what did they get so right? I think the thing that they touched on really brilliantly is that there are so many different factors at play. I think you know you'll

see in the interviews when you talk to that they're talking to the cast you know they didn't want there to be a one thing that you could blame this situation on. You know you saw flaws within the school system, you saw difficulties with their family, you saw how social media had to had a play and everything as well. So the fact that they can show you that there are so many different factors at play here that that interacts with each other and create this unique experience is something that I think they did really really well because this is something that we need to address these are things that we need to consider at all levels. I think part of the reason it's so confronting for people when they watch the show is that, you know,

this is a quote unquote normal looking boy, you know, he is quite young looking and quite innocent looking. And I think a lot of the times when we think about these kind of horrific violent attacks, you know, the media and the news around it will be like, you know, this is an animal, this is a monster, this is someone that is quite detached from you, or maybe they'll be speaking about people who have quite difficult life experiences that, you know, are outside of the norm, quote unquote. So to see it happen

in a, you know, quite normal looking family, typical family, is something that I think it brings it home. And actually all these factors can also influence those young people as well, not just the ones that we think are outside of the norm. And easier for us as society to digest, if you can put somebody over there. Absolutely. It's not in our home, it's over there. Yeah, you can detach yourself from it as well and you can think, you know, this would never happen to me, but it very much can happen. And in my experiences, when I'm working with young people, they come from all walks of life.

And there are so many different factors at play and you know it can be quite shocking for young people and families when they actually become a part of this type of situation because they're like well how did this happen, what's been happening here and I'm like well quite a few things. At the individual level with the young person but also within the family but also thinking wider and politically as well all of these things work together to unfortunately create these situations. Dr Ruth Tully, an overview from you then on the drama itself and how you think it, because everybody seems to be saying and anyone who's involved in your line of work

with young people seem to be saying it got the tone right and it got the complexity of what you have to deal with spot on. Would you agree with that? I think that's exactly right. There were some procedural things that weren't quite how things would go in real life but that was overtaken by the tone and the acting which was absolutely amazing. I would totally agree with all of those things that affect violent decision making in terms of it's not just one thing, it's not just about his experiences within his family or the community or school, it's about all of those things and what's different now which the show clearly makes a great

highlight of is the influence of online activity which as parents is very different from how we grew up, the urgency of the desire for redress for Jamie and so on. And being in that room and what I thought, and what really struck me was showing that psychologist as human as well. We are affected by the work that we do. It's unusual that you will come across a child who may have murdered someone who is so young.

And that is emotionally affecting for us as human beings and psychologists as well. So I thought that was a great touch. And you do the same type of pretrial assessments as the little snippet we heard there. And that clip showed the fine line you have to tread. How hard is it when you're working with somebody who is that young and what goes into assessing

a young person in that situation? It's very difficult. So I tend to choose to work with adults at all the stages of the justice system, but I do work with young people as well. And what struck me and it highlights there the difficulty is that child was asking for affirmation. He wanted to be liked. Towards the end of that episode, I'm sure people have seen it if they're tuning in today, he asks, do you like me? Do you like me? And that is so important for him. And we can see that played out in the alleged offence as well. But as a psychologist, in terms

of maintaining that professionalism, you tone as a person who wants to tell someone they are likeable, they are worthy of being liked, but at the same time trying to remain as neutral as possible to not affect that assessment you're doing which needs to be as independent as it as possibly it can be. And do you do that because she refuses to kind of get drawn in the drama? Is that something you can't, you can't affirm that if somebody asks you that? Do you like me? Absolutely. I may have said things around I've enjoyed speaking with you, it's been a challenge at times, I might have fed that back quite openly because clearly

it was aggressive during that and I think clear feedback in the moment where that doesn't place you at risk is important and addressing that in a transparent way. So there might have been some things that would help the dynamic and his trust of professionals that wouldn't have compromised my independence that I would have said. But in the moment you've got to make the best decision you can and you're never going to know what that child or an adult at a later stage of the justice system is going to ask you. So you've got to respond thinking on your feet which is one of the challenges we face as psychologists. That certainly portrayed that.

Amani you work with teenage boys, so I guess you see all of these vulnerabilities. What would you say about social media and the impact it's having? It's having a huge impact. You know, it's grown to a state now where you don't really know what's going to come upon your algorithm and it's very easy for them to get sucked into quite harmful content. And the thing is, it never really starts with that, you know, most extreme point of view. It would be something around maybe, you know,

going to the gym and that feels like, okay, that's fine. This person is telling me to look after myself. Okay, that's fine. And then slowly but surely you hear more difficult and harmful speech from that person and they can get sucked in so easily because it happens so quickly. The for you page and TikTok, for example, from that person and they can get sucked in so easily because it happens so quickly. The

for you page and TikTok for example is very much designed to suck you in and keep you you know engaged in that way and at that age as teenagers a lot is happening within the brain but also psychologically within the brain you know they are kind of more driven for rewards and there's a higher kind of urge for dopamine, which means, you know, that quick immediacy that you get from TikTok is going to feed them really, really well. But then also as well, they don't really have the same level of executive functioning to be able to sort of inhibit that impulse and that want for that reward. So they're going to be on it for longer. And then if you put on top of that where they're at psychologically,

and they're trying to build their own sense of independence and identity, they're very much susceptible to messages that tell them about how they should act as a man. They're going to be looking out for those templates and sort of adhere to those things because that's the social group that they belong to, so they're going to want a template for that. So if you think about the kind of where they're at with their brains, but also where they're at psychologically, all of those things interlink, which means that social media is a great tool to kind of suck them in.

And they get pushed down, once they start their misogynistic rabbit holes very often. What have you noticed there? I've noticed an increase in kind of the language that I'm seeing that young boys are using in, in my time with them. I'm seeing kind of a lot of sort of sexist slurs, you know, directed towards their mothers or how they speak about relationships and how they're going to navigate relationships, again, leans towards that misogynistic side. And, you know, with some challenging, you can start to pick underneath it. And, you know, a lot of them don't really understand what they're saying, you know, especially when they're particularly young. It's sort of something that they've soaked in. It's a message that they've taken in. And that's what I've been told to think. And what, you know, that's what women are like.

So that's true without any kind of critical thinking behind it. And I guess that's where adults need to be interested in this and start to think about, you know, what does this actually mean for you and have those deeper conversations with them because if we kind of brush it off or ignore it or if we are too confronted by it and get a bit scared of it which is understandable we can then kind of lead them to their own devices which can be really really harmful. Just want to bring Ruth back in there and this is a very key theme that the parents are well we didn't know we thought he was safe because he was in the home he was, he wasn't out on the streets.

But, you know, it's what you let into your home and what they're accessing. How much do parents do you think know about their teenagers' lives these days? And how can you find out more? Because without alienating them even further, which is always the tricky balance, isn't it? Well, it can be very little that parents actually know about what's going on. We feel safe, we feel that they're safe because they're in the home but what we don't realise is that people are in our home in that sense through the internet and they're at this vulnerable age

where they're finding their own identity and from what I've seen as well particularly working with sexual offenders is that that exposure to not just misogynistic but also sexualised content, different types of pornography can desensitise young people to what is expected within sexual relationships and so on. And there's a lot of sexual harm caused by that. So I think it's about parents being curious and trying to find out it's easier, as was just said, to ignore. People are scared, people are worried, don't understand it, but to think I can't understand is going to be a problem, it's going to be a barrier, so be curious. It's also about transparency. If people are covertly trying to monitor what their children

are doing online, that can just foster mistrust. So it's about doing that collaboratively and in discussion and being curious. But unfortunately we don't have all of the answers. It would be a lot easier if we did but so we have to be aware as parents that this harmful content is out there and at that age it's just so influential about their attachment patterns, their templates, their healthy relationships and their attitudes and once attitudes are formed and it does become attitudinal those things are much more difficult to change. Harder to move on from. Amani, this programme has been even discussed in Parliament. Keir Starmer said that we need to tackle the emerging and growing problem raised by the programme. And as you said, it's multifactorial.

But if we were to start with one thing, where should we start? I think we need to educate ourselves. Yeah, I think we need to think a little bit more around kind of development and relate to our own experiences as teenagers. What was it like actually? Even though we didn't have the same landscape of social media, I think we can relate to that idea of wanting to be liked or, you know, our social circus being really important. So kind of engaging with our young people in that way is really, really important. But it is multifactual. And I think in terms of a sort of political standpoint, there needs to be policies that will support schools to have the education that they need,

whether that's through PSHE or sexual classes. We need to think a little bit about funding as well. How do we fund the services, schools, charities, youth centres, etc. to be able to have the resources in place to be able to support families and young people to engage in these conversations as well. So on a political level, there needs to be policy and resources available for everybody to be able to do this. Thank you both so much for coming in. Such a fascinating discussion. And again, it will continue because of the popularity

of this particular program. Dr. Armani Milligan, clinical psychologist, and Dr. Ruth Tully, a consultant forensic psychologist. If you'd like to join in the debate on that one, you can. You can text the program. Our number is 8484. Hello, I'm Namulanta Kombo, the host of Dear Daughter. What do you want to tell your daughter about your own life? What would you want her to know about the world? Please write her a letter

and share it with us. Your advice, your hopes, your fears and your jokes. I want to hear it all. Visit our website at bbcworldservice.com slash dear daughter for more information on how to send us your letters. See you soon. Four. Now, staying with the theme of vulnerable teenagers, we move from perpetrators to victims. The National Crime Agency has launched a month-long social media campaign targeting teenage boys aged 15 to 17. Why are they doing that? Well, it's to draw attention to the rising cases of financially

motivated sexual extortion or sextortion. This is when victims are blackmailed into paying money after an offender threatens to release nude or semi-nude photos of them. It could be a real photo taken by the victim and shared online or even a fake image created of them by the offender. The National Crime Agency's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Unit received 380 reports of sex extortion in 2024. But they say these cases are generally under-reported and the actual figure is likely to be much higher.

The aim of the social media campaign is to teach young boys how to report this crime and support them to know that when it happens it is never their fault. I'm joined by Marie Smith, senior manager at the NCA's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. Welcome to the program. Good morning. And Emma Hardy from the independent not-for-profit organization Internet Watch Foundation. Morning Emma.

Good morning. Okay, let's start with you Marie Smith. Let's start with what sextortion is and if you could move in a little bit further to the microphone that would be great. Perfect. Yes, of course. So we have been seeing a real increase in reports of young males being targeted by people abroad. So these are criminals

who are targeting males worldwide to get them to share indecent images, these often nude images of themselves. What they'll then do is threaten them that they will release these images to everybody that they know, their school, their friends, their parents. They'll show them that they have those details. So it's quite easy to be able to find that information online and then they'll blackmail them for money. So this is purely financial gain and what they're looking for is either money or some kind of financial demand or reward. So gift cards are quite popular for instance. And the driver there is shame, isn't it? It's exactly what we were just talking about in

our previous discussion. You know, you say to a teenage boy, I'm going to publicly humiliate you. That will send them into a spiral, won't it exactly what we were just talking about in our previous discussion, you know, you say to a teenage boy I'm going to publicly humiliate you that will send them into a spiral won't it completely? So they're tapping into the vulnerability that young boys particularly are less likely to report any type of criminality or abuse of any kind They're tapping into that and they're really pushing on that shame and humiliation. So if that's to go out there How would that make you feel? They're really, really callous in how they're approaching these young males. They absolutely have no care consideration for their life. So we have sadly seen a number of young boys who have died

by suicide of effects. We've had three cases in the UK now. There's been a number in the US, I think they're hitting over 20. So it's an extremely serious crime and they will actually tell young people that that's what they need to do should they not meet this financial demand. So what you're doing is flushing this out in the open and saying this isn't you and listen to this. So how is this campaign going to run? Completely. So we're running for a month on social media platforms, predominantly in the environments that the young people are, or some of this crime is happening.

So within Snapchat and Instagram, for instance. We're keeping it really simple. So we're not using the term sextortion. We ran and we kind of commissioned research before this campaign that looked at young people's or young males' attitudes particularly towards it. We were finding that 74% couldn't explain what sextortion was when asked, 74% as well didn't see as a request for a nude image as an attempt of sextortion and 43%

didn't know where to report. So that's really concerning to us particularly as law enforcement that if this was to happen usually through the night, so this is times when parents and or carers are not available or unaware of what's happening and that they just didn't know where to go. It's really important for us as law enforcement that we're saying this as well because the tactics that are used by offenders, what they're saying to them is you've basically broken the law so what you've done is you've shared a nude image of yourself, that's an indecent image and you've broken the law. So what you've done is you've shared a nude image of yourself, that's an indecent image, and you've broken the law so you will get in trouble. They can't find me, we're based abroad, but you're there and if you were

to report this then you're gonna be criminalized. So you're switching it around. Let's bring in Emma Hardy. I mean I was surprised Emma that it was young teenage boys because often when you think of this you think it's girls that are the most vulnerable. Why are teenage boys the biggest sector of this problem? Yeah thank you so I'm from the Internet Watch Foundation and we are the UK body working internationally to find and remove images and videos of child sexual abuse and it's absolutely the case that most of our work revolves around sexual imagery of girls. And that is what we see being most heavily distributed on the internet. And we were absolutely shocked when we launched a reporting service with Childline called Report Remove for young people.

We wrongly presumed that it would be girls who would use this service the most. And it wasn't. It was boys. It is consistently boys and I'm so pleased we're able to fulfil this gap but what that is a sign of is that boys are being targeted online. They're incredibly vulnerable and the methods by which this is going about so boys may well be targeted and think that they are starting a conversation of somebody on the internet that they might have a sexual relationship with. They are duped into sending a nude and then that gets played back to them and I'm so delighted that the NCA is running this campaign and at the Internet Watch Foundation because we see the imagery once it's been reported through, just to

paint you a picture, that young man will be sent back to him his own nude image against perhaps a profile picture of his social media in a collage and also a screengram of his social media contacts or perhaps it's going to be his school. So it's put together as a collage, it's played back to him and very often we'll see written text scrawled across the top. So imagine someone's just writing text and it will have a threat on that text and normally the threat will suggest that that young man himself is sexually attracted to children and that he's actually sexually abused a child.

And that is what they're being threatened with going out onto the social media platforms. So you could imagine, gosh, that young man alone in probably a bedroom and not knowing what to do. And this is why we're seeing young men being driven to take their own lives. But what Report Remove can do is it enables that young person to be able to report it anonymously, directly through to us in the Internet Watch Foundation and we can create a digital fingerprint of that image, get it out to tech platforms and prevent that image from going up on the Internet. And it's a complementary, I guess empowering method that that young person can take alongside ensuring that they are reporting it appropriately

to the police as well and see up as Marie has just explained. Yeah, I mean that's fantastic work that you're doing and Marie this is the whole point isn't it? It's saying this is the truth, you haven't committed a crime, you've been the victim here. So how are you hoping this campaign is going to change that in the minds of young people because you really need these young boys To come forward and not be shamed and say this has happened to me. I agree. It's the tip of the iceberg We know that we want them to and in this campaign what we're saying to them is don't pay So that can be really challenging because if you're in a situation when someone's telling you if you give me 30 pounds This will stop it won't make it stop. The more you, you know, they know that you can pay

they will continue to ask you to pay so please don't pay, stop all contact, block the individuals and ensure that you report. So making some really clear definitions of what to do in that situation as they were in this in the commission's research very unaware of what to do so that situation as they were in the commission's research very unaware of what to do. So it's very practical advice, really simple advice, and hopefully we're just going to reach as many young males as possible. Yeah. I mean, what about going into schools with this? It seems like such a brilliant campaign and so needed. We do. We have a number of resources in schools. So we're a COP education. We run education

programs from age four to age 18 within schools around the topics of relationships, online child sexual abuse. We are currently creating an online blackmail resource for launch into schools in September that will cover this financial element and also the other side of the camp for sexual gratification as well. So yes, alongside this we've also launched guidance for parents and carers. So if you're listening to this, your parent or carer, go to see up education, share it in your WhatsApp groups, send it to your schools and there's some really comprehensive information on how do you have that conversation with your child. It can be tricky. It can be slightly awkward, but go for

it. You won't regret it. Just a final word to you. I mean, it's to say there's lots of themes running through the program when we were talking about the drama adolescents a short time ago and how social media factors in to real life outcomes, often tragic. I mean, what about internet service providers? What about the platforms that are allowing this content to be put up, to be communicated? What needs to change there? Well, I think we need to wait to see the impact of the Online Safety Act. These platforms have to prevent this type of imagery from circulating. They have to make sure it's supported and it's taken down.

Platforms need to design their tools safely in the first place, and there is a lot more work that needs to be done. And the thing I will highlight is where the conversation starts on the internet is not necessarily where that imagery is then shared and we are concerned about heavily encrypted parts of the internet where young people are moved to so that these conversations, the image shared can take place without that platform itself knowing. Parents talking little and often to young people in their lives about online safety is simply the best thing, the best parent care of superpower that there is. They really need to be having these conversations in order

that their young people in their lives will tell them if something goes wrong. It's been brilliant having you both on. Thank you so much. Such an important topic. You heard the voice there of Emma Hardy from Internet Watch Foundation. That's an independent not-for-profit organisation and Mary Smith, Senior Manager at the NCA's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command. Thank you both very much for dropping by to the Womazare studio. Now last Tuesday Nula was joined by three UK pop legends Mutia, Buena, Keisha, Buchanan and Siobhan Donohue, better known as the Sugar Babes. They achieved six number one singles and have been nominated for six Brit Awards winning for Best Dance Act in 2003, it was a while ago now. They started their music career together in 1998

but after Siobhan left the band in 2001 there were several line-up changes and it wasn't until 2019 that they came back together as the Sugar Babes. They now have a brand new single, Jungle, and are getting ready for their biggest ever UK and Ireland tour which kicks off in Leeds next month. Here's a short extract. Nuala asked them what is a sugar babe? What is a sugar babe? Good question. I mean the thing is it is a complex past but I think that for a lot of people they move jobs, different things happen in your life. Since 1998 quite a few. The journey is what it is and we actually got together when we were 12 and 13 so I think the idea that we would have everything would have just been hunky-dory until now, you know

that's just not how life goes but I so I would say that we don't regret our journey actually I'm glad it's led us here. Let's talk about that though so what age were you when you started your career? All of us were 12 and 13. I mean, it's so. And our babies. Yeah. I know when I hear about someone working, starting to work at that age now,

I'm like, your brain hasn't fully formed. But it was something that we wanted to do. Like our parents were so supportive. They were. And not a lot of people know this, but we actually, we all sort of grew up together basically. Michelle and I went to school together and singing in the studio was like our afterschool hobby.

And so it was sort of like very, very organic. And then things just started to move, you know, for us people would come into the studio, hear us sing and then all of a sudden there was a label deal in front of us, you know. So I think for us, it was always about keeping it as organic as possible. The more famous you become, the more success you have, it becomes something else to other people.

So for us coming back together is about bringing it back to sort of the essence of what we were, which is just friends that grew up together who liked music and that's it, not about the rest of the stuff. Of which there was so many. I mean people, you were teenagers as he says, not even teenagers actually when you started, even pre-teens really. And like many other teenagers or pre-teens you fell out with one another. But for you, fallouts were tabloid fodder, whether it was allegations or feuds or bullying for example. But people might be wondering, how do you leave all that behind, that intense scrutiny, which must be very difficult to go through at a young age in the public eye and come back and say do you know what? We're going on tour together. I think we just rise above it

I think that you know a lot of what people have read isn't actually kind of what went down and you know life is more kind of nuanced and You know, there's more context to it than what people would ever have known or heard and you know only we know our past and our true story and you know we bring it back to the music and what we love and it's been important for us to make it about that because the legacy is so incredible. You know it's women in particular in this industry that kind of you know it becomes more about the gossip and what they look like and blah blah blah. You know we want it to be about the music and our art. Fantastic. Sugar Babes they are out on tour soon and you can hear that interview in full.

If you want to just go to BBC Sounds and Woman's Hour and look up Tuesday the 18th of March. So a landmark exhibition on in Manchester right now it's called Women in Revolt, Art and Activism in the UK 1970 to 1990. It's currently on at the Whitworth and features more than 90 women artists and collectives whose ideas help fuel the women Liberation Movement during a period of significant social, economic and political change. Now it includes themes of maternal and domestic experiences, anti-racism and LGBTQ plus activism, Greenham Common of course, and the peace movement and punk and independent music. It's all in there.

First shown at the Tate Britain in London in 2023. The exhibition highlights the ways in which women challenge societal norms through their creativity both collectively and independently using their lived experiences to create art and fight injustice. Delighted to say I'm joined in the Womens' Hour studio by Lindsay Young, independent curator and researcher who cura- can't even say that word, too many curators in that one sentence, who curated the exhibition when she worked at Tate Britain and Amrita Dalloo, researcher and writer who contributed to the catalogue for Women in Revolt. Welcome both of you. Thank you. It's great to have you here, it really really is. Lindsay, tell us about Women in

Revolt, the thinking behind this exhibition. I think we should start with your mum. She was your inspiration. Yeah, so there are two main reasons I made the exhibition. And the first was I wanted to make a present for my mum. So my mum was called Gail Stewart and she died five years ago, yesterday actually, at the age of 64. And she was a nurse, she was a single mum, she was incredibly left-wing, she lived with a chronic illness, she was a carer, and she was a waspy woman. So her life was really

touched by so many things that affect ordinary women. But she was also incredible and amazing and beautiful and funny and a real inspiration. And I really felt that society didn't see or celebrate that kind of post-war generation of women. And so I wanted to put them in the spotlight and to give them a public platform to show kind of how they've made our lives richer and allowed the next generation of feminists to come through. And then the second reason was that I was working at Tate in this really privileged position as curator of British art, but I realised I didn't know British art. I knew white men's British art because that's what I'd been taught. And having grown up with this amazing single mum in a kind

of socialist environment, I knew about the socio-political context and I thought there must be feminist artwork by UK artists out there. So I went to find it, really. And did your mother protest? I mean, was she out on the streets or did she do it in other ways? No, my mum always called herself a reluctant feminist. I think she wanted an easier life than she got. But she was deeply, she cared deeply about social justice. She'd worked at the height of the AIDS epidemic. She'd worked with patients in London when other nurses wouldn't see them. And she hadn't embodied feminism, I would say, rather than

and also she didn't have time. You know, she was looking after me and being a nurse. Bringing up the next generation of feminists. And Rita, let's pick up on what Melinzi said there. You know, there is that kind of the arts of social justice. It's very male up to that point, up to the Tate exhibition, another one at the Whitworth, but also very white. So how have you contributed to this exhibition? So I wrote an exhibition essay for the catalog and I was talking about my experience of seeking all of these women that I knew existed

but had no idea about them. So I grew up in Birmingham, half of my family are from East Midlands, but even when I actually entered into the formal art history training, nobody told me about any trace of these women. They were nowhere to be found and there was this watershed moment for me where I went to the Stuart Hall Library and I found this compendium that was made by the artist Maud Salter who's in the show and she wrote this anthology called Passion where she documented all of the Black and South Asian women artists, actors, spoken word, poets, musicians, everyone from Mira Sayal and Bernardine Everisa to

all of the women that featured in the show. She made this anthology because she knew no one would be documenting their work and She made this anthology because she knew no one would be documenting their work and she made this anthology with passion. And so my interest is really in finding all of the substantial evidence that suggests that all of these women came before me, even though everyone told me that I basically existed in my own vacuum. And what's really interesting about all of the ephemera that's in the show, especially about the black women and South Asian women artists, was that it shows that they actually had to create the whole worlds and structures within which the art existed. So they couldn't

just be artists, but they had to be their own curators and gallerists and publicists. So I'm really interested in building that whole picture and making sure that these things don't happen again. Well, you're doing a great job. Who you found, I'm just interested to know who really leapt out at you and thought it's a crying shame that no one's known about this person before. Well I have to say, I always have to shout out LaBeynne, I mean, because even though I think that she's probably really well known and she's literally just been announced to that she's going to be

Representing Britain at Venice Biennale. I think the whole prolific aspect of her work especially as an artist curator in the 80s has completely gone amiss and she curated an exhibition Called the thin black line and it's its 40th anniversary And this happened at the ICA and she invited 11 black women artists to take up, she wanted them to take up in space in the whole gallery but she was given the thinnest corridor that led to the toilet but best believe these women took up space and they made sure that all of the walls from floor to ceiling were covered in their art. I also just wanted to

quickly shout out Pratiba Palmer as well, a queer South Asian filmmaker and documentary maker whose work is in the final to last room and she honest that was really inspiring to see her work. I can't wait to go there. I'm in Manchester a lot so I'm definitely going along to this. Lindsay, before I get on to talk a bit about the kind of Manchester element to this and how you make it relevant to the North, what about you? Which, if you had to pick a piece from this exhibition, which is yours? I mean, that's a big question. We cover a lot. The show features works from 1970 through to 1990, so it really kind of runs the whole gamut. But I would

probably have to say a poster by Sea Red Collective. So it's a screen printed poster, really bright, really beautiful colors. And it's an image of Margaret Thatcher, who haunts the exhibition, I must say. So it's an image of Margaret Thatcher when she's just become Prime Minister. And in the frame around her, there's texts listing all the things that she's done that are negative to women. So, right by, you know, closing women's hospitals, cutting nursery places. And then above this image, the text says, a message to the women of our nation, and out of her mouth, there's a speech bubble that says, tough. And I think that the directness of that is really special special but also because it was

made by a collective. So that was a you know a group of women working together who weren't interested in financial gain they were interested in making amazing things in an affordable way that had a political and social impact. And have you had to look at how you kind of draw the eye of someone up north to this exhibition because there's a rich history isn't there of kind of social protest in and around Manchester? Of course there's a hugely rich history and there's also a rich curatorial history there's a really important curator called Jill Morgan who worked in Rochdale and LaBena in fact worked up there as well and it's often the case

with the research I did I worked on this for six years and spent three years traveling the country looking under beds, looking in cupboards. And it's often the case. We were talking about in Manchester, why, you know, what is there around there that you're going to specify in this exhibition? So we're looking at, yeah, artists from all over the country. And the kind of key ones for Manchester, I would say, are Linda. So there's a really great video of Linda performing at the Hacienda with her band Ludis. And the Hacienda used to serve meat pies, and she's a committed lifelong vegetarian. So she wore a dress made of meat. This is like decades before Lady Gaga and performed in this dress in protest. She was not first.

And the other would be perhaps Margaret Harrison. So Margaret Harrison is an artist who lives in Cumbria and she taught in Manchester. She was the first woman to teach at the School of Art. And we have a huge sculpture that is a recreation of an element of the Greenham Common Fence. And another would be Claudette Johnson. So Claudette Johnson is from Manchester and she was nominated for this year's Turner Prize and was also a really, really important artist in the Black British art movement at the beginning. We've had so many people getting in touch. I'm just going to drop a few of these in here. We're asking people whether they've been inspired by their mothers to protest. Sarah in Birmingham says, I'm a 61 year old woman,

my daughter is 27, and I'm proud to say she has a social conscience. I've always spoken out about social injustice. We learn from each other. I've raised her that way. We share stories and information both historic and present. I'm heartbroken about current injustices around the world. And let's just drop this one on quickly. Ailish says, my relatives who were suffragettes inspired me to protest women's rights. I've always been a feminist and always will be for the rest of my life. I attended my first International Women's Day march on the 8th of March this year. Well done, Ailish. My mum called me her little activist in about 20 seconds. Can you tell me, Amrita, why people should go along to this? I think people need to go see this show to know, if they're creative practitioners in the loosest term, to know that they're not alone and that they can feel the rage and joy in their creative expression.

And Lindsay, what do you think your mum would think about this? Oh my god, she was a show-off, so she would have really, really loved it. Fantastic, it's been wonderful having you both in. Lindsay Young, independent curator and researcher who created the exhibition we've been talking about, and Anrita Dhali, researcher and writer who you've just had contributed to the exhibition, Women in Revolt, and it's on at the Whitworth in Manchester until the 1st of June and even better, it is free to enter. So no excuse, get along there. Thank you both, been an education it really has. Join me again tomorrow for Women's Hour. We'll be discussing

how the gig economy impacts migrant women, especially those providing social care and we'll be hearing from the campaigners who are hoping the next Secretary General of the UN might be a woman. Talk to you tomorrow at 10. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. From BBC Radio 4. They remind me of the beauty of the everyday. Illuminated is the home for creative, one-of-a-kind documentaries that shed light on hidden worlds. You could hear the plants photosynthesising.

A place of audio beauty and joy with emotion and human experience at its very heart. You can see the people walking, bewildered, absolutely bewildered, nobody really knew what to think. The programmes you'll find here explore the reality of contemporary Britain and the world. It's a chance to meet voices that are not normally heard. You don't open your mouth. If you tell one person, that's it. Illuminated from BBC Radio 4. All human life is here, just waiting to be discovered. Listen on BBC Sounds.