Woman's Hour - Author Kamila Shamsie. People smugglers. Family WhatsApp Group.

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

In her new novel "Best Of Friends" the award winning writer Kamila Shamasie explores the personal and political in Karachi in 1988 and London now. Fourteen year old Maryam and Zahra have been friends for 40 years but can they ever really know each other?Tonight's File on 4 will highlight the shortcomings of the Police and the National Referral Mechanism – the government pathway set up to provide financial, emotional and legal support as well as access to safe accommodation to victims of trafficking – and reveal how British survivors are being let down by the system. Emma talks to reporter Annabel Deas and we hear from a woman we're calling "Isobel" who is currently at risk of trafficking and lives in fear of her life. She was last trafficked earlier this year when she was gang raped and badly beaten by a gang who have abused her for over a decade. Her abuse began when she was 13 years old. Presenter Emma Barnett Producer Beverley PurcellPhoto credit; Alex von Tunzelman

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.

That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Good morning and welcome to the programme. And while you are kind enough to listen and many of you engage with the programme by messaging us, today I wanted to ask about that other space that may exist in your life to discuss your views, the political, the personal,

the space where perhaps you share milestones and logistics, the family WhatsApp group. I can almost hear the collective groan in response from some of you at the merest mention of these groups. If you love yours or you don't have a group messaging function with your clan, worry not, a journalist is on hand to tell us what she's learned by even just hearing the names of these digital gatherings. If you are part of one, has it brought you closer or driven you further apart?

What is yours called? One of ours that I'm part of is called Bank Holiday Shindig from that bank holiday a long time ago where we went away and it's never changed. What do you love? What do you loathe about it? Has anyone left? That's also quite a dramatic moment. Perhaps you have. Say here today on Woman's Hour with me what you want that you can't say in your own family WhatsApp group. And I'll just remind you at this point, your messages can be anonymous. Text me here on 84844. Text will be charged your standard message rate on social at BBC Woman's Hour or email us or send a WhatsApp message on 03700 100 444. Also on today's programme, an insight into the increasing number of Russian women taking to the streets to protest Putin's conscription orders and the war in Ukraine. The author, Kamala Shamsi, on her new book, Best of Friends and the Unique Pains and

Pleasures of Childhood Friendships. And a new report lays bare how British girls and women who have been abused by grooming gangs here in the UK find it harder to access help from the government than foreign nationals. But my first guest today is on a different matter of state, but also some innovations in our courts, as well as, of course, what's going on all around us at the moment, the economic climate, the Justice Minister, Rachel McLean. Yesterday, it was announced victims and witnesses of sexual crimes and modern slavery will be able to have their cross-examination video recorded and played later during the trial in a bid to spare them what's called witness box trauma. And that's because it's happening now right across England and Wales following a gradual rollout. Rachel McLean, good morning.

Good morning. Hi Emma. Thank you for joining us and to talk about that specific innovation in Crown courts when it comes to rape and modern slavery victims. But a lot of what we're hearing at the moment and a lot of why perhaps these sorts of innovations are not going to get the attention that you would like them to as a Justice minister is because of what's happening to the pound and how much we're hearing from our listeners about their weekly shop now costs and their concerns about their mortgages if they have them it's very difficult at the moment i imagine for anything else to get the attention while your your chancellor has uh

taken such a gamble with our economy well thank you very much for having me on to woman's hour to talk about this and i really do appreciate the chance to do that because it is absolutely vital that we in the Ministry of Justice keep going with these really essential reforms, which will make a massive difference to victims of rape and modern slavery, as you said. And this has been... I do know it's a culmination of a rollout and I do want to get to the detail of that but it seems like we can't have a conversation about that until I've addressed some of the wider concerns that people are grappling with this morning. It would be extremely odd if you like in the order of our conversation. I just wouldn't mind if we could just pause for a moment because for instance

in the news, the top of the news this morning is about mortgage deals being withdrawn by banks and building societies after a fall in the pound fuelled forecasts of a sharp rise in interest rates some have halted mortgage offers for new customers some banks what do you say to any anyone trying to buy a house at the moment this morning rachel as a member of this government yes and look i'm happy to address it, of course. It's right that we do. There is, obviously, we are seeing some turbulence in the markets. And I think it would be wrong of me to actually comment on the markets. It's a long established tradition that government ministers don't do that. I think, in fact, looking at the data this morning, the pound has stabilised. And the most important thing here is that the chancellor has set out and has made a statement yesterday.

And the Bank of England is is doing the same. And, you know, we we recognise the pressures on family budgets which are caused by the global pressures of the war in Ukraine. Some of the aftermath of Covid still. And that is why there have been significant interventions to help people. And of course, I know that my colleagues in the Treasury will be looking at all of these pressures on budgets, including, as you say, But we're talking about the mini budget on Friday has precipitated all of this turbulence that we're now talking about. We're not talking about the pressures that already existed. We've had Conservatives in power for a long time now. It's about what was decided to be said on Friday without much more detail.

I wonder, just as a minister who's coming out to the media this morning, how long have you been told to hold your nerve? So the conversations that I've had with my colleagues in the Treasury have been very clear from the start of the information that we have had about the budget, which is this. This is about growth. It's about getting our economy growing again.

It's about making those supply side changes so that we can actually generate more revenue into the public finances to do things like my area of policy, which is about funding the courts, which I know we're going to come on to. And all the revenue that is needed in the justice system, we've got some very ambitious pledges to make. I accept that. But how long have you been told to hold your nerve? How long are you expecting this turbulence to last? So the conversations that I've had with my colleagues have been about our overall strategy, which is about growth in the economy.

Everything that we are doing is about driving that growth. We know that. We really do know that. I promise you. I mean, I'm just looking, for instance, there's a report out that's been re-shared this morning about Kwasi Kwarteng, who at that point when this was leaked about the night of the Brexit referendum results, he was a Leave-supporting Conservative backbencher at the time. He was at the Groucho Club and he was overheard saying down the phone line, who cares if Sterling crashes?

It'll come back up again. Well, we're just trying to get to know the new people in charge. And I'm just going to ask you again. You know how this works. I know how this works. But maybe our listeners don't. When you come out and talk to the media, you will be briefed about your own area. You'll also know the details, but you'll also be told if they ask you about this, say something along the lines of this. So how long have you

been told to expect this sort of turbulence? Because people need to know with their mortgages through to how things are costing in the shops. Yes. I mean, you know, you're absolutely right. Of course, we are briefed. And, you know, the discussions that I've had with my colleagues in the Treasury are very much around the actions that the government is taking. And as I've said, what the Chancellor did yesterday was he made a statement. The Bank of England also made a statement. And, you know, there is also, there's a lot of change in financial markets. But as a matter of course, Treasury Ministers and government ministers don't comment on market movements for all the reasons that I'm sure that you've been told before by ministers.

But I think, you know, I really must go back to my original comment, which is that this is about generating the growth that we need to see to put more money in people's pockets, to help grow our public finances, to have a climate where businesses want to invest so that we can all see that revenue flowing into the Treasury that we can then invest. Do you feel nervous? A lot of people are feeling very nervous this morning. Should they be?

You know what? I've been focused this morning on my own brief. I know that, but you're still a very active member of your local community. That's why you're an MP. Are you nervous? Me personally? No, I'm not nervous.

I think we have a lot to do. We've got a big job to do. How's your mortgage looking, if you have one? If you don't mind, I don't want to comment on my personal mortgage. I accept that. But the point is, but the point is you're talking about growth

and you're talking about, you know, I'm thinking about new customers here who can't now get a mortgage right now. And they don't know how many days. You're not able to give an insight except for not commenting on the market about how long this turbulence the government expects to last,

not just of the market, because you'll know what's being announced and that impacts the market, of course. The two are inextricably linked. There's 2.2 million people on variable rate mortgages that are going to feel the impact immediately if interest rates continue to rise because of the government's actions. So that's why I ask you if you feel nervous and what your personal connection is to this. You don't have to share those details, but it's interesting to hear that you don't feel nervous. No, I don't feel nervous in that way. Of course, I'm very concerned for my constituents and I am

a local member of parliament. I keep in very close touch with my constituents and I recognise exactly what you said, that any changes in household budgets, whether that be from mortgages, energy bills, any other factors, have a huge impact on people. And that's why I've supported and I've been very clear about all the sources of support the government has already put in to help people. That goes across the board. That's something I'm actively involved in. And you're, of course, focusing, as you say, on your brief and the new technology that's been invested in, rolling out in courtrooms in England and Wales, could you give us the detail from your perspective

of how significant and how important you think being able to pre-record your evidence by video, if you're in this situation, could be to those who have survived rape and all manners of these sorts of crimes? We think it's very important. And we think that based on the testimony, people have actually gone through the system and the people that work with them, such as Rape Crisis of England and Wales, such as lots of the other organisations that work with them, and also the professionals, the independent sexual violence advisors, and what

they tell us and what we can all understand is that actually going to court and having to relive the trauma of what has been a horrific experience that you've had to go through can be really traumatizing and people have described that as being like actually reliving it and we know that that trauma can have a really serious effect on people. There's another aspect to it, which I think is really important, which is that this will actually enable victims to give their testimony earlier in the process. So that means that the evidence, that their memories are fresher, it enables them to have that access to justice, because actually going to court in itself can be pretty intimidating. Most people, you know, don't go into a courtroom. It could be the first time they've ever gone through that process.

You know, it can be adversarial. It can enable it can actually have a very detrimental impact. So what we want to do is completely end the blame culture that we've seen sometimes too often in these cases. We want to make justice accessible to victims. And what we are hearing is that this is an innovation that's been widely called for, which will really help with the whole process. And actually, we're already seeing now, as you said, it's been rolled out over a period of time. We have now completed that rollout. It is now available for all victims, vulnerable victims of rape, serious sexual offences and also modern slavery. Our listeners are extremely helpful and engaged. And we have a message here, extremely helpful in illuminating stories from the idea of them in theory to reality.

And as you say, this has been trialled and been in other areas across England and Wales. We have a message here that's anonymous saying, my early teen daughter's experience with recorded cross-examination was a disaster. It was recorded six months before the trial. It gave the defence barrister a huge advantage of immense time to prepare the defence for the defendant, and the trial was a parody of justice. The victim and her family destroyed, and the victim's phone content examined and used against her and her parents.

I have absolutely no trust in the UK justice system. What do you say to that? I'm deeply concerned to hear that. And obviously, I'm very sorry to hear of that individual case. It's quite difficult for me to comment in detail. But there are downsides to pre-recording video evidence in this way and i think what i wanted to say is that it's very important that we do evidence and assess and monitor um because this is being rolled out we are not at the end of the process but there is a process of evaluation going

on where we will be collecting testimony from victims who've gone through it. I'm really disappointed and upset to hear that that has happened in that particular person's case. That's not the intention at all. And I think to counter that, we've heard anecdotally some very positive stories. And also from the Independent Sexual Violence Advisors, we've heard some extremely positive stories. But of course, like any innovation in any system, we have to do it responsibly. We have to make sure that we are gathering evidence. And if we are finding that things haven't worked out, which they clearly haven't in that case, then we will need to make changes and we will need to make improvements. What we want to do is improve the system as a whole we want to make justice you also have this because because under your watch rape and sexual affection sexual offense conviction rates have fallen to historic lows well what's happened is that we've had more reports we have had huge improvements in our policing system i know but the previous justice secretary had to apologize for how terrible the situation had been you know i know that that is an agreement in government and there are now, as you're talking about, innovations to try and improve things.

The issue is also, of course, if you can get a barrister. Criminal barristers in England and Wales are still on strike as we speak. You're a justice minister. This is over a row of legal aid funding. When's that going to stop? Yeah, so you've raised a number of points. And if I may address all of them, I think that would be helpful to your listeners. So you started by saying, and you're right to say, that ministers have apologised for the rates of convictions. But since we have started that very intensive process, which we have wrapped up in something called the Rape Review, we're working with police forces on a really innovative programme called Operation Soteria, where they're actually shifting

the investigation from the victim to the suspect, which most of us think that's where it should have been all along. And we are quite incredulous to find that that has not been the case. That has started to yield some early, very positive results. So we have seen rape convictions going up by 77% since 2020. And also they are up on pre-pandemic levels. But we've always been clear, Emma, and I've always been clear all along, there is a lot more to do, which is why we have this focus on it

and which is why we have these new innovations such as you've mentioned. So you've talked about the barristers. Obviously, of course, we need to continue to work with the Criminal Bar Association. There is an offer, a proposal of 15% pay rise. It is my colleague, the Justice Secretary's absolute priority. He started those conversations with them already. We do want to see that resolved. We do need to get the will of justice moving again. It's the 27th of September. It's been going since the 5th of September.

And now we know that judges have been releasing potentially dangerous criminals into the community due to delayed trials. They don't have the power to keep defendants in jail beyond the standard six months pre-trial limit, something that's actually being debated at the moment. I've got examples in front of me. Two defendants waiting for trial in Manchester for alleged serious violence have been released. At other courts, one judge bailed a defendant charged with kidnapping with intention

to commit a sexual offence. You're on the radio talking about how we can improve trials when they get there. But you're also part of a part of government that is allowing this to happen by not being able to conclude negotiations with barristers. Well, as I said, it's the priority of the justice secretary. He's been in post a matter of days. He's been very clear and he's already started those conversations and they are ongoing with the Criminal Bar Association. You can't blame that. Sorry, Judge Peter Blair in Bristol has said the government has had, quote, many, many months to end the barristers' industrial action, adding, in my view, today's predicament arises precisely because of the chronic and predictable consequences of long-term underfunding. You can't just say a man's had a job for a few days and we're hoping to crack on with it.

So what I would say is, of course, we have recognised the pressures on the system overall and we have invested in the system. So there's something like £490 million, £100 million worth of funding going in to support victims and witnesses services and to address the court backlog it's a huge issue um and we we recognize that and so that's why as i said those conversations are ongoing i personally i'm not part of those particular conversations they are i know but you're a justice minister my colleague the justice i accept that but you're a justice minister coming on to talk about justice. And we can't also ignore that elephant in the room, that we've had criminal barristers on strike since the 5th of September. And now we have judges whose hands are tied having to release potentially dangerous people back into the community.

One who is charged with kidnapping the intention to commit a sexual offence. Well, clearly, we don't want to get to that point, which is why we have every focus on addressing the barrister's strike. Is there a date? Has the Justice Secretary told you when this will be finished? Why? Is there a date? Of course, it's a two-sided negotiation, isn't it? So, you know, it's not for him to set a date because he has to work with his colleagues. I thought there may be a deadline. He has to work. I thought there may be a deadline by which you couldn't go past

because of the judges. It's happening at the moment. Okay. On that issue of the judges releasing criminals. Forgive me, we do have to move on. I think what's happening, there are some complexities around that. So I just want to be clear. No, no, but I have read out factually what is happening.

We are focused absolutely on keeping the public safe. And the first priority is to resolve this strike. Yes, but the law is the law. The law is the law. Judges can't keep people in jail if there isn't a barrister longer than a certain amount of time. That is where we're at. But we will talk again. So we need to keep the public safe and we need to resolve this strike. Yes, you do. Rachel McLean, thank you very much. Maybe you'll go off and have a chat about this in your family WhatsApp group, because I know we've got some messages coming in about that. Thank you very much for your time this morning. You've been

getting in touch about yours. Perhaps yours is quite political. Maybe you'll even talk about that exchange. Maybe it's a source of great joy or great annoyance in your life. I am in the reliable hands now of the author, Nina Stibbe, who's here to tell me a bit about hers. I know it was set up, I believe, Nina, yours during COVID. So we've got some other messages along those lines. But first, I just wanted to talk to the journalist,

Nell Frizzell, who's been looking into this and also the names of these groups now. There's quite a diverse group of names out there for these WhatsApp groups. Good morning, Nell. Good morning, Emma. Yeah, it seems like now most modern families essentially function as a dog appreciation society with a Christmas AGM, if you go by the names. It's all We Love Milo, Fluffykins, like fans, all of that kind of stuff. So it's also name. So you've got names of pets, your postcode, which is an interesting sort of giveaway for whoever joins next. Embarrassing encounters with waiters come up quite a lot in the naming of these things. Surname puns, you know, mine is called Frizzels R Us, but with a surname like Frizzel, you've got plenty of room for a joke name.

Or terms of sarcastic endearment, my favourite is just Technogram, which I don't know about you, it sounds like a sort of club night I might have gone to in 2008. But yeah, I think sort of family WhatsApp groups, they are sometimes the digital equivalent of having your cousin's boyfriend turn up and just post 14 pictures of their new bike through your letterbox while shouting about their promotion. They can be a little much. How are you feeling about them, Nina? Because it's safe to say there's some strong views coming in well i i've come to quite like our family one that's my siblings and my parents um but i i'd feel quite comfortable dropping off occasionally i don't feel pressure um but i i don't feel pressure to join in and post, but I feel pressure to equally respond and like everybody's. And my mum and me do this. We say, oh, fantastic and heart ties to almost everything.

And if we don't, you start feeling terribly guilty. The other thing I do is I don't know if you do this now I sometimes post to whatsapp whatsapp from my photograph so I'm not actually on the app and I post something and then you inadvertently bump into or you come behind somebody who's posted something tragic so I'll never forget um the the funny rac raccoon opening a bin that somebody posted, it might have been me, when little Richard had died. And the whole family were mourning little Richard. And it happened in the first lockdown. So it was very acutely sad. And I put this raccoon on and I didn't sort of notice, I couldn't even explain. I didn't sort of notice I couldn't even explain I couldn't say I didn't

know about it it looked as if I'd just done it as some kind of weird statement yeah I would agree that being a family whatsapp group is sometimes like being a daytime tv presenter you're expected to shift from kind of aunt marge's rather graphic description of a goiter to someone's kitchen renovation to a baby photo that's just been found in a lift to a sort of logistics question about does anyone know a good plumber and if you're like I have family abroad you might wake up to 45 messages of a fairly chaotic emotional roller coaster because you've missed their entire daytime. What if you don't like the version of your family member on WhatsApp versus how they are in real life?

Just because of their style now and the way that they come across. I think a lot of us have got an uncle, let's say, who turns into a kind of fairly poor observational comedian and particularly loving voice notes. You might get a sort of eight-minute... Oh, voice notes is a whole other debate. An eight-minute bit of stand-up as they drive to the dump with some fencing panels in the back seat,

which actually I have to say I love. I love a voice note. It really conjures the person. And there's less room for the awful. We're probably going to get onto this sort of misunderstandings that are caused by tone and text alone. If you only know it's a joke, if you can really hear someone's voice. It is. It's much better. And because also, Nina, I know that it's also a pressure for some of the older members of the WhatsApp group, especially if they're the parent of people on there, to respond, try and be equal with every photo or response. And I know you've got a take on that.

Yeah, well, I mean, my mum employs this giraffe with heart eyes. I don't know where she got that giraffe from, but she she she'll do that to everything except my things. But also, my mum's probably listening to this, so sorry, mum. But she will phone me to discuss what's on the WhatsApp group. Oh, dear. That's a lot of extra work in the middle of everything. It does add to my load. So there'll be a whole thing about gardening.

I'll put some seedlings on and then somebody will put a pumpkin on and then somebody else will put their baby in a wheelbarrow. And then and then my mum will say, but we can't go to the the allotment. And then everyone will go, yes, you can. This is during Covid. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. And then she'll ring me and say, I know we can, but I didn't like to say we were going in case anyone could read it. And it's just, I get double because also I have this thing, Nell, I don't know if you have this. So I've got sort of 10 siblings and offsprings and parents, this sort of big group of family. And I have then probably 10 little assorted family groups with a few of them in. So with my husband and two grown-up children who are students, I've got WhatsApp groups with my husband and son,

my husband and daughter, my son and daughter, and maybe even one other. And sometimes you can do the wrong thread. Yes. And then there are splinter groups about other groups and that's a whole other thing. Now, do you think it's actually working? Do you think it's making us closer? Well, no, is the short answer. I think there is, they were in a lot of cases set up, as Nina was saying, during lockdown,

when we missed the kind of flesh, blood, hair smell of our relatives. And you don't get that over WhatsApp. What you do get is a possibly overloaded view of the inside of their house and what they're eating for dinner, which actually is better than nothing. You know, I, like Nina was saying, I started thinking about this. The reason I was interested in names is because I'm writing a book about half siblings. And I've got this unbelievably complicated family where there's within one generation, 30 year age gap and about six different parents. And if it weren't for WhatsApp, we probably wouldn't have any form of connection at all. And I do like that, that it can weave people across different time zones,

different nationalities, different parentage, different, you know, interests, all of that. But it's absolutely no equivalent of just sitting in a room and, you know, drinking the same tea and looking at their sofa cushions

in real life and maybe even having a boring conversation about their pet while the pet is licking themselves in your eye line. What a nice thought. Nell Frisell, thank you very much. Nina Stibbe, I'm not going to form a WhatsApp group with you two after this, but I felt we briefly had a moment of what it could

have been like with some of our exchanges. Thank you to both of you. There's a message here saying, had a WhatsApp group with my four siblings. We are in three different countries. During COVID, tensions rose due to one sibling not adhering to the regulations. There was a confrontation via the WhatsApp group. I told the sibling how I felt about their rule breaking, left the group, unfriended sibling on Facebook, and I've not spoken to them since. Another one, our family WhatsApp is called Herd Immunity. Thanks for that, Jess. That'll take you back to some thoughts there.

We have a family WhatsApp group called Family Skiers, subtitled Where Are You? Never bothered to change it. The question's still relevant with teenage children, says Tish. Our family chat is called What Do They Want Now?

And I assure you, we love each other very much and it's just a lighthearted joke, I think, says Sam in Bristol. A few getting in touch to talk about the extra work that this can now take and some feeling that perhaps goes on women a bit more.

Another one here. I'm on two family WhatsApp groups. My in-laws are in South Africa and my family here in the UK, and I love them both for sharing fun practicalities and simply keeping in touch. But anonymous one says I'm part of several family WhatsApp groups and I have left and rejoined one for my nuclear family. My verdict is that it's ambiguous. One of my sisters has serious anorexia. The group has somewhat turned into a forum for her to post photos of food and worry messages. As someone who's themselves recovering from serious anxiety, I find this aspect of the family WhatsApp group gruelling and at best triggering at worst.

Another one here. My family WhatsApp group is rather infuriatingly mostly used for reporting wordle results each day. As a non-wordler, I just don't care. And so it carries on. Thank you for giving me a window into some of those conversations. I'll come back to those messages shortly. But let's turn our attention now to Russia, where women are taking to the streets in increasing number over the war in Ukraine. There have been scores of protests and subsequent arrests across Russia as men are called up to meet President Putin's wish of a so-called partial mobilisation of 300,000 Russian citizens. What's different about these protests is that they're increasingly female-dominated

as women raise their voices against the regime and Putin. I'm joined now by Maria Kuznetsova, a Russian free speech advocate and spokesperson for the OVD-Info, an independent Russian human rights monitor. Maria, good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Why are more women taking to the streets? I would say there are a few reasons for that. First of all, for men now now it's really dangerous to protest because a lot of men who are detained by the government or protest, they get call-up papers at the police station. So they need to go to the military enlistment service and basically after that they may be asked to go to the army and it happens

in a lot of cases also men are beaten much more severely and a lot of men are now trying to leave the country so i would say women understand in a way that it's now their place to stand up for i don't know you know brothers partners children that can be mobilized to the army. And I would say it's not really correct to say that mobilization is partial. Basically, now Putin says that they will mobilize one million people, not 300,000. And it's also about taking people in the 50s, for example, or in the 40s, or people without any military experience, and also people with just some several disease. So not just healthy young men.

The reality away from the rhetoric is different. And what is happening to these women when they are on the streets? I would say it's becoming much more brutal now. Before we saw that women were treated by the government not as severely as men. For many women now who are detained, they are either tortured or at least psychologically abused. We saw some cases where women had to undress

in front of the male policeman after detention in the process, for example. Some women were beaten, even with batons. Some lost consciousness. Also, we had a lot of cases when either pregnant women were arrested or women with just really small children, like one or two months old. And, for example, this mother, she was detained on Sunday and she's still at the police department,

so it's Tuesday today. And she has like a really small child. Also saw some women detained who have disabilities, for example. So I would say that now the case is that the police is quite brutal toward women. We have never seen that before. I would say we saw it in the beginning of the war, but never before in Russia.

Also, it's really interesting that now more than 50% of all people detained at anti-war protests are female. More than 50% of those who are detained against the war are women. Yes, we have never seen that. And we have been working with protests in Russia for the last 10 years. So it's really a unique situation. We even didn't see that in the beginning of the war. And is it having any impact?

I would say it can provoke some impact. Now we see that at least the local departments cannot, you know, just grab all men and make them go to the war they do not like.

I wouldn't say that, like, Russian support the war, no. I would say that many are very indifferent and just continue living their lives, especially in far away regions like Far East or Siberia. But now when mobilization came to their houses, they just understand that the war is near, they can be killed, or they may be asked to kill other people. That's why special women stood up. And what we see is that it starts to have some impact. It's really difficult to say. We've seen the process just for a week. But, well, I would say the biggest problem is that the government tries to take men, especially from poor regions and from national republics,

for example, from indigenous republics in Siberia and especially in Yakutia, for example, a lot of indigenous women stood up to protest against that because even human rights activists from that region, they call it genocide now. We should say, though, as well, women can still leave Russia,

but it's a different story for the men. Yeah, you're correct. Women still can leave the country, right? Well, if they're not doctors. If they're not doctors, okay. Fine, because we were reading about the high number of people trying to take planes last week, trying to leave after the announcement from Putin, the latest about the mobilisation.

But I don't think necessarily people have taken in that it's women who are going to be driving that because they're allowed. Yeah, you're correct. Yeah, so a lot of women try to leave, yeah. And just finally, where do you see this going? If more and more women are taking to the streets, are we seeing more protests? Are they carrying on and growing in number?

We definitely think that we will see more protests, especially in places we have never expected them to be. In Russia, we are used to having protests. In Moscow, in St. Petersburg, in big industrial cities that are quite well off. But what we see now is that women start to protest in faraway regions, in small towns, in really the poorest regions of Russia, where people can just have salary of $200 or $300 a month. So I would say it's really different dynamics that we have never seen before, well, at least in the last 10 or 15 years.

Maria, thank you very much for talking to us. Maria Kuntz-Nasova, a Russian free speech advocate and a spokesperson for the OVD Info, which is a Russian human rights monitor. Now, let me tell you about who's just walked into the studio. And in fact, some of what we'll be talking about will be political climates and women raising their voices. Kamala Shamsi, best known for her 2017 novel Home Fire, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction. Anne is here to talk about her eighth novel, Best of Friends, which tells the story of 14-year-olds Mariam and Zahra, busy reading the rude bits in Jackie Collins and watching pirated videos of Dallas because it's Karachi in 1988 and momentous political changes in Pakistan are having an effect on even their

cushioned existences and inviting them to imagine other sorts of lives and futures. The second half of the book is set in contemporary London, where the personal and the political have become intertwined for both of them. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. Thank you for being here with us. And I thought I'd start by trying to transport you and our listeners to a place in your mind and your memory,

because you were a teenager in Karachi in the 80s, like your characters. Play this clip. What are we listening to? First of all, I want to say I have goosebumps and also an urge to dance. We're listening to the 1988 campaign song of Benazir Bhutto. And in my lifetime, you know,

there was the dictator Zia-ul-Haq came to power when I was four. And then when I was 15, 11 years later, in 1988, he was killed. And suddenly democracy was happening. And not only democracy was happening, but this woman, this 35-year-old woman, it seemed was going to be prime minister. And this was her campaign song. And it just was a fantastic song. It has this kind of, you know, disco beat beneath it. And at parties, we used to dance to the song in a way that we didn't dance to, you know, even Madonna in 1988.

And you choose to set your novel, this latest novel, with two girls coming of age at this time. And in fact, just thinking about the dancing, you know, one of the characters looks at herself, doesn't she, in the mirror and feels differently at this time. Yeah, it was this extraordinary moment. And I, you know, I don't know if I fully read, I mean, I know I didn't fully realize it at the time, but there was a way in which what was possible, if you're a woman or a girl just shifted at a very deep level. And there was a sense of possibility. You know, if you live in a world and power looks entirely male without a break, you don't notice that. And then one woman comes along and everything looks dramatically different and femaleness looks dramatically different.

And within the novel, both the girls, Zara and Mariam, in their very different ways, suddenly feel the world has opened up. Everything is different. We have to be different too. In some way, our lives have to be different and larger and more filled with possibility. It's also a book about something which I find fascinating, childhood friendships. The friends that you pick when you're older, you've picked, haven't you, in many ways,

often because you've got an interest or you've met at a certain point in your life. But childhood friendships have a special history to them that perhaps you wouldn't still have them in your life if you hadn't been together as a child. It's precisely the reason I wanted to write the book. I mean, you've exactly defined the thing that to me makes childhood friendship so interesting. I mean, it did start actually many years ago, the novel in my head must have started when I was in my 20s. And my sister said just that, you know, the friends of our adult lives are our friends who have something in common with us. But our childhood friends are our friends because they've always been our friends. I mean, I don't know how my friendship started with my oldest friends.

And I know that we have grown apart in many ways because we all became friends almost before we had character, really. And you grow apart and you do know if we were to meet today maybe we wouldn't be friends but but your childhood friend there's a way in which they carry you a memory of you at every age and every stage of your life including I think very crucially they know who you were when you were a child growing up in your family and they know your family and they know your family and they you know they were in and out of your house and you were in and out of theirs. And there's a really important moment in the novel when they're adults and that, you know, one of them is quite angry at the other and she calls her father. And both of the women are living in London and their parents are in Karachi still. And Zahra's father said, look, here's the thing

you need to know about your friend. Your mother and I have both know that the day one of us dies, the first call the other one will make is to your best friend, Mariam, because she's the only person we can think of who should break the news to you. And she has promised that she'll drop whatever is happening and she'll buy two plane tickets and fly back to Karachi with you because she won't let you make that journey alone. Which is a very powerful message and also shows the strength of those bonds at every level in your life. And yet, and I'm not going to give anything away, they have a really difficult time, these two girls, don't they,

in terms of keeping that friendship? They do, and part of the reason why the father is making this sort of intervention is because as they're getting older and as their view of themselves in the world is getting more settled, because they're both very powerful, but in different, in some ways, contradictory realm, it's getting harder to hold on to the friendship and remember that actually love and memories and loyalty are enough when in some way you look at the other person you think you're unacceptable or the way you treat me is unacceptable or the way you treat other people is unacceptable were you writing this also to try and break it off with a childhood friend perhaps absolutely not quite a long-winded way of doing it. But it's one of those things.

Would you still have, do you still have a lot of your childhood friends? I have a huge number of my childhood friends. My absolute closest childhood friend actually is a boy, so it's a very different relationship. But he was just reading it over the weekend and texting me saying, I recognise so much in here.

Yeah, but I don't know that he recognised himself because I mean, I think it is, I did also want to write about female friendship and maybe in part, you know, I'm only now thinking of this. Maybe it was because in those crucial adolescent years, my very closest friend was a boy and we shared a great deal. But there's a point where adolescence hits and things start happening hormonally and within your body that I wasn't going to talk to a boy about. And partly, I think I was sort of imagining two girls. And the interesting thing, of course, is because there's all this sort of secrecy and shame around female sexuality, even though they are so close, they only slightly talk to each other about these things. And it's

the first real secrets and misunderstandings in their life start to arise because they start not being able to be entirely open with each other. And yes, and even though you're writing in a context of girls in Pakistan feeling like perhaps a lot more is possible, you also talk about girlfare. Well, tell us about what you mean by that. But the idea that there are still huge limitations about where especially girls can go at night yeah um so when i talk about this book and and this particularly if i'm talking to other women and i say well

there's a moment and again not giving away too much but there's a moment when they get into a car and with these two boys one of whom they don't know at all, and things start off and it's exciting and it's full of possibility. And then something small just shifts and one of them becomes terrified. And all the women I've spoken to have said, oh yeah, we know that car drive. And that's girl fear. It is, you know, that sense, I don't remember when it started in me. I don't remember a moment before it where as a young girl, you become aware that because you live in a particular kind of body, that body is a site of possible violation and violence. And now when you look at Pakistan and you think about how you felt and how those possibilities felt, what is it like, do you think, for girls today? It's an interesting question.

I mean, there are ways in which, I mean, if you look at sort of quite basic statistics, like how many more women are being educated, how many more women are in the workplace, actually those numbers have increased dramatically. And yet it's still a deeply patriarchal place. And I'm sure every girl there has girl fear but then every girl everywhere has girl fear. Well, that's certainly come to light

especially when we exchange stories about how people get home at night and how various strategies living here in the UK. I also didn't want to not bring up the fact that we've been talking about, we've heard dispatches from about the terrible images of floods in Pakistan and we spoke a couple of weeks ago

to a woman helping pregnant women there. I don't know if you've still got family there or you're in touch, but what's the latest from your perspective? My family is in Karachi, which hasn't been directly hit in that way by the floods. But it's beyond anything that I know how to imagine when you say, you know, an area the size of Britain was underwater. 33 million people have been affected. You know, there are things you can't really get your head around.

And, you know, DEC, the Disaster Emergency Committee, has come together to launch a relief fund and I hope people give to it. And of course, this is climate change. This is a climate emergency. And among the many inequalities of the world is the fact that Pakistan is actually not responsible for very much carbon emission, but is bearing the brunt of it. in particular ways. And one of them has been they're having a hard time getting period product, you know, and there are sort of,

I know people are working at that. Indeed, I was going to say, if anybody missed that, we also, I also did an interview with a young woman who's doing exactly that, a campaign to get those products to people, to women. Thank you very much,

Kamala Shamsi, for coming on. The book is called Best of Friends. And I'm sure a lot of people will be able to people, to women. Thank you very much, Kamala Shamsi, for coming on. The book is called Best of Friends, and I'm sure a lot of people will be able to relate, especially because of childhood friendships. Thank you. Thank you. Now, on Radio 4 later today, you'll be able to hear how British girls and women who have been abused by grooming gangs are being failed by the government. A report by File on 4 at 8 o'clock this evening has spoken to the Labour MP, Jess Phillips,

who says the national referral mechanism, that's the government's framework for supporting victims of modern slavery, hasn't adapted to the rising number of British victims in its care. Last year saw the highest number of British victims referred to the NRM since the system began in 2009, overtaking Albanian and Eritrean nationals. Isabel, which is not her real name, has told the BBC that despite being referred to this NRM after years of abuse

by a grooming gang, she's still being trafficked. I'm joined now on the line by File on 4 reporter Annabelle Dees. Annabelle, good morning. How old was Isabel when she first met her perpetrators? She had just started secondary school, but she was really struggling to fit in because all her other friends who were from primary school had gone to a different secondary school. So she was finding it really hard to fit in and she started truanting, which is something she had done before. So she stayed at home and she turned to online chat rooms for company. This was a little while ago.

And she started talking to a 44-year-old man who was of Pakistani heritage. And he began by just quite innocent chat, asking her about her interests, what her favourite subjects were at school. And soon he was telling her that she was clever and beautiful and amazing, which was honestly music to her ears because she was very unhappy at school. Her parents weren't really around at home. They weren't very long hours trying to provide a good life for her. And she was lonely and she craved attention, which this man gave to her. And the more they talked, he showered her with compliments and she felt that she was

falling in love with him. And so he asked her to start talking on video chat. He began calling her all the time. And the conversation turned sexual. He asked her what colour her underwear was, what her favourite sexual position was. She was really innocent. She was a young girl. She'd never kissed anyone. She'd never had a boyfriend. She's from a middle class background. She wasn't from a deprived home where there was neglect, but she was just an innocent young girl who was struggling to fit in in the world. And she met this man on the chat room and he said he was her boyfriend. He overwhelmed her with attention. He love-bombed her. And she believed they were an item. She thought it was, you know, slightly unusual, but she thought it was normal.

She thought it was OK. And when she started college, things got dramatically worse, didn't they? Yeah, so she had been groomed by this man for a number of years she had been in what she believed was a relationship with him where he had he had picked her up several times a week and and raped her and she felt she couldn't tell anyone about what was happening because he told her he was involved in drugs and gangs and held guns to her head and been extremely abusive to her. But when she reached college age, he said he was bored of her and that he had a friend who wanted to meet her. She was really struggling at home.

Her family unit had essentially broken down because her parents didn't understand her challenging behaviour. She was drinking about half a litre of vodka a day to cope with things. And she saw this man as an escape from her home life. And she also naively believed that maybe it was an escape from what had been going on before. But tragically, that really wasn't what happened. This man was a paranoid, violent drug addict. He was in debt to his dealer. And to pay off his debt, he allowed his dealer to rape her which tragically gave the dealer the bright idea that he could then sell her the sex and the very next day after the dealer

raped her he took her to a corner shop a takeaway just around the corner from from where she was living and every single member of staff there raped her. And that was a pattern which continued for the next four years. She was picked up, driven across the country to takeaways, empty houses, rooms above pubs, warehouses, all kinds of different locations where men of all different nationalities would come and pay to have sex with her. And there was a particularly brutal incident, which I believe has been voiced up by an actor that she told you about. I'd been at a flat where I'd been raped by, I don't know how many men.

But one of the men picked me up to take me home and I'd be sick in his car. So he literally kicked me out of his car. And I think I only had one shoe, and I was, like, on a country lane. I had no idea where I was. My phone only had, like, 5% or 6% charge, and I was like, who can I call? Like, I can't call the police. So I had to ring one of my perpetrators to come and pick me up.

And we ended up at this warehouse and then more people came I didn't have a lot of clothes on anyway but yeah he just stripped me and raped me and that's when I said I'm going to go to the police I've got DNA evidence or whatever and that was when one of the other men got the petrol and poured it all over me and got like a lighter and saying, I could set you alight now and nobody would even know we killed you. It's an incredibly difficult and distressing and very, very upsetting situation that she has found herself in and spoken to you about for this special report.

But what I mentioned right at the beginning was the finding, the overall finding of your report and your journalism is that British girls and women who've been abused by grooming gangs are being failed by the government. Has she tried to report this? Has she been discriminated against because she's British? Effectively, yes, because when she first went to report it, she went two years ago to the police after seeing another grooming gang in the news in a different part of the country being prosecuted for their crimes and this gave her the courage to come forward she went to the police she told them everything they failed to refer her to the national referral mechanism possibly they didn't see her as a victim because she was British. Who knows? But they failed to refer her.

But even if they had, the national referral mechanism doesn't work particularly well for British women because it was originally set up to assist foreign nationals who were victims of trafficking and modern slavery, who used to be the majority of those

who referred to the system. But now British nationals are more likely than any other nationality. 31% of victims last year were British, overtaking, as you said, those from Eritrea and Albania. And we decided to find out just how many of the victims of sexual exploitation specifically were British, and found out that last year alone, 462 women were referred to the NRM compared to 46 non-British nationals. But all the charities we've spoken to and other victims we've spoken to, aside from Isabel, say it's simply not working

for them because the NRM is meant to provide a safe house for victims. Yet these are really hard to come by because if a victim currently has a home, which can be somewhere their abusers know where they live, this can count against them because they can be deemed to have safe housing because they're not destitute. Also, because they're British, they can be referred to their local council. But as we know, council waiting lists are extremely long and people can wait years to be rehomed. So you might be in what is safe housing with hot water and electricity and a front door that shuts, but it's also somewhere where your traffickers can come and pick you up and abuse you.

The victims are also meant to be provided with financial assistance and legal aid. But strangely, the legal aid threshold doesn't particularly work well for British victims because the payments that they get then take them over the threshold to get legal aid. They also have told me that they can only work a certain number of hours because otherwise they don't qualify for legal aid. They also have told me that they can only work a certain number of hours because otherwise they don't qualify for legal aid. So they have a lot of trouble in, you know, pursuing justice if they want to try and sue the Home Office, for example, or sue the police for not helping with their case in a way that they feel is adequate. So a lot of them are stuck in this system, trying to move forward, trying to rebuild their lives,

a career, a family, who knows, but really unable to. They're just stuck in their lives, stuck in houses where their abusers know where they are and can't move forward. Annabelle Dees, thank you very much. If you've been affected by any of the issues we've been talking about, there are organisations that can offer help and support available via bbc.co.uk forward slash action line, or you can call for free at any time to hear recorded information on 08000 15547. You can hear the full programme, Isabel's story on File on 4 this evening at 8. And a statement from the Home Office says,

the government is committed to tackling the heinous crime of modern slavery, assisting victims' recovery and ensuring they have tailored support to begin rebuilding their lives and transition back into the community Thank you. We expect all police forces to investigate claims of child sexual exploitation and grooming thoroughly. Relentlessly pursue perpetrators for all offences committed and offer support to victims. The Home Secretary has recently commissioned the Inspectorate to investigate how police across England and Wales handle cases of group-based child sexual exploitation. As I say, you can hear Isabel's story this evening at 8 o'clock on File on 4. Thank you very much for many of your messages today and the communication we've been receiving about communication, really, your family WhatsApp groups.

One from Carla, which actually says, I'm a counsellor and you wouldn't believe how much time I help spending people, spend with people, excuse me, helping them wrangle feelings about family WhatsApp groups. There you go. They've even escalated to that point for some people. And the names that are still coming in, Random Hat Band, Marrakesh Madness, The Lady Garden. And so it goes on. And that's just from one listener. Until tomorrow, I'll speak to you at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time.

Join us again for the next one. Hello, I'm John Wilson, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast series, This Cultural Life. In each episode, I ask leading artistic figures to reveal the most important people, events, and cultural works that have had a profound impact on their own creativity. It was just so different. It was so away from everyone. It just blew my mind. I didn't know about this. I just was confronted by it. And to me, this was art, you know. I felt art. We didn't know we were going to be there for years. But I mean, I honestly would have shot that thing for five years. I didn't care. People like Nicole Kidman, Goldie, Armando Iannucci, Jarvis Cocker, Hannah Gadsby, Tracey Emin,

Paul McCartney and James Corden. It means a great deal to me that show. You realise how extraordinarily uplifting it can be to share an experience with 1500 people. The people whose work we love talking about the work that they love. Search for This Cultural Life on BBC Sounds. I'm very emotional now, thank you. 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. I started like warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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