Woman's Hour - Black women and cancer, Eleanor McEvoy, Shamima Begum ruling, Yazidi women, A Victorian dress diary

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

New research from Cancer Research UK and NHS Digital has revealed that Black women from Caribbean and African backgrounds are more likely to be diagnosed with certain types of cancer at later stages, when treatment is less likely to be successful. This study is the first to show that ethnicity is a significant factor in late-stage diagnosis for women with breast, ovarian, uterine, non-small cell lung cancer and colon cancer. Nuala speaks to Kruti Shrotri, Head of Policy Development at Cancer Research UK and Adobea Obeng who sought medical help three times over two years before she was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer.Eleanor McEvoy is one of Ireland's foremost songwriters and has worked with the likes of U2, Sinead O'Connor and Mary Black. She is the composer and co-performer of A Woman's Heart, the title track for the best-selling Irish album in Irish history, and one of Ireland's favourite folk songs, which recently featured in the award winning Derry Girls. One of Eleanor's songs, Sophie, is used in treatment centres to treat patients with eating disorders. She joins Nuala live in the studio to discuss her UK tour, the inspiration behind the tracks of her most recent album Gimme Some Wine and to perform the track South Anne Street.In 2014, thousands of Yazidi women and girls were captured as part of an Islamic State Group genocide. While many of the men were shot, women and girls were forced into sex slavery for IS. Today, many of these women and children still live in camps in Iraq as they have nowhere else to go. Now, the Iraqi government says they’re going to close the camps. Nuala McGovern is joined by journalist Rachel Wright and CEO of Bellwether International Rachel Miner to talk about the conditions in the camps and what more needs to be done.Judges from the Special Immigration Appeals Commission have today decided the removal of British citizenship from Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old schoolgirl to join Islamic State, was lawful. In the hearing last year challenging the decision, her legal team said it ignored the fact that she may have been trafficked into Syria.  Nuala is joined by BBC Home Affairs Correspondent Daniel Sandford.In 1838 a middle-class Victorian woman, Mrs Anne Sykes, was given a diary on her wedding day which she filled over the years with snippets of clothes and household fabrics, carefully annotating each one. Nearly two hundred years later Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian, came across the scrapbook. She spent six years researching the materials she found stuck to the album’s pages and created her own book The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Skyes about this unique record of the lives of Victorian women.

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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, you are very welcome to Woman's Hour. Well, as you've been hearing there, of course, we are awaiting a decision on Shmima Begum's future. The judges set to rule whether the removal of her UK citizenship was lawful. Now, this is a case that has been the centre of so much discussion about terrorism, trafficking, repatriation. We're going to speak to our correspondent who is covering the case

probably in about 20 minutes or so. Shamima Begum, you may know, is currently in a camp in northern Syria. We are also going to talk about another consequence of the Islamic State group, who at their height, they held about a third of Syria, also 40% of Iraq. But the consequence we want to talk about is the Yazidi women. They were targeted, kidnapped and raped by IS, and many now still displaced in camps in Iraqi Kurdistan. Those camps may now close. So our guests are asking, have these women been forgotten? We also have with us the Irish musician Eleanor McAvoy. She will be in studio today performing live. Well, we have lots

to talk about. Music, yes. But also, why did Eleanor buy herself a purple aga cooker after a bad breakup? I want to know about your purchases, big or small. What did you buy yourself after a breakup? Particularly maybe if it was bad. Flowers? Maybe a dog? Radical new haircut? Send them in. You can text the programme. It's 84844.

Texts charge at your standard message rate. At BBC Woman's Hour is another way to get in touch on social media. Email us through the website or maybe you'd like to lend your voice to us. A voice note or WhatsApp message 03700 100444 Looking forward to reading all about them.

Now, I want to turn to new research however before that from Cancer Research UK and NHS Digital which has revealed that black women from Caribbean and African backgrounds are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at later stages when treatment is less likely to be successful. This study is the first to show that ethnicity is a significant factor in late-stage diagnosis.

And to discuss the reasons for this inequality, I'm joined by Kruti Shrotri, who is Head of Policy Development at Cancer Research UK, and also Adobia Obiang, who sought medical help three times over two years before she was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer at 31. You're both so welcome to the programme. Thank you for joining us. Kruti, let me start with you and this research.

What were the differences in late stage diagnosis between black and white women? So thank you so much for having me on this programme, Nuala. This report by Cancer Research UK looked at several different cancer types. It looked at breast, ovarian, uterine, non-small cell lung cancer, colon and prostate cancer. And for all of those cancer types, except prostate, because that's not relevant for women, it found that black women are more likely to be diagnosed at a late stage cancer. We know that early diagnosis gives the best chances of survival. So these differences are deeply concerning and we need to address them.

Also, can we talk about the differences found for women from Indian, Bangladeshi or Pakistani backgrounds? Yes so the report also found that for some cancer types there was a difference in the stage of diagnosis for Asian women, those particularly being breast and ovarian so not quite so extensive as for black women but they did exist. Interestingly the study found that there were no differences between Chinese women and white women. That is interesting. But with the findings that you have, what are some of the reasons why women in certain ethnic groups are being diagnosed at this later stage? We don't know exactly what the reasons are, but previous research does give us some clues. We know from previous studies that ethnic minority groups have lower awareness of

the signs and symptoms of cancer. And even if they do spot something, there are more barriers that prevent them from going to their GP to get it checked out. So for example, we know that they are more likely to be embarrassed about talking about these issues to their GP. And interestingly, black and Asian communities are also more likely to have fatalistic attitudes towards cancer. So an attitude which is, well, there's no point doing anything about it because it's not in my control. So I'm not going to go and see my GP. But something I think that's really important is that while these behavioural factors are a really important component, it's not just down to individual behaviour. There also seems to be differences in access to care. So ethnic minority groups are more likely to report having to go

multiple times to their GP compared to white groups to get referred for further tests. So clearly there is a systematic problem here that we need to address. Well I want to bring in Adobia. Welcome Adobia. For our listeners you are black. What was your experience of finding out you had cancer? Hi good morning thank you for having me. My experience was it was a devastating experience obviously. First of all finding out that I had breast cancer and then obviously finding out that it was a secondary diagnosis. And unfortunately, like I say, in my case, incurable. Take us back to this journey that you've gone through from your first inclination to visit a doctor. What was that?

So I found a lump in my breast in 2016. So I would have been 29 at the time. And sort of my first thought wasn't, you know, oh, let me go and get this checked out. It kind of was a small lump in my breast. And I kind of was getting on with my day and my life. But I noticed that the breast lump was getting bigger and I thought, OK, I need to get it checked out.

When I first initially went to my GP, had an exam, and I was told that it was just ordinary breast lumps and it was nothing to be worried about. And because of my age, my GP wasn't concerned. And I was sent on my way. And I just continued on with life. I'm just wondering after that was it were you still worried or was there an acceptance okay that's what the doctor says? After I'd seen the GP had my exam and I was told by the GP there was nothing to worry about I

was like okay there's nothing to worry about let me continue with my life and I did so um you know until 2017 when the lump had grown you know even larger and I was starting to notice it I started to notice all the discoloration and the dimpling which you know at the time like I say I didn't I wasn't aware of it but at the time I was presenting all the symptoms of breast cancer um and then like I had to go to the GP again. And then I was told again that it wasn't anything to be worried about. And it's just a breast lump. And if it becomes painful, then I should come back. My goodness, my goodness. It continued. Tell our listeners what happened next. So in April of 2018, I was going to work an ordinary Monday and I had an excruciating pain in my chest, a pain I've never experienced before. And I was finding it very difficult to breathe. Luckily, I was with a work colleague and we went to my local accident and emergency and when I arrived there I was told by the

doctors on duty there that I had musculoskeletal pain and was given some painkillers and sent home that following week I the pain was getting even more excruciating I was finding it difficult to move around to breathe and I insisted again when I went into A&E again that I need a scan, some sort of scan, because something is not right. And, you know, I need to find out what's happening. told in May of 2018 that I had breast cancer and unfortunately it had spread to my lymph nodes and they were querying areas in my lung and my bone at the time. So yeah, that was pretty much my journey and it was an uphill battle because I had to insist that I needed some sort of scan because something wasn't right. Adobe, I mean, it must have been incredibly traumatic. But to bring you back at that point, when you were told that,

what went through your mind? I mean, up until the time I had all sort of the tests, I had to have a biopsy and a mammogram and all the tests that you need for them to find out exactly what's happening. I was actually in denial for a very long time. It was only once the oncologist said the words, you have breast cancer, that I actually, you know, had to take a step back and realise, wow, this is serious. And I have this serious disease. But up until that point, cancer, I wasn't thinking that I had breast cancer. I was

going through the words of the GP telling me that I'm too young and it's nothing to worry about, it's breast lumps. So, yeah, it was a very difficult and traumatic experience for me. And I want to hear more about your life. And thank you for sharing that, Adobe. I'm sure it's very difficult. But, Kruti, what about that experience that poor Adobe went through? It's really difficult to hear, isn't it?

And, you know, the sad truth is that this isn't one instance. What research suggests is that this is happening systematically and it needs to be addressed. What I would like to see is the government do more to make tackling these inequalities a priority for the health community. And some of that is going to have to include making sure that we have more data, better data sets so that we can understand what's going on and we can address that, we can actually understand what the barriers on and we can address that we can actually understand what the barriers are and we can address the problems. It's also going to need to be resourcing the health service properly because if the health service haven't got the headspace to address these really important

issues which they haven't at the moment they are on the brink then it's not going to be going to be possible to move forward. I'm going to read a little of the Department of Health and Social Care statement that we just received. More patients are being diagnosed, they say, and start in treatment earlier, with 92 community diagnostic centres open since 2021, delivering over 3 million tests, scans and checks, including to detect cancer. We also recently announced a £10 million investment in more breast cancer screening units, as well as software and service upgrades. The NHS Help Us Help You awareness campaign includes advertising targeted to reach black,

Asian and minority ethnic groups to address challenges to earlier diagnosis such as fear of what might be found. They go on to say addressing cancer together with other conditions in a joined up strategy will allow us to focus where there are similarities in approach and ensure care is focused on the patient but that wasn't you adobia it wasn't about a fear of what might be found no it wasn't um it was i mean in my opinion sort of being misdiagnosed um like i said i was presenting all the symptoms of breast cancer i had obviously the lump i had the dimplingpling, I had the discolouration. The only thing that wasn't happening that I didn't have was the leaking from the nipple.

But I was presenting all symptoms of breast cancer and unfortunately that wasn't picked up on. Why do you think it wasn't? I mean, I have different theories, but I feel perhaps maybe the GP just didn't know what breast cancer looked like on a dark-skinned person so perhaps you know they weren't able to just pick up on those symptoms on my body unfortunately um maybe they didn't have access to the medical journals that shows how breast cancer presents on darker skin um but I feel that had he have known what to look for what to what you know it would look like on my skin, maybe he may have been able to pick up on it sooner when I first went in. I'm so sorry to hear that. A question did come in from a listener to you, Kruti. Does black women in your research include women of mixed race? It doesn't. Black women, we are specifically referring

to Caribbean and African women. I understand. Adobia, let me go back to you. Your life now, that was 29 when you first found the lump. 31, I believe, by the time you were diagnosed. Tell me about now. Well, now I'm on a hormone targeted treatment which is working fantastically I will be coming up to my sort of five years of being on treatment and having

my condition stable in May of this year but it has been you know it's been like I say it's been uphill battle I've had you know my down times I've had great news I've had times, I've had great news. I've had bad news. I've had, you know, emotional times as well. But I maintain on trying to stay positive and just kind of having faith in the treatment that I'm on, which is, you know, working wonderfully for me at the moment. Yeah, we wish you the best of luck with that. Kruti, you know, Adobe are there mentioned black skin, for example, or not being able to perhaps be familiar with the skin or some of the symptoms

what else needs to be done to try and change these numbers that you've seen? Yeah there are a few things so I think that it's really important that we do more campaigns to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer targeted at those communities where awareness is lower. There's been a great example where black men are at higher risk of prostate cancer and there have been a lot of campaigns over recent years to raise awareness of this amongst both black men and GPs. And we're seeing much better diagnosis rates, early diagnosis rates amongst them. Cancer Research UK run talk cancer workshops with community leaders to help them have conversations about cancer with their

community. And these are aimed at breaking down barriers to get people to see their GP if they have a concern. And it also emphasises the importance of early diagnosis. But as I said before, I do think that ultimately the government need to do more at making addressing these inequalities a priority for the health community. The government recently dropped their health disparities white paper, and they committed last year to a war on cancer and a 10-year cancer plan, which they have also dropped. Yes, we have a major condition strategy that they've now committed to,

but this is a catch-all strategy spanning several conditions, health inequalities, prevention, and we need to make sure that government action is properly targeted so that we can move forward here. It does seem like a different strategy. They talk about a joined-up strategy. They talk about a joined up strategy. They talk about treating the whole body just to let our listeners know that

instead of the plan, the 10 year plan of the war on cancer, as you discussed there. Just before I let you go, Adobia, have you gone back to those doctors that didn't diagnose you? Have you had that confrontation? No, I haven't.

I feel like I'm still harboring some kind of resentment um yeah you know and a little bit of a disappointment and anger in that situation I actually moved GPs as well I completely moved a GP surgery um I think like I said trying to maintain a sort of like a positive mindset and just kind of moving on and moving forward with my life. It's not something that I'm thinking about going to sort of approach or speak to them about. I kind of have made my decision to leave the GP practice that I was at that, you know, misdiagnosed me. And now I found my voice. And if anything presents or I find that my treatment isn't how I expect it to be, I will speak up about it now. And I think that's a good lesson that I learned from my experience.

And I know you share it as a fashion vlogger as well. That is Adobea Obeng. An awful lot of listeners getting in touch, I should tell you, Adobea as well, sympathising with you and your story. Also want to thank Kruti Shrotri. Thanks so much for getting in touch and sharing the news research that has just come out. We're going to be going to Eleanor McEvoy in just a moment,

but I do want to read a message coming in. This is, I'm listening to the lady speaking on Woman's Hour. I'm so sad. I'm currently waiting to start treatment for breast cancer. I was seen very quickly, listened to, not once dismissed.

I'm a white woman under 50. I find it awful in 2023 we still have these discrepancies in healthcare based on race. It is not acceptable. Thanks for your comments coming in. We're going to be talking about what you bought yourself

during a bad breakup in just a moment. A lot of people responding to that one as well. 84844. But I mentioned Eleanor McAvoy. She is one of Ireland's foremost songwriters. She's worked with the likes of U2, Sinead O'Connor and Mary Black. She's the composer and co-performer of A Woman's Heart.

That was the title track of the best-selling Irish album in Irish history. One of Ireland's favourite folk songs. It also featured in Derry Girls, if you're a fan of that. Eleanor, she's currently on a UK tour. Her latest album is Gimme Some Wine. It has themes ranging from breakups to motherhood, also female friendship. She's with me in the studio.

Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Very well. Good to have you with us. So Gimme Some Wine, the album, what inspired it? Well, it was recorded and conceived of really during lockdown, which is part of the reason why it's called Gimme Some Wine. The other reason why it's called Give Me Some Wine.

The other reason why it's called Give Me Some Wine is, of course, the magnificent painting on the cover by Chris Golan, wonderful British artist called Chris Golan that I've been collaborating with. And he was painting paintings about my songs. I was then writing songs about his paintings and we were going back and forth. Sadly, he passed away in 2017. But that was how that came to be on the cover. So yeah, during lockdown, like a lot of people, I think I reflected on my life and where I was and, you know, what my role was in the music business now

as a 56-year-old woman, you know, how do I fit into them? You know, we could see what the doctors and nurses were doing. What was I doing? And without wanting to get too new agey about it, I'm a huge believer in the healing power of music. And, you know, I think that, you know, my mission when I get up on stage is to, you know, to make people who are down or tired after work, to transform them, to bring joy into their lives. And that's not to say that you don't hit the darker spots,

you address the more serious issues, be they anorexia or breakups or whatever. But if I'm not sending them home at the end of the night with joy in their hearts, I feel I have failed. I feel there's so much darkness out there. There's so much dark literature, dark theatre, dark, you know. So that's kind of my aim. Well, our listeners are going to get a little bit of a live performance in just a few minutes time. But let's learn a little bit more about you. You studied music at Trinity College in Dublin, played in orchestras.

I was also reading. But when did the songwriting come into play? To be honest, Nuala, I was always songwriting. It's just I never really sang them for anybody. So I mean, I had hundreds of songs written, you know, literally before I'd ever played one to anybody. I don't know what I think I thought I was you know Emily Dickinson or something and I was going to die at 35 and they'd find all these thousands of songs in my bedroom. I don't know what I was

thinking but it was odd because once I'd written the song I didn't feel the need to play it for me the joy was in the writing or the buzz or the compulsion was in the writing part. Still is to be honest. But then when I was in symphony orchestra I played a track to my brother and he said oh Eleanor part still is to be honest um but then when I was in symphony orchestra I played a track to my brother and he said oh Eleanor you got to be doing this you know get me I borrowed his band and did a demo and um then just started to look for I actually

I had a turning point moment I walked into the symphony orchestra one day and and I mean you're on a salary when you're in an orchestra and all that but I had been um I was down the back of the second violins you know and this gentleman had been moved down behind me and he used to lead the orchestra, a very, you know, eminent violinist. And I thought, oh my God, as you get older, you get moved back in this job. You know, most jobs as you get older and get more mature and get more experience, they move you up the chain. But of course your fingers go, you know, and I thought, oh, Eleanor, give the songwriting thing a shot. Just try it.

So that day I went to the manager of the orchestra and said, look, Patty, I won't be, you know, I'm going to be leaving my notice and, you know, don't be calling me again after X-Men weeks. And I went. What does Patty say now? I don't know.

I haven't seen her for years, actually, so I don't. I put a belly's hair in too. But some of the tracks going back to the album are very personal to you. Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously COVID was a tough time for our industry, but to be honest, it was nothing compared to what had happened to me prior to that. I'd had a lot of stuff happen to me at the same time, Nuala. You know, my dad died and a couple of weeks later, my relationship of 23 years literally just like that overnight went.

And it was an awful shock. And, you know, it was it was very horrible and complicated. And it turned out he'd had somebody else in another country the whole time. He'd been with me. Yeah. So, I mean, it was you find out 23 years of your life has been a sham and it puts you with certainly it put me into a very dark psychological place. I mean, I experienced darkness that I don't think I've ever experienced in my life.

So I had to think, OK, how do you, how do you get yourself out of this? Or do you, you know, so for me, I said, OK, just start again, start a new life. And for me, that sort of worked. And by the way, don't worry, there's only two tracks about it on the album in case anybody thinks I'm near that.

But it is an awful lot to take on. And was this kind of towards the end of lockdown or? No, it was just before. So it was a year before lockdown. OK. So I had a year of kind of trying to get over that and then lockdown hit. And, you know, I feel very guilty saying this, but in a way, lockdown provided me with a bit of time to heal because I was pretending to the world I was fine. Because, you know, in my business, you've got to get up on stage.

The show must go on. You know, if you want to make a living, you've got to keep doing it. And I just had to kind of withdraw a bit from social media and all that just to kind of, you know, start again, essentially, and kind of reinvent myself. And I decided, God, Eleanor, this time, like, what decisions have you made in your life, girl, that have that led to this? You know, and I. But that sounds like you're blaming yourself. Well, you know, I've since had, again, I'm sounding very new age here, but I did go for, I actually did go for therapy.

And I have to say it was absolutely transformative. And I wish I'd gone 20 years ago because I put up with stuff I should never have put up with. It wasn't really a big thing in Dublin though in the 70s and 80s. It really wasn't. You know what it was like. I mean, you know what it was like back then. God, I was just saying to you,

you know, when I was in college, like I tell my daughter now, you know, contraceptive was illegal when I was in college in R&D. Like I wasn't just frowned upon or heart-kissed. It was against the law.

The Students' Union sold condoms one time. They got arrested, you know. So times have changed. Yeah. We were looking at you guys over here. You had got arrested, you know. So times have changed. Yeah, we were looking at you guys over here. You had like the, you know, and the NHS, you had it for free.

And it was definitely, and Ireland has changed a lot. But that is so interesting that you've kind of started again, I suppose, after lockdown. And what is it like then touring? Because you're in the middle of it at the moment. It's great. I'm loving it, you know.

It made me look at things like the song I'm going to do for you, Southam Street, you know, it's a little tiny street off Garton Street in Dublin, you know. One day I was there, this is ages ago, but I met my ex, you know, from 30 years ago from college, I'm showing my age there but anyway, and when I thought about that, I thought, during

lockdown I was thinking, God, the road's not taken. What if I had gone that road instead of that road? So it was all of this kind of reflection. And yeah. Maybe that's something that comes, I know you went through that terrible breakup, but the,

an age that you reach as well, you mentioned you're 56, that maybe there will always be that reflection of the road not taken. I think there will. And I think it's easy to say, oh, well, I wouldn't have ended up, you know, you don't know. You just don't know in life. Things could have been worse. You know, you have to take, you know, the sliding door moments and just, you know, get up and get on with it, you know.

Well, you know, we talk about the breakup there. I believe there's a connection to a purple. I get that you have the cooker stove range. Yeah, well, after the breakup there. I believe there's a connection to a purple aga that you have, the cooker stove range. Yeah, well, after the breakup, I don't know. I bought a purple aga in a moment of, I don't know, midlife crisis or something. But it is the best thing that caused me far less grief than the man ever did. And I didn't run off with other agas or anything like that. So, yeah, I just love it.

It's just and people said, get a neutral coloured one in case you want to sell. I said, no, I'm getting a purple one. I love my purple one. So yeah, it's still there. I just love it. It's just, and people said, get a neutral coloured one in case you want to sell. I said, no, I'm getting a purple one. I love my purple one. So yeah. Well, a lot of people, because I threw it out to our audience and there's nothing that they are,

if not responsive. Let me see. After a breakup, I bought myself a plane ticket to East Africa and had an adventure. Absolute winner. When I left my husband 35 years ago,

I bought a pink fluffy dressing gown. He hated pink and a piece of breaded chicken. He was a vegetarian. All my dressing gowns are still pink and not that my husband would notice. He also, she has a new one now who loves her and is happy with whatever she wears or eats. I dyed my hair red, says another, when my ex told me he was leaving. He hated red hair. Oh, he's in my bad books too then. I bought myself a lovely convertible BMW when the divorce was finalised. That's Terry. Let me see, Amanda. A new lipstick.

Essential. I also took the opportunity to try something I've thought of for a long time but never done. A new hair colour. Nothing too dramatic. Oh, here we go again. But a bit of red goes a long way. Is red the colour post break-up? I don't know. There's another call-in segment.

Let me see. Another post-breakup gift. I recently split from my husband. I bought myself a concert ticket and a hotel room to meet friends from an online fan club of the same band. Not something I could have done before. And I'm so excited. Isn't that wonderful?

Do you want one more story that came in from our listener about what they did for their breakup gift I bought myself three rats my partner and I always hated them so I thought I could get over my fear of them and I could get over our relationship turns out they were much better company than he ever was and they smelt less too

says Cathy in Cardiff. Thanks so much for coming into us, Eleanor. Give Me Some Wine is her album and she is touring right now in the UK until the 11th of March. Now, I want to turn next to actually a story just coming into us. I mentioned Shamima Begum at the beginning of the programme.

We are just getting the news that she has lost her appeal at the special, the SIAC, which is the Special Immigration Court. It has been dismissed on all grounds of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, I should say. So she has lost that. She was hoping to appeal the decision to revoke her citizenship and that in turn may lead to her being repatriated but that is not going to happen as she has just lost that coming in over the past

few minutes. But I want to continue talking about the Islamic State group which of course was a big part of the Shamima Begum story because it's almost nine years since they announced they were establishing a caliphate in Iraq and Syria. That was back in June 2014, would you believe?

Many of their actions made headline news like the public executions and also radicalisation. But one element that perhaps we don't talk about as much is what the UN have described as the genocide committed by IS against the Yazidi people. It was the Yazidi women who faced some of the most horrific treatment. IS captured thousands of Yazidi women and also girls and kidnapped and raped them. Eight years later, Yazidi women and girls live in camps of internally displaced people,

dealing with the trauma they experienced on a daily basis. There are still around 3,000 of these women and girls unaccounted for. And now the Iraqi government have made it clear that they want to close these camps. My next two guests have just recently returned from visiting some of the camps which are in northern Iraq. Rachel Wright is a freelance journalist. Rachel Miner is the founder and CEO of the UK charity Bellwether International, whose mission is to protect the freedom of religion or belief in areas across the world. I asked Rachel Wright to start by explaining who the Yazidi people are.

Well, the Yazidis are a sort of ethno-religious group that have lived in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq and Syria. For many years, about 4,000 years, we went to their most sacred temple and we found urns that were used to make olive oil that were 4000 years old. And but they've mostly lived in Sinjar, which is a mountainous region on the border between Iraq and Syria. And, you know, there's they've always been subject to oppression and genocides, attempted genocides throughout their history, because the Kurds want them to be Kurdish, and the Arabs don't like them. And a lot of people call them infidels, especially

Muslims, because they're not Muslim. They have their own religion. And their own religion is Zoroastrian. Yeah, there's sort of a mixture of a lot of different practices. So it's very specific and unique. There is no other religion like it. So there were always issues with the Yazidis. And after the Iraq War in 2003, the area was subject to dispute between the new Kurdish government in northern Iraq and the Iraqi government. So there were already issues. Then in 2014, ISIS came in and there was a

genocide. They shot, I think, thousands of men on the spot. They executed them and they kidnapped the women and girls and some boys and took them away and turned them into sexual slaves. The people that escaped, escaped up onto Sinjar Mountain and various communities helped them to survive. And then they managed to escape and they went out into northern Iraq and they are now, most of them, there's nearly 200,000 displaced Yazidis living in their own country, but living in what's called internally displaced people's camps. And just with the term genocide, there's not a global recognition of the treatment by the Yazidis, by IS, as a genocide. The UN have described it as genocide. So it just differs depending on where you are in the world. So that brings us up to what they have gone through when it comes to IS. You have gone to northern Iraq, however, to visit camps where Yazidi families are,

particularly women and children. What did you see? I saw massive tent cities. I saw running open sewers. I saw people living with nothing to do. Very moving, actually. I mean, I've been to a lot of places in the world and I found this very, very moving, partly because it's been eight years since what happened happened. And these people have gone nowhere. They have nothing to do. They have nobody sort of is on their side. You know, they're now they can't go back to Xinjiang because there's a whole host of other people that are fighting over it.

So they are, you know, they're displaced within their own country. You know, we saw one particular camp where there was a little boy eating from the rubbish. We met this young girl who was 11 who had been kidnapped by ISIS when she was six and used as a sex slave for goodness knows how many years. And then she's now celebrating her rescue. But, you know, the trauma that that little girl has gone through. So I found it deeply moving. Yes. And with the term, I know it has been sometimes used, sex slave, with Yazidi women and girls.

But some people prefer that it's kidnapped and raped is what happened to a lot of these girls and women. Rachel Miner, I'd like to bring you in here. You founded the charity Bellwether International after learning about the Yazidi people. What was it in particular about their story that was the catalyst for you to take action? The Yazidis are just like us. They're just like a lot of groups in the world who are practicing either a faith or belief, living in a community, trying to have a thriving economy. I was astonished that the Yazidi genocide was somewhat of a silent genocide. I had no idea that it had happened and I'd lived through it. And many of the women affected were my same age at the time. And I was disturbed. I was appalled that a genocide in the 21st century could unfold in the age of

social media and technology. And yet a lot of these stories go untold and a lot of the crisis goes unresponded to. As Rachel mentioned, it's been eight years and counting and there's still 2,874 missing women and girls. And that appalling, that's striking, it's disturbing. I lose sleep thinking about these women who are just like us, but in another part of the world who are destined to a different fate. And as I mentioned, of course, what has happened to them, whether it's the term genocide that is used or not, perhaps what has happened to them is seen differently in different parts of the world as you talk about it but you have been working particularly with psychological help for some of the Yazidi women that you have met talk us through that a little bit and I suppose how

successful that has been. Melvother's model is to work locally and through partner organizations, most of which are actually easy to run and operated. And one of the things that Bellwether focuses on is specific humanitarian gaps. So when we came into the landscape and learned that the first thing that loses funding is mental health response, trauma response, that was the gap we decided to fill, particularly for young girls and youth. There were little to no interventions around these lines. So we assembled a group of Yazidi social workers to be true to our localized model. And they actually helped us design a cognitive behavioral therapy model, which relies on narrative group therapy sessions. And it's evidence-based. It's been validated in studies across the globe. But the amazing part about our material was they were

Yazidi-fied. We took a lot of the Western medical language and made it local. We were mindful of religious sensitivities, cultural sensitivities, and created a product with the Yazidi community that reflected what they wanted. And then they were the implementing power behind the intervention. So we trained Yazidi women to run these CBT sessions. And there's a pre and post survey that helps us to measure that impact. So we had really high scores on the trauma before these sessions. After going through one intervention, these scores dropped by 45%. There was a 45% mental health improvement, which means that

these women are able to function in their lives and provide for their children. Many of the Yazidis displaced are single mother families because the husbands are missing or have been killed. But I am thinking about locally because when you read about Yazidi women, those that have made it back, for example, to their communities after being kidnapped and at times going through rape and other trauma, they're not always fully accepted from what I understand, or indeed the children that they may have had with IS fighters? There's enormous stigma surrounding sexual assault in the Yazidi community.

And after the genocide, the Yazidi spiritual council actually had to make formal statements about allowing Yazidi women who had been assaulted back into the community, which is horrific, should never be the case. Women who experience this trauma also experience enormous stigma, double jeopardy, and all kinds of intersectionality. But over time, we do see some things being destigmatized, like some Yazidis are brought back into the community, but there's still many, many Yazidi women that remain on the outside, especially if they have children born of rape. This is an enormous barrier for them to re-enter their community, to re-enter a rocky society. And that's something that we hope to target through these interventions is not only improve mental health outcomes, but actually give women language and skills and give the community language and

skills to break down these barriers to come together so that they can heal as a community. Why do you think, Rachel Wright, that these stories of these women and girls have not been told? It's a very good point. I mean, when Rachel approached me to come and see the Yazidis, I sort of, I thought, you know, I haven't heard about them since 2014. And I really don't know. I mean, I think people move on, the news cycle moves on. There's so many things to talk about. And I guess, you know, Islamic State, they were so horrendous, that people were concentrating perhaps on defeating them and getting rid of them. And then once they'd gone, maybe people thought, well, that's the end of that now. You know, we don't have to worry about it. But the amount of people I've talked to

who have never heard of the Yazidis, and these are journalists as well, young journalists have, you know, because it, I don't know, it was it was eight years ago, maybe that's a long time in people's minds. But I have been very surprised. And that's why I'm so shocked when I went there. You know, it's a huge community. There's 200 odd thousand people who are displaced living in these camps. We know that the Iraqi government say they plan to close the camps. I'm not known when that might happen. What do you think needs to happen in the future for these women, Rachel Minor? There's a lot. I would say that from the outside looking in, you would say maybe there's nothing that can be done.

But I push back on that. There's actually quite a lot that can be done. And we've seen that the international community can rally both to create awareness campaigns. Like I think of the Bring Back Our Girls during the Chibik kidnappings in Nigeria. We could generate the same kind of campaign for the missing Yazidi women and girls. And that's a matter of social media, political will, which we see trend and transpire very quickly. So that certainly the international community should keep talking and continue talking about the Yazidis and these women and girls until the problem is solved. And whether the genocide is acknowledged by every country in the world or not,

it is genocide. The UN Convention has been triggered, and we have a duty to respond as citizens of the human family. Rachel Miner, CEO of Bellwether International, and Rachel Wright, freelance journalist. Thanks to them. And to reiterate on the matter of whether or not the attack on the Yazidi in 2014 is a genocide or not,

we have a statement from the government. They say the UK is a longstanding supporter of Yazidi women and advocated strongly for the passing of the Yazidi survivors law. We provide financial support to women's organisations in Iraq who provide vocational training and workshops for Yazidi women and have committed over £278 million in humanitarian support to Iraq since 2014. Our long-standing policy is that any judgment as to whether genocide has occurred is a matter for a competent national or international court

rather than for governments or non-judicial bodies. Well, staying with the Islamic State group, I was mentioning judges from the Special Immigration Appeals Commission have decided the removal of British citizenship from Shamima Begum, who left the UK as a 15-year-old schoolgirl to join Islamic State, was lawful.

In the hearing last year challenging the decision, her legal team says it ignored the fact that she may have been trafficked into Syria. Let me bring in our BBC Home Affairs correspondent, Daniel Daniel Sanford who has been following the story this morning. Good morning Daniel, good to have you with us. So was this the expected outcome? I think it was the more likely outcome. You never know when very very clever judges get to sit on these very high profile cases but it was always the more likely outcome. As you say essentially Shamima Begum's lawyers had argued that rather than voluntarily travelling across to Islamic State and being a sort of full and wholehearted supporter of the

group she had in fact been trafficked essentially by being groomed and persuaded to travel to Syria and that she'd been trafficked for sexual purposes because on arrival in Syria, she was almost immediately married off to an adult Islamic State fighter. They said that this was child trafficking for sexual purposes. And interesting, although the SIAC court

ruled against her legal team on all grounds, they did say that they had some sympathy for those arguments. They said that there was a credible suspicion that Shamim Begum had been trafficked to Syria within the meaning of the relevant international law. And they also said that there were arguable breaches of duty by her school, the local council and the police in that they should have known there was a risk that she might travel to Syria after one of her school friends had already done so. But despite those clear concerns that the judges had, they decided that in the end it is up to the Home Secretary

to decide whether somebody poses a threat to national security. And the trafficking arguments didn't overwhelm that and in fact weren't entirely relevant because Shamim Abaygan is still in northeast Syria and so they concluded that it was up to the Home Secretary to decide if he poses a threat to national security and as Sajid Javid who was then Home Secretary decided that then there was nothing lawful unlawful or incorrect about his decision. I can hear the rain and the water behind you there, Daniel, as you speak to us from outside the court. But many people will want to know, OK, this has happened.

What would it mean for her, I suppose, path as she tries to continue to return to the UK? Well, she does have the right to appeal so this isn't like the final, final, final hurdle. She can appeal this decision and I would imagine given the sensitive and high profile nature of the case that is pretty likely. If she was to ultimately fail on all of her legal grounds, then she has only one other path out of Syria, and that is if she exercises her right to her Bangladeshi citizenship and the Bangladeshi government allow her to go there. This is, of course, a country that she wasn't born in, a country that

she's never lived in, so she has very, very few ties to Bangladesh other than through her parentage. But Bangladesh, of course, have always said that they don't see that she's anything to do with them and they wouldn't accept her. So that would then leave her in a camp in northeast Syria, effectively in permanent exile in a tent in the desert. And that many people feel is an unsustainable situation for her and the many others who are there because of course those camps which are effectively detention camps in northeast Syria are permanent institutions they're run by a kind of makeshift government in a rebel part of Syria it's possible to escape from them it's possible they could be overrun at some point in any flare-up of the civil war in Syria. So to have these tens of thousands

of people in this situation in northeast Syria isn't particularly sustainable, many people feel, and at some point someone's going to have to grip it. There are countries, America, Australia, some European countries, who've started to return people who are their citizens and maybe even people that had strong ties to their countries. But at the moment, the British government shows no sign of doing that. Daniel Sanford, thank you so much. The BBC's Home Affairs correspondent persevering there, even with the rain and the noise around him, to bring us an update on that story.

I want to turn back in time, back to 1838. A middle-class woman, Mrs Anne Sykes, she was given a diary on her wedding day. And over the years, Anne filled it with snippets of fabric from clothes and then annotated each one. The diary survived and nearly 200 years

later, Kate Strasden, a fashion historian, came across it and spent six years researching the materials that were stuck inside. So turning this Victorian scrapbook into her own book, The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes, and piecing together really the lives that she encountered through these fabrics as well. It's a lovely book. It's this window into a certain time through fabric, really. You're so welcome.

Thank you for joining us, Kate. Well, talk to me a little bit about how you came across it. It's a curiously woman's kind of story, really, because I started to make lace when I was in my 20s and belonged to a group in Devon, where I'm from, a group of much older women than me. And after one of our meetings, one of the ladies said, well, I have some things that I want to get rid of. And I wonder if you'd like to come and have a look. And I spent a very happy afternoon with her. And the very last thing that she took out of a trunk wrapped up in brown paper was this volume. The story of its kind of journey was an amazing one. She had worked in the theatre world here in London in the 1960s in the wardrobes. And a guy that worked for her had come along and said, oh, I found this on Camden Market on one Sunday morning, paid a few pence for it, knew nothing about it. And he gave it to her.

And it was this album that's just full of swatches, over 2000 of them, but no information about where it came from. And she passed it on to me. And the size of the book, just for our listeners to visualise? It's just over A4 size, covered in pink silk and absolutely bulging with fabrics. It's just a unique object. So you have figured out it's Mrs. Anne Sykes. How did you figure that out first off? All of the swatches are written in the third person,

which made me think that actually it's just going to be a curiosity, a mystery, we'll never know. But thankfully, just once, out of all of those swatches, Anne identified herself, she revealed herself. She wrote the swatch above one of the swatches, she wrote the dress of Mrs. Anne Sykes, May 1840. And she said the first dress I wore in Singapore. So it was just that one and only moment that she acknowledged this was her book. And that was what unraveled the whole thing.

I love the word unravel for this as well. We're talking about threads and about fabrics. Why do you think she did it? I think at the time women were, these kind of practices were quite common in terms of gathering autographs or poetry and scrapbooking was a popular pastime. She grew up as the daughter of a mill owner in Lancashire. And so textiles were at the very heart of what she had grown up with. And I think it was a way of memorialising the people that she met across her life,

friends, family. It's a real female network. And it was her way of remembering people. Talk to our listeners about like dressing. There's a lovely section in the book. She lived for seven years in Singapore and her friend Fanny came to stay with her, live with her for a period of time. And like dressing is this way in the 19th century, you often see photographs of sisters wearing the same clothes.

Grown sisters. Grown sisters. But occasionally you do get these non-blood relatives who, for whatever reasons, I think as a kind of sign of sisterhood, who are sharing garments that are the same, whether it's ribbons, whether it's whole gowns. And I think it's a kind of a signal of attachment, sisterhood, and it features in the diary. The other part I loved was the bachelor ball, May 4 1848 as well as conventional balls there were so many fancy dress balls why do you think they had such a fascination at that point in time? It was a brilliant way of being able to dress in unconventional styles and it was complicated they

were really good at coming up with all sorts of different costumes. And there's a brilliant swatch in the book is the dress of Dolly Varden. Dolly Varden was a character in Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge. And she dresses, she's kind of on the fringes, Dolly Varden of polite society. She's a barmaid. And so the chance for this middle class woman to dress up in slightly risque costumes didn't come along very often. And it's a brilliant swatch. I loved reading about them and also some of the mannerisms that they would have or how they'd leave, I suppose, their norms at the door when they dressed up. But also I was fascinated by the story of Mrs. Margaret Charnock, her cook. Very unusual to have fabric from that woman.

Really unusual. The working class dress doesn't really survive in museums. It wasn't often collected. It was, it just, and it didn't make it to that kind of space. So the census name that kind of cropped up and I seemed familiar. I knew I recognised it and went back to the book and found this name, Margaret Charnock. And yes, she had been Adam and Anne's cook for a long time but you just don't see these kind of scraps and there it is this lovely colourful piece of cotton. It's just a window I suppose and you begin to get an idea of her life and you piece it together and there's some stuff you know and of course some stuff that we don't know or maybe

we'll never know but you are a fashion historian and I'm wondering when you thought about all the snipping that Anne did, whether there's somehow to apply it to the here and now. I think it's a great lesson in valuing cloth, actually. We are used to a much more disposable way of looking at dress and thinking about clothes. And what this, I think, teaches us is that we could, in a much more sustainable way, we could think about clothes much more

carefully. And I did start to, I have got a book at home that I am toying with the idea of gathering scraps from people I know, because I think it's a very tactile way of remembering people around us. And before I let you go, Victorian women, they might wear several outfits in a day. How many would you say is the custom, briefly? I think probably for Anne, she was changing three, maybe four times a day. And yeah, there's a lot of different gowns going on. And so, of course, then an awful lot of swatches of fabric that also went into the book. Exactly. Yeah, it's a beauty.

And only one of two, Is that what I read? There's one at the V&A, a famous one by Barbara Johnson. But yeah, this is pretty unique. I haven't found any others here. So lovely to have you in, Kate Strassen, fashion historian, as I mentioned. And her book is The Dress Diary of Mrs. Anne Sykes. Thanks so much for coming in. A couple of messages coming in about what you bought yourself after the bad breakup. Sarah, I bought myself two rather expensive

designer duvet covers, talking fabric, which I still love to this day. My ex couldn't see why we needed luxuries. I also get my nails done every fortnight. Country Mousy just has two words. What did she buy herself after the breakup? A farm. It helped hugely.

I'll see you on Monday. Thanks so much for tuning in and for all your messages today on Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Introducing Gaslight. I think there's something peculiar about this house. A new drama from BBC Radio 4.

The gas light's over there above the fireplace. Yes? I wonder if Mummy might be trying to get in touch. Is the light playing tricks on you? Or is it just your mind? What if we both sold this place and you got a job in one of those little colleges that would be pleased to have you? You don't really believe that, do you?

I'm trying to be kind. Like you were with the dog. How much do we really know about the person we love? Is there something I should know about, Jack? No. I didn't put a foot wrong. And how much can we rely? Quite a bit younger than you appear to be on screen.

On the kindness of strangers. And you look like you've been crying. Gaslight. You can't talk to me like that. I don't even know who you are. Available on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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. Available now.