Woman's Hour - Elif Shafak, Women Chelsea Pensioners, Sports Coaching

Episode Date: June 6, 2019

Turkish writer Elif Safak’s latest novel '10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World' tells the story of Leila, a woman whose body has died, but whose mind has a precious ten minutes to reflect on the joy, pain and injustice of her life as a prostitute in Istanbul. Jenni talks to her about tackling controversial subjects and being accused of obscenity. Chelsea Pensioners are well known by the bright red military coats with gold buttons that they must wear when they go out in public. In return for their army pension, 300 residents live at the Royal Hospital cost free - and today they welcome ex-servicewomen. We hear from Chelsea Pensioner Helen Andrews, who served during the Second World War at Bletchley Park as Private Maria Teresa Helen McQuibban, with the Royal Corps of Signals. To celebrate UK Coaching Week Louisa Arnold tells us about Project 500 - a scheme to inspire and support women to become sports coaches - and Kim Johnson explains why she loves being a rugby coach. And, this week’s Woman’s Hour drama, I’m A Slave, has been showing the misery of human trafficking and modern slavery in the UK today. But, how much is this a female problem? To discuss how it affects women and the work being done to help them, Jenni is joined by the Salvation Army’s Anti-Trafficking and Modern Slavery Operations Manager, Emilie Martin.

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.

Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 6th of June. Now today, the 6th of June, is the actual 75th anniversary of DDA. We'll hear from the Chelsea pensioner Helen Andrews about the work she did at Bletchley Park. In coaching week, in the run-up to the Women's Football World Cup. What drew Kim Johnson to coach rugby and Louisa Arnold to Project 500, coaching women who coach. And as we discover in today's serial, the Salvation Army has an important role in saving victims from modern-day slavery. We'll discuss how they're helping women escape to safety.

Now, the latest novel by the acclaimed writer Elif Shafak is called 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. It tells the story of Leila who's been working as a prostitute in Istanbul. She's been murdered and dumped in a rubbish bin. In those 10 minutes and 38 seconds after her death, her mind continues to look back on her life. She was the daughter of her father's second wife, raised by his first, and it's scents and flavours that come to her most readily. As the tastes of lemon and sugar melted on her tongue, so too her feelings dissolved into confusion. Years later, she would come to think of this moment as the first time she realized that things were not always what they seemed.

Just as the sour could hide beneath the sweet, or vice versa, within every sane mind there was a trace of insanity, and within the depths of madness glimmered a seed of lucidity. To this day, she had been careful not to show her love for her mother when Aunty was around. From now on, she would have to keep her love for her aunt a secret from Mother as well. Leila had come to understand that feelings of tenderness must always be hidden, that such things could only be revealed behind closed doors and never spoken about afterwards. This was the only form of affection she had learned from grown-ups, and the teaching would come with dire consequences. Elif, what inspired the idea of a woman who has died brutally reflecting on her life

after her death? I became very interested in these remarkable studies that show after the moment of death, after the heart has stopped beating, the brain continues to work for another few more minutes. And in several cases, particularly doctors in Canada, in an intensive care unit, they have observed persistent brain activity for about 10 minutes in the dead. 10 minutes and 38 seconds. 10 minutes and 38 seconds. So I have added the 38 seconds. So as a writer, for me, it was a fascinating question. You know, what does a dead person remember in that limited amount of time? What remains behind from a whole life? As you said, my protagonist has been killed. We know at the very beginning, the first page, that she is dead. as she remembers her past minute by minute, we travel into the story of not her personal journey only, but also the story of her country, also maybe the story of the Middle East,

but always told through the eyes of outcasts. How did you decide, though, what memories would come to her first in those precious moments? That was a big challenge for me, and I also knew as a writer that every minute was so precious. You know, how do you condense an entire story and do we remember bad things or do we remember good things? And I wanted to have a mixture. Even though it is a book that deals with heavy subjects and dark subjects, I honestly think this is a life-affirming book

that celebrates diversity and friendships, so I wanted her to remember those memories. But primarily, I think, everything that she remembers, she remembers through tastes and smells, all those seemingly tiny things that remain very vividly in our mind. Now, she had been abused as a child and became a prostitute. But why does much of the action in the book centre on her friends exhuming her from something called the cemetery of the companionless?

Right. There's a passage in the book that says, we're all born into families, those are our blood families. And if our blood families are loving, caring, tender people, we should count our blessings. But we should also understand not everyone is born into such families. And in a way, the book is saying to those people, if you don't come from a loving, warm, affectionate blood family, do not worry, because as you keep living, you're going to create,

you're going to have another family, and that's going to be your water family. And the water family is composed of your friends. And sometimes it's possible for your friends to occupy a bigger space in your heart. That said, there is a place, there's an actual place in Istanbul, called the Cemetery of the Companions. And I have been to this place. I've done a lot of research about this place. It is a completely forgotten, forsaken graveyard. Nobody visits that place. And unlike any other cemetery, there are no names there, no surnames, only numbers.

It is a place where actual people are turned into numbers. And when you research, the people who are buried there are people who have been rejected by their families. So there are lots of people who have died of AIDS throughout 1980s and 90s, who have been buried there, many sex workers, lots of LGBT members are there, also abandoned babies, and refugees as years go by, because we always read about a refugee boat capsizing, sinking. Where are all those bodies taken? They're taken to the cemetery of the Companionless. So it's a very strange, sad place where an Afghan refugee or a Syrian refugee might be buried next to a Turkish sex worker.

And I wanted to take just one of those numbers and give it a name and give it a story, an individuality. And also I wanted to say these people were not companionless. They had friends. And her friends are an immensely diverse group, prostitutes, transgender, disabled people. Why were you so keen to include that range of characters in her circle? Because what I've seen and what I've experienced myself, if you don't quite belong anywhere, if you feel on the edge of the society, you know, just the periphery, you find people just like yourself, anyone who for whatever reason feels like the other. I think it's very important for us to find each other, to empower each other, support each other. I call it the tribe of the tribeless, people who don't belong in any tribe. And I think it's not easy to be different in a country like Turkey. And it has become even more difficult. also become increasingly intolerant towards diversity and towards differences.

So if you look different, if the colour of your skin is different, if for whatever reason your political views are different, whatever reason you feel like the other, you might feel very lonely in a country like Turkey. Now, Leyla is murdered very specifically in 1990. What is the significance of that year? It was important for me to focus on 1990 because this was a year when the legislators in Turkey tried to pass a horrible law that suggested rapists should not get a heavy sentence. They should get a very light sentence if their victims are prostitutes, if their victims were sex workers. So the argument of the legislators was that the prostitute would never be affected by rape.

And that shows the mentality that we're dealing with. The good thing was at the time there was a strong women's movement and women were able to come together and raise their voices against this horrific mentality and so the politicians had to take a step back. For me that was symbolic because since then I fear we have been going backwards. You began writing this book soon after the death of your grandmother and I know you didn't feel able to go back for her funeral. Why not? Well, this was a woman who raised me. My grandmother raised me until I was 10 years old, and I was always very close to her. So I found it very difficult not to be able to go. But to be honest, Turkey has become a very difficult environment for primarily journalists,

and I have a lot of respect for journalists who are trying to do their job properly. But also it has become very difficult for writers, academics, poets, anyone who deals with words, either the spoken word or the written word. We do know that because of something you say in an interview, a line in your book, a tweet or a retweet, you can get into trouble very easily. In one night, you can be sued, prosecuted, called a traitor by pro-government papers and almost lynched on social media. So you don't feel comfortable, and I did not.

Now, I understand that Turkish prosecutors are investigating writers who describe sexual abuse in their work. Why is that so considered to be so offensive? Yeah, this is new. And to me, the tragedy is, in Turkey, particularly over the last years, we have seen an alarming escalation in cases of gender-based violence and also sexual harassment and also child abuse. So these are the realities of my motherland. And also, this is a country in

which one third of marriages involve child brides. This is a country in which just a couple of months ago, again, the legislators wanted to pass a law that this time suggested rapists should get a lower sentence, rapists of underage girls, should they agree to marry their victims as if they're doing their victims a favor so while this is happening instead of dealing seriously with the problems we have a serious issue of sexual harassment and child abuse and gender abuse what they're doing is prosecuting authors who deal with such subjects in their literature now that the march mayoral election was overturned by the Turkish president, Erdogan. What impact has that had?

I think it was very undemocratic, very unlawful and unacceptable that they have cancelled the elections in Istanbul just because they didn't like the outcome. That is the reality. As you know, in the last local elections, all the major cities were won by the opposition. And this is quite remarkable because Turkey is a country in which almost all the media is dominated by one narrative. Most of the social media is again controlled by one narrative. And the opposition is not given an equal chance to express their views. And in fact, one of the opposition leaders is in jail. But despite the circumstances, half of the society continues to vote against the government. We have lost

our democratic institutions one by one. People don't understand in Turkey, sometimes, that the ballot box in itself is not enough to have a democracy. You need rule of law, separation of powers, independent media, academia, women's rights, and the ballot box. Together with all these components, a democracy can survive. So we've lost the institutions. The only thing we had left was the ballot box, and now they're cancelling the elections. Elif Shafak, thank you very much for being with us. And I'll just mention the title of the book again it's called 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world thank you thank you for having me now the commemoration of the

d-day landings has been going on in France all morning and of course the danger to life and limb is what faced the men who landed on the Normandy beaches But hard work was being done on the home front too from where the operation was being directed. Helen Andrews volunteered for the British Army at the age of 17. She was a private with the Royal Corps of Signals and was sent to Bletchley Park to work as a translator. She's now a Chelsea pensioner and lives at the Royal Hospital Chelsea alongside some 300 other retired soldiers,

including, of course, Colin Thackeray, who won this year's Britain's Got Talent. Well, Jane went to Chelsea to speak to Helen. Hello, Helen. I'm back. Hi, Helen. Oh, you're knitting already this morning? Right. Yeah, I've been working on a fair I've got to knit 15 pairs of

Fair Isle gloves. Have you? For the sale. Right. We have a sale of work later on in the year in the autumn sale and they've asked me to knit 15 pairs of Fair Isle gloves. I see. It's my third. Right, it looks like it's going to be a

boiling hot day. I can't think of anything I'd like to wear less than a Fair Isle gloves. I see. It's my third. Right. It looks like it's going to be a boiling hot day. I can't think of anything I'd like to wear less than a Fair Isle glove today. I know, but when winter comes, and it will. Okay, I'll come back and buy a pair. So what time do you get up, Helen? What time does your day start? I get up at ten to five. Ten to five?

Yes. Okay, and that's just your way of operating, is it? Yeah, that's my cycle. Right. What do you call it? Circadian rhythm. That's your rhythm? And that's your rhythm? Yeah.

OK. I mean, it's lovely this time of year, but do you carry that on all year round? Yes. Do you really? Well, in the winter, they turn on the heating and it's beautifully warm. Yes. So it doesn't matter what time you get up, it's always comfortable. Lovely. Very nice.

Do you want to sit down? Yes. Let me just... Oh, Bill! Come in, Bill! you get up it's always comfortable lovely very nice you want to sit down yes oh bill come in bill come in we're doing an interview bill if you'd like to come and listen yeah in a way helen it illustrates why it's nice to live here, because you've got people dropping in. Absolutely marvellous.

Yeah, we're all friends, aren't we, Bill? Yeah, he's involved already. Yes, indeed. Surrounded by companions. And after having lived 16 years alone, I appreciate the companionship and being surrounded by people that I like. Yeah, people just dropping in. It's rather lovely, isn't it?

Yeah, it's lovely. Helen, we really want to hear about your time at Bletchley Park. And you are so significant. And I know you're a modest lady, but you were only 17 when you arrived there. Can you just tell me about your first impressions of the place? It was a bit overwhelming because I didn't know I was going to go there. We took ship from Buenos Aires in Argentina. And when I arrived at Tilbury, I was met by a man who said,

I'm going to take you to work now. And I was only 17, so I didn't query it. I don't think I'd go off with a man just like that, a stranger. So he said, get into the car and we'll go. So he took me to Bletchley, and I was very impressed by the building because it's a very, very nice building. I've got a picture of it somewhere. Very impressive buildings.

I was accepted because I'm bilingual in Spanish and English, and I could speak German and French. And the first thing I had to do to show that I knew enough German was translate a few messages from the German into English. And then they taught us Morse, and it took about probably a couple of weeks to learn Morse and we had to get quite fast at it we had to do 15 words a minute which is quite fast I'll do I'll give you a message shall I yes please da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da What does that say? Do you know, Bill?

He says he doesn't. I'm completely confused. Is it something ridiculous or is it something serious? It was my password, bestbentwire. And you've never forgotten it? No, because I was so amused by it. Bestbentwire. And you've never forgotten it? No, because I was so amused by it. Best bent wire. We all had some sort of password, and that was mine, so that I knew if somebody did that, they wanted to speak to me.

You were also a gifted mathematician, weren't you? I liked maths, yes. I was interested in maths and geology, and I had been hoping to go to university to study them, but then the war broke out and everything went haywire. I never got to university, but I've never lost interest in those things. What was the atmosphere at Bletchley Park like? Quiet, except when the music was on, because we all had to think hard the whole time.

It was very, very hard work. The worst of it was the shift working. So we did 8 to 2, 2 to 8, and then all night. And then that morning and afternoon we'd have off. Then we'd start again the next morning, 8 to 2, 2 to 8, and all night. We got used to the hours. You got used to it, but we were always a little bit tired. This was in the huts that you worked in?

The huts, yes. Were they cold? What were they like? In the middle of the hut, there's a sort of drum, and that was what we heated the hut. We had to fuel it with coke, clean it out. That was all the heating we had, was a coke fire in the middle of the hut. And did you know, did you fully understand what it was you were doing or was it all shrouded? It was very shrouded. We only, and we couldn't talk about it. They forbade us to gossip or talk

about anything except film stars. So we talked about films and music. We could do as much music as we had time to do. So we did a lot of dancing in our spare time. But because of that secrecy, were you able to form friendships? Yes, we did indeed. But because all the others were a little bit older than me, they've all gone. They've all died.

I'm the only one left of our group. And what about the men? How did they treat you? Oh, there weren't many men there. We overwhelmed them. It was 75% female, I think, at one point, Bletchley Park. It was. And the men were very nice. They were nice boys.

They were there for special reasons, special skills that they had, like Morse or engineering or any specialty that they had. So we all respected each other very much so. They welcomed us and we had jokes together, parties, and we knew that our work was valuable. Valuable in what sense? What at the time did you think you were doing? We were told that we were going to try to shorten the war and we thought this was a good thing

because what else could you do but hope for the end of it we were told that we were to intercept these messages that were coming from the Germans and Japanese too because there were some people who spoke Japanese and they came in Morse we intercepted them and in that way we were able to locate the submarines and where the messages were coming from and interpret the messages. So we had messengers on motorbikes waiting for the messages and then they'd streak off and take whatever we'd intercepted or found. But we were told that we must never on any account talk about it

what we were doing or where we lived or why we lived there it was total secrecy we had to sign the vow of secrecy right from the start and never we got we never talked about it even amongst ourselves because we never knew who was listening. And one girl did disappear. She obviously had said something and somebody had heard her, so she had disappeared, and that gave us a warning that we must be very, very careful. And so for how long after the war did you keep completely quiet about all this? Till now. Till now.

I didn't talk about it to my husband or let alone my family because we were told that if a spy listened to us and couldn't get at us, they'd get at our family. So my mum and dad would be in danger and who knows who else. And we had heard of the awful things that had happened to people who had been caught. You talk about your parents. What did they think you were doing? They didn't know. Did they not ask? Well, all the time I was in the ATS there were things going on that I could talk about. You know, we were drilling, doing drill inspections,

parties, outings. So there was plenty to talk about. We couldn't speak to each other on the phone or anything like that. It was all written letters and the letters would go by ship in those days, by ship. That took three weeks. So we didn't write a lot of letters, you know. See, that I can understand. But what about after the war? Weren't you frustrated that nobody knew about the part you played? No, because we took it for granted that everybody had done similar things. Everybody. And anyway, the punishment for letting any secret out was terrible,

so we didn't, we just didn't. This girl says... This is one of my friends that died recently. This is a newspaper clipping. Yes. Jean Waters. Here we are. She had to lie to her own father about what she was doing throughout the war,

and sometimes it was hard on her. A man she worked with was berated and shamed by his father who thought he should be out fighting the war at the front. And how long were you married? Just short of 50 years. You didn't ever tell him about Bletchley Park? No, no. We both knew that we'd been in the signals

and had worked for signals, but we never spoke about what we did or where we were. We didn't dare, no. It had been beaten into us, never talk about it, even with your closest relatives, because somebody might be listening and you never know. They might revenge, anything could happen so we just got into the habit of not speaking about it and there's always plenty of other things to

speak about who wants to talk about the past anyway and I'm surprised that you do it all happened 70 years ago well I suppose I'm I'm very keen that people understand what went on and also understand the contribution that people like you made because and I can't emphasize this enough because you didn't actually have to and you did it no thousands of us did it thousands from all around the world came over or people who had never been to England even took to Britain. The government sent out messages saying anybody who can volunteer to come home and join up will avoid somebody here being conscripted.

For each one of us volunteers, a conscript would be avoided. So a lady, a woman with a family, for instance, she'd be jolly well called up and have to go and work in munitions but she wouldn't because one of us would replace her. So is it important now Helen that people know about what you contributed at Bletchley Park and I know not just you but many many thousands of other women? How do I feel? I don't know. I think that anybody would do that if we were in that position. You know, if you know that there's somebody coming along going to ruin your country, you jolly well work hard to stop it happening. Thank you very much. And I know that you've made a very happy home for yourself here, haven't you? Oh, yes. It suits you. It really suits me beautifully.

Here we're independent, aren't we, Bill? We pay our way. We behave. There's loads of things going on. Before I go, I just need to make it clear. We need to get this absolutely right. So I'd just like to hear your army rank and the name you were using at the time you served at Bletchley Park. I was only a private.

I was on the point of becoming a lance corporal. And we were on parade, a line of us, and behind us came a beastly sergeant. And she said to me, she yelled at me, get your hair cut, because I had long fuzzy hair, you can see. And I lost my temper. I said, oh, F off. I didn didn't say f either I said the word so I lost my stripe and that was that that was that yeah so I remained a private for the rest of my life quite happily so you were private Helen private Maria Teresa

Helen okay I'm sorry that you didn't make Lance Corporal, and what a shame that your profanity... I wasn't in the least interested. See, I had, when she was examining us, I had a pile of messages waiting to be translated, and I knew that they were important. And here I was, messing around, worrying about my hair. The Chelsea pensioner, Helen Andrews. And a reminder, by the way, that the Royal Hospital welcomes former service women as well as men. Now, still to come in today's programme, the theme of this week's serial is human trafficking and modern day slavery.

Before we hear today's episode, I'll talk to the Salvation Army about the work they do to help victims. And on another subject, we'd like some help from you. Are you returning to work after a career break did you take a long time off to look after children or care for an elderly or sick relative and how easy was it for you to get back into employment you can get in touch with us through the website or of course on twitter now sport is high on the agenda this week football coming up tomorrow and it's also been dubbed coaching week an attempt to get more women to take up work as coaches for the next generation at the moment only 30 percent

of sports coaches are female well kim johnson coaches rugby for camberley cocktails and louisa arnold is coaching network officer for project 500 and louisa what is Project 500? So Project 500 is a female coaching initiative and we set it up back in 2013 as a pilot idea to try and provide more support and address the imbalance in male to female coaches. And the focus has been in the south-east of England in the seven counties and I'm kind of the regional coordinator for it

but my county in Kent and then colleagues across the south-east. And Keira, as a coach, how important would you say that kind of coordinator for it but my county in Kent and then colleagues across the southeast and as a coach how important would you say that kind of project is oh it's absolutely essential I think women in sport need as much support as they can get and it's just really good to have a social media platform that we can access really easily to connect with coaches, not only in our own chosen field, but also coaches in others. You know, just the fact that they're the same age and the same gender, it makes a big difference. So what do you offer to people? It's all done online, is it? It has moved online.

In the last 18 months, we realised that actually females need a real flexible approach to their support. And we realized that actually females need a real flexible approach to their support and we decided that actually social media was a way that we could do that with limited funds in terms of a project and we recruited a social media expert who's actually a coach as well and we provide kind of support advice and guidance we signpost females to opportunities we link them up with other coaches in their local area and just try and provide that kind of support that they might need to take their first steps or to help them on their journey. So Kim how did you get into coaching and why rugby? Well it's a long story and I'm going to make it as short as I possibly can but it was a complete accident I come from a zero

sporting background seriously Seriously, zero. In my mid-twenties, I was working at a barmaid at my local rugby club and my bar manager absolutely loved rugby. She had the idea to start a team up and quite naively at the time, I thought this is really easy. I was actually the captain of a female pool team at the time, I thought this is really easy. I was actually the captain of a female pool team at the time. So I just got the girls to leave the bar and come on to the rugby pitch. Most of them only lasted a week or two.

But what I found was a passion. It was a whole new world that I'd never been exposed to. From that, I started playing. And then I realised very quickly there was a little bit of a gap in between recruiting players. And part of that was the logistics of actually having coaches to bring the girls on. So again, quite by chance,

I was invited to go on a coaching course as a female player and that was about three decades ago and i've never looked back you see she's a star in terms of what you're looking for isn't she louisa somebody who got so committed to it but i know retention is a problem for women coaches How do you get women to stay on and do it? Because they probably have very busy lives as well doing other things. They do indeed. And I think part of what we've tried to do through Project 500 as a region is to make sure that the support we provide isn't quite so,

or the pressure that's put on people isn't so onerous. So you can actually just get involved by taking on a little bit let's get more female coaches involved to share the burden rather than trying to make one person do everything and we found that a lot of our learning and support packages particularly with webinars have worked really well because we had a lady that said I've logged in I'm just putting the kids to bed and I'll be back online in 10 minutes so that gave us a real kind of insight into the support that female coaches need and I think it's just something that we need to celebrate the female coaches and that's what Project 500 is all about is about celebrating the fantastic work that they do in a positive way

and trying to make sure that those barriers are reduced if we can. Kim what skills make a really good coach? Skill wise you just need to be brave enough to start and I think if anybody's brave enough to start they're already on the step to success. You need to be open, you need to be open to the people that you're coaching and you also need to be very open to the people around you. Don't allow yourself to get isolated and be willing to ask for help to keep upskilling yourself. And those skills can be given to you by your governing body. Project 500 is obviously a great example of incorporating many different sports. But just contact your governing body. And there's plenty of support

in the way of coaching awards and and coaching courses out there how does the women's team stand in the hierarchy at your club at my club midway if you get to play on the days that you want to play? Yes. OK, so we had... So the Camberley Cocktails originated three decades ago. For various reasons, the original team actually folded five years ago. The past couple of years, I've been asked if I would help to revive that. It's only in the last 18 months I've had the time to do that. We're all volunteers. And I stress that because the amount of times I get,

people assume that you are paid. And the reason they assume that is because coaching is almost a full-time job that you do part-time. But do the women get to play on the days they want to play? Yes. I'm going to say yes yes and it's a little bit candid but you know that's all the program that's progression we're getting there we'll get in there and you play netball which presumably you don't have to fight for pictures what do you love about coaching netball coaching netball um it gives me the opportunity to stay involved with the sport that i love because i can't play anymore because i'm injured so um having that opportunity to see

groups of girls play team sports develop skills throwing and catching skills the basic things that sometimes they come through the door and they can't do because they haven't had the exposure to it so for me it's about seeing young women come in and when they go and they leave and they go off to university but they contact you and say they're still playing and they're still active, there's no better feeling. Louisa Arnold and Kim Johnson, thank you both very much indeed. And we'd like to hear from you. If you've had a good coach or if you are a coach,

you can either send us an email or a tweet. Let us know your experiences and thank you both very much. Thank you. Now this week's serial, I Am A Slave, is an attempt to uncover the extent and horror of the prevalence of modern day slavery in Britain. Both men and women are taken but the majority are female and usually enslaved in domestic roles or the sex industry. It's a subject of course that we've talked about before, most notably perhaps with Anna, who described how she was literally dragged into a car in broad daylight

while she was on her way home from work in London. I was walking from work on my lunch break, and as I was coming with my headsets, walking on the path towards my house, I've seen the car park, but I really didn't mind it. And basically the next following two seconds I felt someone grabbing me by the back and then pushing me and into a car I could go in detail about violence but it was hard um wallet bag everything from which I had were taken off me, violently punished and beaten. So then I was taken to an airport and from that airport flown into a country

I've never been. I thought it was somewhere nearby the sea because I saw some water whenever I landed there but that was all in the middle like night time. And of course Anna was taken to Ireland. Well in today's serial we hear about the work of the Salvation Army

in helping women like Anna or, in the drama, Mirella and Valdas. Emily Martin is the Anti-Trafficking and Modern Slavery Operations Manager for the Salvation Army. Emily, how did the Salvation Army get involved in modern-day slavery in the first place? Well, essentially the Salvation Army, not many people would know, but we were granted the government contract in 2011 with the support of all adult victims of modern slavery across England and Wales.

And we've supported them right through to present day. And what brought you to the work? Well, I have quite extensive background in this area. I now work for the charitable sector, but I started in the legal field. I then worked for the Home Office as a competent authority, so a trafficking decision maker, and now I work for the victims. So what does the government contract require of you? Because this is a very widespread problem in the UK, as I understand it. It is, unfortunately. It isn't a 18th century

problem unfortunately trafficking in modern slavery is a huge problem that nobody really is aware of and it's hidden very much in plain sight. The fact is there's more slaves today than there have ever been since the transatlantic slave trade back in the 1800s but the Salvation Army essentially what we provide is when an individual consents to come into the NRM. So when they are identified by a first responder, they have to consent to come into the NRM. And sometimes it can take the National Referral Mechanism, apologies, which is the system where individuals are identified and a decision is made whether they are victims. So before they come into the service or into the Salvation Army support system they have to consent and that's their first choice. It's the

first choice to their freedom. Sometimes it can take some time but we will encounter individuals on a multiple basis but eventually they do want to come in and they consent to do so. After that there's a choice. So it's either safe house accommodation if they have no other support or accommodation or alternatively, it's outreach support if they are in a safe place already. Essentially, the services that we provide is very much catered to the individual.

The Salvation Army won't tell someone. We don't work for the residents. We work with the residents and each individual will have a very different approach to what it is that they want through their trauma so the general kind of supports we provide is assistance to obtain legal support it's also looking at medical support if they require it it's counselling assistance with employment so we have very good links with single points of contact within the DWP.

And we will liaise whilst they're with us at the safe house in order to gain employment if they want it. Everything we understand about this is that it's virtually impossible for someone to escape if Anna, who we heard from before, held in the most appalling brothel situations, impossible to get away for a long time. How do they make themselves known as somebody who needs help initially? It really does depend. Sometimes it's just sheer courage. Eventually victims just decide, actually, I can't do this anymore. And they are pushed to that limit where

they will take risk because a lot of there's a big misconception that because the door is wide open, why aren't these victims leaving? The fact is, traffickers and slave masters will work and coerce and work for a long time with those victims and persuade them that they will threaten them, they will threaten their families and anybody with children would never put the risk of their children at stake. So individuals will remain even though the door is wide open. And what will happen is individuals will be identified through brothel raids or general public in the street will notice something's not quite right. They'll see an individual in the shop for about a six-month period and then eventually they'll approach a

victim or they will befriend them and persuade them to walk away. It really does depend on the circumstances of that individual. Now Mirella, who features in the serial, is drawn into slavery by a man she thought was a boyfriend. How familiar a story is that? Unfortunately, that is a very typical story for the Albanian women that we do work with. Slave masters and traffickers will utilise an individual's vulnerability, and in Mirela's case, it was the forced marriage and the desperation to leave. And by working with victims, what they will do is they will persuade them to give them all the opportunities that they are not having at home. So in Mirella's case, it was a very enforced family life. There was no independence.

She wasn't allowed to fall in love like any normal woman would expect to fall in love. And traffickers will prey on that. So they will give them what they believe that they want. And unfortunately, when they do fall in love and when they do run away, that's when it all goes very much horrific for them and they get taken to Italy and then they are exploited. And what other

examples have you got of the way that women are drawn into this or dragged into this? Well women are the top gender that is taken into the service within the Salvation Army. We have the top countries are Albania andia and it's sexual exploitation or domestic servitude and i worked with a woman who was working with quite a rich family who was brought in from um brought into the uk to work as a domestic worker unfortunately upon arrival to the uk because it's very much behind closed doors the woman's passport was taken away she was forced to work 18 hours a day um she was forced to sleep on the floor with very little food or crumb on the table and unfortunately because it's in closed doors she had no escape and nowhere to get out

and what what help were you able to give her so she was very lucky that she um went to the park and befriended someone with she was taking care of the children she went to the park and befriended someone she was taking care of the children she went to the park, befriended another nanny the nanny persuaded her to run away and then when she did run away she approached her local church and then her local church kind of referred her into the NRM and she stayed with us in a safe house

I was talking to Emily Martin Now Shauna McVeigh has sent us a tweet on Elif Shafak. She says, I've just heard you on Women's Hour and you are an inspiration as you have the courage to inform of atrocities against women. Love your work. On the Chelsea Pensioner, Lindsay Marshall said, this was the most humbling interview I've ever heard. What a wonderful woman Helen Andrews is and how lucky we are that she was prepared to do what she did for all of us.

We should be so grateful and we should always remember. Kay Pinto said, Helen Andrews, what an incredible, wonderful woman. Her story and the other women at Bletchley needs to be told for everyone to celebrate. Wow, love her. and the other women at Bletchley needs to be told for everyone to celebrate. Wow. Love her. Jane Scott-Paul said, Worth remembering that women did not just serve on the home front. My husband's stepmother, Dorothea Ofringa,

at the age of 19 was in the ATS and arrived in Normandy shortly after D-Day to work as a secretary on Montgomery's staff. And Carol said, Lovely to hear about the ATS and signals at Bletchley Park. I rarely hear of Bow Manor in Leicestershire where my mother Alice Antwis was stationed in the ATS signals. She also

told me of her exact same experience taking Morse code. The speeds, secrecy, fears and the excitement towards the end of the war when the messages weren't always coded so came in German which gave them an idea of the action. Dancing

there too. But why do we never hear of Bow Manor? And then on coaches, someone sent an email, didn't give us her name, said I'm a woman who coaches rugby union at Southwark Tigers in Peckham. It's incredibly rewarding.

I now coach a woman and girls group that we evolved to get more women involved. Mums too can get into sport and it can be adapted to us. This woman did. Well, thanks for all your contributions this morning. Tomorrow I'll be talking to Elizabeth McGovern, who's performing The Wife in the Starry Messenger at Wyndham's Theatre at the moment. And more on coaching in Coaching Week. Tomorrow, we'll be talking about tennis with Francesca Lewis. Join me tomorrow if you can, two minutes past 10. Bye-bye. I'm Simon Mundy, host of Don't Tell Me The Score, the podcast that uses sport to explore

life's bigger questions, covering topics like resilience, tribalism, and fear with people like this. We keep talking about fear, and to me, I always want to bring it back to, are you actually in danger? That's Alex Honnold, star of the Oscar-winning film Free Solo, in which he climbed a 3,000-foot sheer cliff without ropes. So, I mean, a lot of those, you know, social anxieties, things, and certainly I've had a lot of issues with talking to attractive people in my life. I'm like, oh no, like I could never do that. And it certainly feels like you're going to die, but realistically you're not going to die. And that's all practice too. Have a listen to Don't Tell Me The Score, full of useful everyday tips from incredible people on BBC Sounds. 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.