Woman's Hour - Adult crushes, Identifying migrants lost at sea, Kishwer Falkner and the EHRC

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

Everyone remembers their first teenage crush - that feeling of butterflies in the stomach and uncontrollable blushes. As we age, crushes still occur but they tend to be a guilty secret. But are there benefits to having a crush? Facebook introduced a secret crush feature in December last year and it is claimed that crushes can induce mood-boosting chemicals. Should we see crushes as normal, exciting and harmless ways of understanding ourselves and our needs? Or is it morally questionable if you’re in a loving, committed relationship? Emma is joined by Debra Waters, who won the Bridport Prize last year for her short story "Oh Hululu" about an adult crush, and Helen Thomson is a science journalist and author whose new book is called 'This Book Could Fix Your Life' in which she shares her advice on affairs of the heart.Yesterday, the eyes of America were mainly on one woman. Congresswoman Liz Cheney was one of ten Republicans who crossed the floor and voted with the Democrats to impeach President Trump for the second time, something that has never happened before to a President. A key trigger in all of this was, of course, the storming of the Capitol Building last week. Cheney laid blame firmly at the feet of President Trump and criticised his role in stoking the attack. So who is Liz Cheney and is she the political heroine some are saying she is? Is she trying to save the Republic from doom and destruction at its most desperate hour? Emma talks to Amy Pope, former deputy home security advisor to President ObamaAn estimated 30,000 migrants and refugees have lost their lives in the Mediterranean in the last fifteen years. One of the largest shipwrecks took place in October 2013 when a boat went down off the Italian island of Lampedusa, killing 366 migrants on board. A second tragedy, with an even larger loss of life, happened in April 2015 when a boat sank carrying 1000 refugees and migrants travelling from Libya to Italy. Cristina Cattaneo, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Milan, has spent the last five years voluntarily running a project with others to identify just some of those who died.The Equality and Human Rights Commission has a new chair. Her name is Kishwer Falkner. The EHRC's most recent and high-profile investigations have been into pay at the BBC and anti-Semitism within the Labour Party. Its twitter tag line says that it’s here to “to stand up for freedom, compassion and justice in our changing times”, but it has its critics too. The Women and Equalities Committee once said it needed to overcome its ‘timidity’, and be ‘bolder’. That was in 2019, so has it?

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, it's Emma Barnett here. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. On today's programme, we will look at President Trump's historic second impeachment through the eyes of one of the key Republican women driving the charge. We'll also be joined by the UK's new equality and human rights champion and find out what she's going to do for you and for all of us.

Baroness Kishore-Faulkner will be joining us. Her job is the new chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is this country's equality and discrimination watchdog. And we'll meet the woman trying to name some of the thousands of people, migrants and refugees, who've lost their lives in the Mediterranean in the last 15 years. Professor Christina Cataneo will be joining us to explain her mission. But what I want to ask you today and what I want you to text in on, email in on, get in touch on social media on,

it's something quite personal. Your crushes, adult crushes to be precise, but you can talk about the younger ones as well, the unlikelier the better. We're looking into the psychology of them today and if they're good for you. If you tell us yours, you don't have to give your real name, I should say, but perhaps it has helped at a time of difficulty. Perhaps you've even had a crush during lockdown

and it's given you an extra spring in your step. No names needed, I'll stress that. Are crushes, adult ones in particular, are they healthy or are they dangerous? Are they infidelity of the mind? We'll be getting into all of that, but I need stress that. Are crushes, adult ones in particular, are they healthy or are they dangerous? Are they infidelity of the mind? We'll be getting into all of that, but I need your help. What are yours? I was thinking of mine, especially from when I was a bit younger. The lead singer of Blur, Damon Albarn, just was convinced if I could get in front of him, I could convince him we could be together. And in fact, I once did go up to him in the street and we're not together.

So let's just leave that at that. But tell us about yours. 84844, that's the number you need to text in on. Text will be charged at your standard message rate or social media. It's BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say on that. And of course, anything else you hear in the programme, do get in touch as you are doing and have been doing. Now, yesterday, the eyes of America were mainly on one woman.

For a period of time, certainly, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, one of 10 Republicans who crossed the floor and voted with the Democrats to impeach President Trump for the second time, something that's never happened before to a president. A key trigger in all of this was, of course, the storming of the Capitol building last week. Here is Liz Cheney talking to Fox News from inside the Capitol building, criticising President Trump's role in stoking that attack.

We just had a violent mob assault the US Capitol in an attempt to prevent us from carrying out our constitutional duty. And there's no question that the president formed the mob, the president decided the mob, the president addressed the mob, he was at the flame. And this is what America is not. There's just been, you know, absolutely intolerable and unacceptable. And the mob will not prevail.

You know, we all have taken an oath to the Constitution. It's an oath that we carry out. It doesn't bend, you know, to mob out. It doesn't bend to mob rule. It doesn't bend to political threats. It's an oath under God and we will carry it out. And what happened today can never happen again in the United States. And the president needs to take responsibility for it. Well, in this sense, she kept to her word and crossed the floor and voted with Democrats to impeach. But who is Liz Cheney? And is she the political hero some are saying she is?

Is she trying to save the Republicans from doom and destruction at its most desperate hour? I spoke just before coming on air to Amy Pope the former U.S. Vice President to George Bush, Dick Cheney, who was very well known, particularly in the response to 9-11. She is the member of Congress for the state of Wyoming, conservative, very traditional conservative member of Congress. And, you know, she serves in Republican leadership. So not necessarily stand out for any sort of fiery brand of politics here. Just a good Republican, frankly. A good, solid Republican who is now one of other Republicans in the House to make clear that what happened last week was a bridge too far in terms of the president's actions. And, you know,

there are some who will see her as a hero for doing so because she's certainly standing up against the tide of very, very vocal Republicans, but others who will see her as just echoing the sentiment of many other Republicans who felt see her as just echoing the sentiment of many other Republicans who felt like this is just a different situation. There are some already saying, don't call Liz Cheney a hero here, because you've got to look at the reality here, the impact perhaps of large donors withdrawing their support for Republican lawmakers. Why hasn't she done this sooner? Why haven't her and her colleagues taken this stance sooner? Yes, I mean, that's going to be the question for the Republican Party for years to come. This is not the first time that the president has really pushed the

boundaries when it comes to American norms, or even the law, really. And certainly there were calls just a year ago for people like Liz Cheney to stand up and she didn't. So there's very mixed views on how she should be perceived. But there are others who will say when she needed to take a stand, and this one is probably the most egregious example anyone could have imagined, she did. She voted against gay marriage. She's against abortion. Is she held up as an ideal or as an icon to certain parts of American society? Or how should we view her as a woman? As a woman, she is, I think her first identity is with the Republican Party and the conservative values. And frankly, we need women representing all parts of the policy debate. And she is

certainly demonstrating that she's not being defined just by her gender, that she has her own beliefs and her own values, and she votes for them. So she does not vote for what we would see as traditional women's issues. But at the same time, she's a woman in a leadership position, and she is well respected for that. She's also now, as you say, a handful, there's only 10 of them, two of them are women who crossed the floor, as it were, voted to impeach Donald Trump for a second time. She's going to face and is already facing stiff opposition within her own party, people who do not think this is the right time, even if they might think it's the right thing to do, but this is the right time to do this. And she'll have to stand up to those forces, won't she? She will. And it's not clear how that balance will tip. At this moment, the

Republican Party is very divided. We're seeing on the Senate side, the Senate majority leader, who's a Republican, Mitch McConnell, effectively leaked to the press that he's considering moving forward the impeachment in one breath and then suggesting he won't do so anytime soon in another breath. So that suggests that the Republican Party is really weighing where it's going to come down on this. And, you know, it's not necessarily going to come down to just a matter of principle. They're going to be looking at where their voters and how is this going to impact their elections. And someone taking a stand against Donald Trump is taking a risk. Do you feel grateful to her? I mean, of course, you're on the other side of the political divide. But when you're thinking about this moment in your country's history? I do, not because of her whole record here, but I believe

that members of Congress, they do take an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. And I believe they need to take that responsibility very seriously. The founders of the Republic decided that the Congress should be a check on the power of the president. And they're meant to be an independent authority. They're meant to exercise that authority separate from where the president is. And we're not seeing a lot of that in the Republican Party over the last couple of years. They've really been captured by Donald Trump and his base. So they were, you know, 70 million also continue to vote for Donald Trump in the last election.

We shouldn't forget that President Trump doesn't want to let anybody forget that, of course, but it is an important point to reflect the American public as well, not just the Republican Party. How struck are you, to bring this together, because we'll have to see how this plays out, but how struck are you that it is Liz Cheney

and Nancy Pelosi, two women really, who are making the headlines at the moment with this whole process? I'm struck only that it hasn't happened sooner. You know, there are several women in Congress and government who just get things done and who are sensible and I think can see issues from multiple sides of the debate. I don't necessarily think that's gendered, but it has been remarkable that there hasn't been room for more women to play that role. And so I think it's a good thing to have women from both parties in the forefront of these conversations. You know, and bottom line, it was scary. I mean, there were members

of Congress huddling on the floor of the chamber, afraid for their lives. And there's something to be said for recognising that situation as being absolutely untenable and one that shouldn't be repeated by a President of the United States. Amy Pope, their former Deputy Home Security Advisor to President Obama. Now, there is a new champion of equalities and human rights in the UK. Her job is to make sure nobody will be discriminated on the basis of their gender, race, age, religion, body or otherwise. And if you have been, she and her organisation are meant to be able to help.

Her name? Well, because you should know it. Baroness Kisha Faulkner, a former Lib Dem peer who used to speak for the party on foreign affairs and other things. She now sits as an independent peer in the House of Lords. And her new job is chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, this country's equality and discrimination watchdog. The EHRC, as it's referred to in shorthand, most recent and high profile investigations that you may recall have been into equal pay here at the BBC. Anti-Semitism within the Labour Party, to name another. Its Twitter tagline says, it's here to stand up for freedom, compassion and justice in our changing times. But it's safe

to say it has its critics too. Baroness Kishore-Faulkner, good morning. Good morning. Why you? How did you land this job? What qualifies you for the role? Well, I think you have to ask my employers what qualifies me for the role. I applied for the job through public appointments. That's the system for all recruitments to quasi-government jobs, non-departmental public bodies, as they're called. And I went through, I would say, an incredibly rigorous process. It took about four or five months, I think it was.

And here I am. The reason I ask is because there was a concern in part of that rigorous process, and I was reading part of it last night. It's all publicly available. There was concern by the Women and Equalities Commission when approving you to the role at the end of last year, that you were overly focused on the managerial and administrative side of things. And actually, they need a champion. They need somebody to set this alight. What have you got that's making your fire burn on this? It's very interesting. They asked me that question. I thought it was a curious question. One of the things you haven't told your listeners is that we're also a regulator. And a regulator has compliance, enforcement powers. It's a litigator as well.

It has statutory, in other words, legal duties that it has to carry out. And I think anyone who's been near the law at all will tell you that process is nine-tenths of success in law. So if you're being criticised by politicians because you're process-driven and managerial in an organisation which has had a rocky birth and 13-year past, I take that as a very positive sign of having the right credentials. Well, they obviously took it the same way because they gave you the job and they're going to see how you do as we all are. I mean, it is one of those jobs, though. Where do you start?

Of course, now with the COVID pandemic, severe inequalities exposed even more in our country, disproportionate effect on, you know, black and Asian minority ethnic communities, the health service, the economy. Where do you see as your top priority at the moment? I think I have three priorities. One is to ensure that our equality laws don't get dumbed down through practice by employers as we move into a very difficult economic framework going ahead.

The other one is to ensure that certain categories of people, we call them protected characteristics, they're the people whose rights we really have to defend above and beyond others. And we have to ensure that those categories of people don't get disadvantaged. I mean, you're called women's hour. It's women who are more likely't get disadvantaged. I mean, you're called women's hour. It's women who are more likely to get disadvantaged through this in the early analysis that we've done than other people. So ethnic minorities potentially as well. Most people in low-paying

jobs, including men. So we've taken, we're already taking actions. We've warned employers about the things they need to bear in mind if they're looking at redundancies, for actions. We've warned employers about the things they need to bear in mind if they're looking at redundancies, for example. We've been working with a health service on protecting and getting more data on minority communities, disabled people with existing conditions. So COVID has kind of exposed a lot of things that are not necessarily illegal practice, but potentially give us warning signs of where there is still inequality and potentially discrimination in society. That's what it's done. Shona Light. And let's come back to the effectiveness and your ability to be effective at the EHRC. And it is right to point out it is a regulator.

But I've just noticed a message, for instance, that's just come in from one of our listeners saying, I'm wondering why she got the job. We can't trust anyone appointed by this government anymore. They're all incompetent and corrupt. That seems to be to do with views of who's got certain contracts for PPE, for instance, at this moment. And trust levels are waning in this government because of what's going on with the pandemic and other issues.

The Minister for Women and Equalities, Liz Truss, signed off on your appointment. You are independent of the government. What do you make of her record on equalities? If I recall, she hasn't been the Secretary of State for Employment for that long. So it's very difficult to judge somebody's record in just over a year. I tend to make my decisions on a considered basis over a longer period of time. Where I see her going and the direction of travel that she articulates seems to me interesting in the sense that she's, again, I'm afraid to say, looking at processes. So she's looking at better use across government of data and to aggregate the data, set up an

equalities hub within the cabinet office, the cabinet office itself, the move of EHRC into one government department that has oversight of the whole of government, to me, is a very positive step. Your listeners may not know, but previously, we used to follow whichever minister was made the relevant minister for women and equalities in cabinet. We used to go with them to different departments. So if you have the Secretary of State for International Development, who was the relevant minister, we were suddenly sitting in DfID. And at the time, we were sitting in the Department for Education. It's fair enough to say you don't want to judge just yet, but you're looking at data, and she's going to look at data, and you're having a look as well as that. But she gave a speech at the end of last year talking about how she wants to do equality and how she

wants to change it. She talked about, you know, the left being enthralled to ideas that undermine equality at every turn. But this is a government that's been in power for a decade. So you must have a view on how equalities has gone there. And if you're talking about data at her own department, this is the Department of International Trade, the Gulf, the gender pay gap in her own department has increased more than three percentage points in the year to March 2020. I could also talk to you about the skew towards men as a greater proportion of her senior staff.

So her own record on equality is fully available. What do you make of that as our new Equalities Chief? I don't think I really want to be drawn on what I make of a Secretary of State because that takes me into the political sphere. As a regulator, we've got to be, not just be impartial, but we've got to be seen to be impartial. We're independent of government.

And that is the one thing I would emphasise. Yes, but you've got to surely have a view on the person who's presiding over equality. Okay, let me bring it closer to you. I may have a view. I don't think I'm going to share it with all the listeners of Women's Hour. Well, that's a shame.

One of the things you do as a regulator and as a public servant is that you quite often have to keep your views to yourself and act on the evidence. Let me share something that's much closer to what your new job is then. She has approved some of your board commissioners, the EHRC board commissioners. And I presume you do have a view here. For instance, Jessica Butcher, who some have been concerned by looking at one of her talks, her TEDx talk in 2018. It's obsessed with female victimhood. I could also go on to talk about how she believes you should handle discrimination. She said on her appointment, she's an old school feminist and wants to work to advance equality issues here in the UK. But do you agree with her that modern feminism disempowers women? No, I don't agree that modern feminism disadvantages women. But on the other hand, I haven't discussed any of this with her. She was appointed before my time. I have interacted with her for the last five weeks

that I've been in post. And we have a good working relationship, as we do with, as I have with all the 13 other commissioners that they are. Let me say one thing about people's views, which I think is terribly important. We're living in times where you have culture wars, what are described as culture wars, what are described, sometimes described as cancel culture, where people, there is no civility in public discourse any longer. And I think that we've come to a stage where I want people, if I were appealing for civility in public life, to have more moderately expressed views and to speak to each other more respectfully. But having said all of that, I think diversity of thinking is critical to solving problems together. So we don't solve problems together when we group think. And Emma, can I take you to another role that I do?

I work with financial services. I'm a regulator for the Bank of England. I think when you saw the analysis that was done after the financial crash, as to the representation of women on boards of some of our biggest financial services companies and banks, you found a clear problem with the diversity of thought, diversity of thought and diversity of representation. So you sound terribly important. And you sound very, you know, convinced of that in her appointment, for instance, and we look forward to welcoming her to Women's Hour. But it was safe to say people were concerned, hence the question to you.

A big part of this is around what power you actually have in terms of being a regulator. Your budget, EHRC, has gone from 70 million at its inception down to 17 million. And of course, just to look at one of the investigations recently, you looked into pay here at the BBC. You said the BBC wasn't really in the wrong when it came to how it paid staff who are men compared to women, but they could do better. Some called it a whitewash and criticised the methodology. How can you hold the BBC's feet to the fire when there isn't something unlawful?

How will you do that? Well, we've made a series of recommendations. Even this week, we met with the director general and other senior staff. We have another meeting with them. We have periodic meetings now in the director general's calendar. They have committed to producing an action plan for us. And that's going to cover all of our recommendations. And frankly, the feedback I get from my colleagues who are working on this is that we're very pleased

with the progress that's being made at the BBC, but we will continue to see action plans comprise deadlines where they have to comply with some of the things we've asked for. And evidence-based. They've got to show us the figures. That's how you hold an organisation where you haven't found unlawful action, but you're wishing to work with them to make sure that they get better at what they're doing. Well, I look forward to talking to you again,

to go forward with some of the things that you've talked about and to follow up. Thank you for your time this morning. Baroness Kisha Faulkner there, who's now in post as the chair of the EHRC. So many of you are getting in touch about our next discussion with regard to crushes. We're exploring the psychology of adult crushes. So we thought we had to turn to the one and only Barry White for a moment. Let me just give you a flavour of what's coming in here.

Bob Hoskins was and is my forever crush. I've no idea why, as I'm 5'11", so physically it wouldn't have been a great match. This one. For years I had a photo of Russell Crowe on my wall. The man whose velvet wolf voice made my knees weaken. The photo came with us through several house moves and during menopause I became aware that if I looked at my pinup

I would ovulate almost immediately and have yet another period. I felt it absolutely clearly many times and was amused to think that this hot crush may have been contributing to my long drawn out change. My cousin had an even bigger photo above her marital bed. Wow. And Pam says, Emma, how can an adult crush be an infidelity of the mind when fantasising, presumed about someone other than your partner, is unacceptable as part of a healthy sex life? Well, let's get into this.

As we age, crushes still occur. You may still remember your teenage ones, but they do tend to be a guilty secret. Are there benefits, though, to having crushes? Facebook introduced a secret crush feature in December last year, and it's claimed that it can induce mood-boosting chemicals. Should we see crushes as normal, exciting and harmless ways of understanding ourselves and our need and perhaps helping us through tough times like lockdown? Or is it morally questionable if you're in a loving, committed relationship? Hululu about an adult crush. And Helen Thompson is a science journalist and author whose new book is called This Book Could Fix Your Life, in which she shares her advice on affairs of the heart. Helen, let me start with you. What exactly is a crush?

Yes. So generally, we think of a crush as an intense but brief period of high emotion and infatuation or obsession towards another person, often, but not always in the context of those feelings being unrequited, or that person being unattainable in some manner. But from a neuroscience perspective, it's a little different. It's actually thought of as an uncontrollable drive that evolved millions of years ago as a survival mechanism to help us bond with other people. And are they good for us? Should we see them as healthy? Because, you know, people discuss, don't they, walking a little taller, doing their hair a bit nicer, all those sorts of things. They can improve your mood.

Yeah, well, when we form a crush, we see these ancient areas of the brain kick in. We experience these great jolts of dopamine and the feel good reward chemicals that give us that feeling of intense pleasure. And so, of course, it feels good to have a crush where you you then take those feelings and how that develops. And what comes of that is is probably where you then stray into a territory of whether it's it's good or bad. We'll talk to bring Deborah in at this point. Deborah, you won the Bridport Short Story competition last year, we were saying, with Ohalulu, a highly fictionalised story about your experiences of an adult crush.

And was it a secret from those around you? Well, yes, because I think fundamentally crushes belong in the realm of fantasy. And I knew being an adult and having some control over my emotions that it was just a form of escapism for me. And why, you know, I didn't really want to share it. It was like my sort of personal little private joy and it was um also a little bit embarrassing you don't as a as a grown woman and a mother you don't want to admit to crushes that make you sound like you're 12 years old we'll come back to that thought in a moment let's hear a short excerpt of the story now you meet him in october you're wearing jeans

a red jumper flat boots it's the last time you dress down. You like his tree-like height and his hair. Is it auburn? Blonde? You're not sure why, but this charms you. When you realise you're at least a decade older than him, you head to the toilet and reapply your make-up. At the bar, you down Sauvignon Blanc until the booze takes over your tongue. When his answers turn circumspect, equivocal, you feel like a nosy ant.

You may as well ask him what he wants to be when he grows up, but he doesn't move seats. You like your life, your terrace with its fitful plumbing, your white dog and medium-sized family car. You're comfortably numb, think this is a good thing. As days pass your mind, normally crammed with school books and whitewashes and grocery dashes, fills with him. It's your imagination, but it's palpable. When you cook, he's a hologram leaning against the fridge, describing his day. You reply hilariously, of course. When you shower, he's pressed against your back, his hand cupping the baby-made curve of your stomach. Gosh, that's taken me right into that. What a powerful piece

of writing. Your husband's not read it. Is that right? Yes, but that was my choice. Because it's highly fictionalized, it's very embellished. And I didn't want him to not be able to separate fact from fiction. But, you know, I'm'm very happily married I've got a great relationship with my husband though you know I'm a writer and I write about the things that make me feel and um I also realize it wasn't something that's written about much um but it is embellished to sort of give it more sort of gravitas because it comes from a small seed when you were on a creative writing course. Is that right?

Something you felt a little of. Because some people getting in touch to say they feel guilty if they were to say anything about it, like it is unfaithful in some way. Yeah, I can see why people think that. But there's a huge difference between a crush and an affair. Like Helen was saying, it's usually directed at someone who's unsuitable or unobtainable if they were obtainable you'd be going down the realms of something more physical or uh like an actual relationship but that was never my intention with any of the crushes I've

ever had that's not what I wanted I'm very happy with what I've got. It's more a form of escape. And also, crushes can help you work things out in your head about your own relationship. We can have a little dialogue with this sort of person. And it's actually been beneficial to my marriage. I've just got a few messages in that I thought you'd like to hear, both of you. I recall a post on a toddler website where a mum admitted to having a crush on Mr. Tumble. So we'll just put that one out there. Claire says, Julia Bradbury, my wife knows and understands. And another one here from Emma who says, I've got a major crush on BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner. I love his clipped vowels and his voice brightens the day when he's on the Today programme. So there you go. A few people being

actually named here, but it is for a lot of people, something they probably wouldn't text in about and don't feel they can. Helen, in terms of what you should perhaps take from this, is it that maybe you haven't got everything you needed from the relationship you're in and the crush satisfies another part of you or a different part of you you haven't really explored? I think that's a hard question to answer I think it's it was interesting

that Deborah said that it was something she was a bit embarrassed about having that it was something that a 15 year old you know would have but actually the what happens in the brain when you have a crush is something that you can experience at any age and it's actually like I said this uncontrollable drive that comes from a part of the brain that is evolutionarily ancient and you know it's when you compare the brains of someone who are having a crush or in the first throes of lust in a new relationship we see this uh a lot of similarities between their brain and people who have drug addictions uh or have ocd um and it's really interesting we see this in activity where um we have this part of the brain that's

creating this euphoria and these cravings and this need to get a hit like a drug addict would need to get a hit but we're getting that hit from this person, seeing this person or getting a text from them. And at the same time, we see a drop in serotonin in the brain, which is a chemical that helps us regulate our mood. It kind of gives us our rationality. It regulates our appetites. It helps us sleep. It controls our anxiety and our sexual desires and it's kind of like we see the brain the rational part of the brain actually lift its brake upon the the these these more uh basic drives um and so it's kind of no wonder that we act so strangely and erratically and and we feel guilty when we have a crush on someone. But in fact, it's actually perhaps not something that we can control and we shouldn't be embarrassed about.

And perhaps talk about which we're trying to do here on Womza and getting quite a response. Deborah, just finally to you, do you think it should stay taboo or do you think we should talk about it more? Or is it or is it one of those things that should stay private? I just think it depends on the individual and it depends what needs aren't being met and I think there is a misconception that if you have a crush on someone it's some sort of sexual emotional needs that aren't met whereas for me it was very much to do with the fact that I was middle-aged, I was having a bit of a midlife crisis, I was drawn to things I missed like people that were younger than me. I missed their freedom and their youth. And so it's a lot more complex than just fancying somebody.

And you could see where that came from. Deborah, thank you very much for talking to us today. Deborah Waters there and Helen Thompson with their takes on crushes. Keep those messages coming in. I'll return to them if I can. Now, an estimated 30,000 migrants and refugees have lost their lives in the Mediterranean in the last 15 years. Take that in, 30,000 human beings that we don't know the names or stories of. One woman is spearheading work to try and name as many as possible to give these people some dignity and respect in death, and, crucially, to allow their families to know what happened to them.

Cristina Cataneo, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Milan, has spent the last five years voluntarily running a project with others to identify just some of those who have lost their lives. She joins me now. Cristina, welcome. Hi. Hello. Why have you spent the last five years of your life trying to identify the bodies from these terrible losses? Well, I'm a forensic pathologist and one of the main commandments is that when you have a disaster and you have people to identify, that's what you do. Because it belongs to the rights of those who are still looking for them.

So it's just a must, regardless of who these people are. And how did you begin this work? Can you take us into it a bit? Yes. Well, most forensic pathologists deal with, as you may imagine, autopsies and identification of bodies, and therefore it's something that's in our DNA. But my lab in particular in Milan has dealt with research in identification for 25 years, and the more we got into it, the more we realized that even on a domestic basis, a lot of people end up in graves without an identity. And this led us to collaborate with a big office of government in Italy, which deals with missing persons and unidentified bodies. And then finally, when the migration emergency, quote unquote, took place, we started asking ourselves, well, if we always rush and run to identify victims of air crashes, why are we doing nothing for these people?

So we started a pilot project on two main disasters, two of the largest disasters that we know, whose victims ended up on the Italian shores, just to prove that these people have to be identified and that they can be identified. Because the leitmotif is that, well, nobody's looking for them because they may come from sub-Saharan Africa, but that's not true as we discovered working on it how do you go and identify the bodies could you tell us a bit more about that because i know it's your line of work but but to many you know that they won't have heard this and it's obviously incredibly upsetting work to people to hear about. Yes, of course. I mean, I have to sort of like stress the fact that, you know, identifying the bodies is obligatory.

It's compulsory, not just for administrative and civil purposes. But imagine being the mother of your son and you don't know whether he's alive or dead. So it becomes a question of mental health of the loved ones who are looking for that missing person so that said how do you identify dead bodies well usually it's quite simple you have to imagine having an air crash and you have to collect the data that is useful for identifying bodies which goes from the tattoos on your on your neck to dna and you have to compare that data with data coming from the relatives of these people who usually give you what we call antemortem information.

In other words, information on the same kind of things, like the tattoos and the DNA profile, coming from the family. So what you have to do is compare the information from the body to the information on the missing persons. And once you have these do is compare the information from the body to the information on the missing persons. And once you have these two sets of data, it's quite simple. The problem is that with the migration crisis, we are in front of a huge, as you said before, at least 30,000, but this is the tip of the iceberg, individuals who have died. So it's a major mass disaster with at least 30,000 victims. But imagine the victims being diluted in time, because it's over the years, and in places. Some are on the shores of Sicily, some in other parts of Italy, some in Greece, some in Malta.

And therefore, the difficulty is collecting the data on the bed, first of all, in a homogeneous manner, and then getting in touch with the relatives who may be in countries of origin, who may not even know that someone was trying to identify these people. So it becomes more complicated from a logistic point of view rather than from a scientific point of view. Just in terms of the actual shipwrecks as well of this, because it's important to describe. There was a large loss of life in October 2013 when a boat went down off the Italian island of Lampedusa,

killing 366 migrants on board, and a second tragedy with an even larger loss of life in April 2015 when a boat sank, carrying 1,000 refugees and migrants travelling from Libya on their way to Italy. Now, that boat was raised, as I understand it, in June 2016. That must have been an incredibly traumatising experience for all of you involved, as well as, of course, having to get on and do the job. Can you tell us about that? Yes, I remember that our Prime Minister decided at that time, decided to pull the boat up because he said, you know,

we need to just show Europe and show the world what is going on. And I think this boat has a very important story to tell because these victims tell a story that, you know, the survivors don't tell because they represent the tragedy and the risk verifying itself. So basically, when the boat was pulled out, it had sunk at 400 meters with at least 1,000 passengers on it. The fire brigade started pulling the bodies outside the boat. And virtually what we saw was the condition in which these individuals die and travel. And therefore we were confronted with layers of dead bodies. Only in the village we had 500 individuals. And these represented young adults, mainly males, through this disaster, and adolescents. And the adolescents were traveling.

We found the skeletons of these 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds underneath the boards of the build, which meant that already they were traveling, lying down beneath the floorboards. And I think this tells a very eloquent story. And basically, we calculated that there were five people per square meter. And again, in doing the autopsies, in performing the autopsies, you actually realize who these people were. Because when we do autopsies, and we did the autopsies on all these bodies um you you go through you roam through their pockets and you to their personal belongings looking for uh things that will help you identify them or try and figure out how to identify which countries to go looking for their their loved ones and their relatives and what we found was you know

what we would find in our pockets so wall wallets, pictures, love letters, letters coming from relatives who were writing to them to not cross the Mediterranean, to look for work in the south of Africa, mementos, small pouches of soil from their homeland. And I think this brings everything very much close to home. And it's very very very eloquent more than anything I can say. And is that what drives you that need to to recognize that humanity? Yes of course I mean what drives you is a mixture between something professional because as a forensic pathologist you're raised to identify the first thing you do on a body. But also, I was personally and my colleagues, we have been struck by the fact that this is a double tragedy for these people. Because first of all, you die, you know, in the middle of the Mediterranean.

And then nobody even thinks of identifying you, which we would do normally for anyone. And therefore, this sort of like touches you from a human point of view, and you just can't stay and look and do nothing. And I know that you want a proper network of information and hotspots for this to be recorded and, crucially, for the family members to be alerted to find out what actually happened. That's the solution. That's the easy solution. I think from a European perspective, it would be sufficient that every country has a hotspot and uses the offices like the police officers or whichever offices are delegated to do identification work on normal cases.

And if every country had a hotspot where to put you know data on the dead bodies and collect data from relatives so if you're living in France, Germany, wherever you would know where to go to look for your loved one whereas now these people the loved ones the mothers and fathers and sons and daughters looking for their their dead don't know where to go and end up having no answer, which we know brings to mental illness. Professor Christina Cataneo, thank you very much for your time. And we should also say in crossing continents today at 11 o'clock after the news, you can hear more detail about that Mediterranean shipwreck in April 2015, where a thousand migrants and refugees

died and Professor Cataneo's attempts to identify them. Thank you to her. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

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Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.