Woman's Hour - 'Empty nesters', Electronic tagging, Actor Lara Ricote

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Many parents will have just experienced the departure of their children from the family home as they head for university, turning once-bustling households into so-called 'empty nests'. It can leave those left behind feeling unsettled and cut adrift. Denise Turner, Professor of Social Work at the University of Hertfordshire, is researching the impact this life transition has on parents. She joins Kylie Pentelow along with parenting author and journalist Lorraine Candy to discuss her findings.Almost half of electronic tags used to track offenders' movements are not fitted on time, with significant delays putting victims in England and Wales at risk, according to a report by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation. It found only 55% of GPS and radio frequency tags were fitted on time, and some criminals are waiting up to five months to be fitted with a tag. Thousands more prisoners will be released from Thursday as part of the new law. Most will require tagging. Farah Nazeer, CEO of Women's Aid, and Andrea Coomber KC, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, discuss.A new fund has been launched to create 'unstoppable momentum' to end female genital mutilation (FGM). The United Nations has set a goal of elimination by 2030, but progress is not on track as funding declines and legal protections are challenged. This new fund, called Her Horizon Fund, set up by the US-based Wallace Global Fund, seeks to pool $100m from donors to reach a 'tipping point' towards ending FGM within a generation. But Nimco Ali, an FGM survivor and activist, has concerns about this fund. She joins Susan Gibbs, the Wallace Global Fund's senior adviser on women's rights and FGM. The Mexican-American comedian, actor and writer Lara Ricote grew up in Miami before moving to the Netherlands to study politics, where she began performing improv and stand-up comedy. She won the Best Newcomer award at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2022 for her debut show GRL/LATNX/DEF. She joins Kylie to discuss her role in the romantic comedy series Break Clause, which starts on 1 October.Presenter: Kylie Pentelow Producer: Kirsty Starkey

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service,

Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODbolo.com. Why were five men arrested in a counter terror probe on Sunday outside an English airbase before being released on police bail on Monday? I'm Tristan Redmond, a host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The incident at the base used by the United States for its operations in Iran is becoming more confusing by the day.

What's going on? For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you listen. Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Thanks for your company this Tuesday. Coming up, how delays in fitting electronic tags to track offenders' movements could be putting victims at risk. And with more prisoners being released early from next month,

we'll be finding out if there could be a danger to women if they assume tags are protecting them from offenders. Also, have you waved off a child to university in the last few weeks? How did it feel? We'll be discussing the impact of being a so-called empty nester on your well-being. So we want to hear from you on this. How did you cope when your children left home? Maybe it was liberating.

Or did you, like Chef Gordon Ramsey, sit on your child's bed and cry when they left? Do get in touch and share your story with us. You can text the program. on social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, and you can email us through our website. You can also send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note. That number is 0300-100-444. And on most smart speakers, you can say, Alexa, ask BBC sounds to send a comment. Do get in touch with your experience of an empty nest. Also coming up, the new Tender Funny Show, starring Mexican-American comedian Lara Ricote,

Now, in the show, she finds her boyfriend has cheated on her. On the very day, they move into a new flat together and they can't get out of the lease. Well, I'll be speaking to Lara about that role and also her stand-up routines. But first, almost half of electronic tags used to track offenders' movements are not fitted on time, with significant delays putting victims in England and Wales at risk. That's according to a report by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation. It found only 55% of GPS and radio frequency tags were fitted on time and some criminals are waiting up to five months to be fitted with a tag.

Plans to significantly expand electronic monitoring were announced early this year as part of the Sentencing Act of 26, which aims to ease prison pressures by managing more offenders in the community. Thousands more prisoners will be released from this Thursday as part of the new law. will require tagging. Or Martin Jones, HM Chief Inspector of Probation, spoke earlier on the Today Programme about his concerns. Unless there is work to ensure that the system is working effectively at SCAL, it's offering a full sense of assurance to people that it's doing more than it actually is at present.

And I'm particularly worried about the assurance that that's providing to victims. Or to discuss the issues I'm joined now by Farron Azir, CEO of Women's Aid, and also by Andrea Kuma's KC, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform. Andrew, if I can start with you, can you just explain to our listeners what tagging is and what kinds of crimes it's used for? Because there are different types, aren't there? There are different types of tags. So there are curfew tags, which is where you're meant to demonstrate that you're at home

between certain hours. And then when you leave your premises, you'll be alerted. There's location tagging, which is effectively like a GPS that tracks your movements, checks that you're not going to exclusion zones where you're not meant to have gone, that you're complying with your licence conditions and that you're sticking to your curfew. And then there are alcohol tags, I mean, this is in general terms, which take measure the sweat from your sweat to make sure that you're not drinking alcohol. And if they are, that gets recorded.

And in all of these cases, if you're breach, that's meant to then notify probation that you're in breach of your licence conditions. So they're used in a wide variety of instances. But obviously now with the sentencing act, going to be much expanded from later this week. And can you just explain what kinds of crimes they're used for? because I think that's particularly important, isn't it, in terms of how they could potentially affect victims if perpetrators don't have the tags? I mean, they're used in nearly all kinds of crimes, frankly.

So they're used as an alternative to custody in cases of what we call standard determinate sentences, which cover most things. So they cover acquisorial crime like theft, but also violent crime, sexual crime. and they're used for a proportion of that person's sentence. So under the Sentencing Act, for example, somebody will spend either 50% or 30% of their sentence in prison

and then be moved in many cases onto a tag that then is used in that instance. But they're also used for people who've committed more serious offences. So it's become the case over the last few years that people released on life sentences, for example, given a tag for the six months, months to 12 months after they've been released. So a huge variety of cases. They're also sometimes used as an alternative for people on remand, for example, where at the moment people go to prison

on remand. So one quarter of women and one fifth of men in prison have yet to have a trial or yet to be sentenced. And so sometimes they'll be used as an alternative to remand to custody. Okay, so Farah, can you explain how you think, how well you think that tagging is working, particularly in protecting women who've been victims of crime? Well, I think the first thing to sort of reflect on is the fact that however well or otherwise it's working, these findings suggest that if offenders are not being tagged in the first place, there's a real false sense of security that's being created. created if we can see that the women are having to wait for offenders to be tagged, or maybe

they don't even know that that's happening and sort of the time delays on it. I mean, I think what it actually does is put women's lives at risk, because if you're depending on this mechanism to protect women and children from offenders, and it's not being invoked, it's not being used in good time, that is a real concern. So I think that's a. think that's the first point if it's not just not being used in good time. And then if it's not being used appropriately. So in order to really think about what an exclusion zone or restriction zone might look like, you need to have a really thorough understanding of the risk that that perpetrator might cause. And in order to do that, probation services have to be engaged with

local communities. They have to ensure that they have victim voice there. They have to engage with specialist services to understand the context. They have to be able to understand, particularly in the context of domestic abuse. And what's really important here is that domestic abuse perpetrators will be released on Thursday if government plans go ahead is the issue of coercive control. So coercive control is an escalating behaviour and it is not clear how probation will really factor in that behaviour and that crime when it comes to their risk analysis as to whether or not they're going to be tagging people. So you've got to. the sort of issue of the delay, you've got the issue of the risk management, and then you've

got the issue of the false sense of security. So if people believe that tagging is happening and are not taking precautions and it's not happening, you know, the findings suggest up to two weeks, in some cases, months and months, you know, that is a really dangerous position to leave women and children, survivors, particularly of domestic abuse and violence against women and girls sexual violence crimes in. Andrea, I wonder if you share those concerns that Farah was raising there. I share all of them. I mean, I think for all the reasons that Farah has set out,

but not just for women and girls, I think it undermines confidence in our criminal justice system, which is already pretty fragile to the extent that we have any confidence in our criminal justice system. I mean, this is just another sign of the pressure that the criminal justice system is under, just as prisons are overcrowded, and that's what's led to these decisions on the Sentencing Act, so too is probation with huge caseloads.

Whenever I speak to probation officers, they talk about how overstretched they are, how they feel that they can't provide the support and advice and assistance that their job really requires. And I think it shows that the government's just painted itself into a corner with sentencing and prison policies that have put this enormous pressure on the system, and it's left itself with a little option but to kind of rely on tagging. And just as this report from the chief inspector shows, there are serious concerns about the reliability of tagging, the ability of people to get tags on time.

But also you need, it's not enough just to have the technology. You need to have a probation officer, you know, when you do breach, you know, there needs to be, you know, proper investment in the probation service. It's not enough for the government just to roll out tags. A tag means nothing unless you have then somebody who is able to then intervene. And if necessary, recall somebody to custody or provide other support to them. So it's just, I'm afraid, like a symptom of a really serious crisis within the criminal justice system. We did ask the Ministry of Justice for a statement.

And a spokesperson said public protection is our priority. That's why we are delivering the biggest expansion of tagging in, Richard history, backed by £100 million in funding, with tag install rates up by nearly 50%. It's 2024. They go on to say this is part of our record £700 million investment in probation and community services recruiting 2,300 trainee officers over the last two years and a further £1,300 this year, ensuring dangerous offenders are kept under closer surveillance than ever before. And they also wanted us to mention that they are investing £18.9 million in additional support for victims, including a new national helpline and more funding for local and specialist services.

Farah, have you heard from any victims regarding tagging and also about the early release scheme that we know is coming in from as soon as Thursday, about how they're feeling about their safety? Well, we know that the services that are engaged with victims whose perpetrators are due to be released on Thursday are. almost all of them are terrified for their physical safety. Almost 90% of them are worried about the safety of their children. Over 95% feel that they're not mentally prepared for this. So I think it's fair to say that survivors are in a very, very difficult place and feel that they haven't been consulted,

their concerns haven't been taken on board as part of this scheme. And of course, if we look at the sort of fragility and the state of the sector that supports women and children who've experienced of all crimes, we are in a situation where just business, at the point of business as usual, we're having to refuse significant numbers of people because there's just not enough capacity and not enough funding. So if we're adding significant numbers of victims on top of the already stretched system, that that, that, That doesn't, you know, that's not a good place to be in. That doesn't give survivors or services reassurance or confidence. I mean, we will absolutely support every survivor that comes to us, but resources are very, very constrained. And I think in terms of the survivors who we have engaged with, who experienced this, the last time survivors were released early. And, you know, at that point, domestic abuse wasn't the index crime. It was a different crime, but they were a perpetrator of domestic. domestic abuse. The tagging was delayed by a couple of weeks. The survivor was not engaged or informed. The specialist service wasn't engaged or informed. And indeed, when the tagging did eventually happen, and bear in mind the sort of stress and strain that that individual will feel until that tagging happens. But when the tagging did eventually happen, that individual went on

to harm and abuse other women over that sort of period of. of having that tag fitted. So I think it's a false, it presents a false sense of security. It doesn't support safety as it's being described. And even when somebody is tagged, that doesn't stop them if they are a perpetrator, particularly of all crimes,

from doing that and committing that crime against other people. Farah, why aren't prisoners tagged in prison before they leave? Well, that's a very good question. I mean, I think, you know, it's important to think about how that risk management process happens. So once a prisoner has been released, what you would expect and hope to happen is that the probation officer works with the survivor, works with the specialist services, works with those multi-agency, sort of community-based services and groups that have a really, have the best possible understanding of the nature of the risk that that survivor might pose. and tag accordingly and tag efficiently and quickly so that the survivor is aware of all of the conditions and the services that need to know are aware of the conditions and are really clear about what happens when those conditions are breached. So another real concern, and Andrea touched on this, is we don't often see breaches being

responded to effectively, efficiently. And there is, lack of clarity on whether a breach involves recall. So, you know, it's a system without a proper accountability mechanism at present. It's also a system that is a sort of retroactive arrangement. So, you know, no action is taken until any harm has already happened, which isn't really a very reassuring circumstance or situation for a victim. Okay. Andrea, just finally and briefly, if you can, what do you think the government need to do next? I mean, the government need to ultimately, like, invest properly in the probation service. So they're not relying on kind of unreliable technology the whole time. And obviously,

they need to get a handle on the prison capacity crisis by having a serious look at sentencing practices that have driven this. And there's still a complete refusal to accept that they're in this position because sentences have got longer and longer for the last 25 years without any thought for the consequences. So that will stop this being a continual conversation. But I'm afraid short of that, they're going to keep lurching from crisis to crisis. You know, tagging has more than doubled in the last five years. And that is, I think, a sign of sort of how desperate things have become in the criminal justice system.

And that's not fair for survivors. It's not fair for the people, frankly, under supervision. Because when they're not tagged in time, they then get time added to their sentences. It's just not a system that is working effectively. Andrea Kuma, KC, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform and Farron as a CEO of Women's Aid. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us about this.

And if anyone's concerned by what you've heard, you can, of course, go to the BBC Action. line where you'll find links to support. Now, September sees swallows take flight for warmer skies, but they're not the only ones leaving. For many parents, the month marks the departure of children from the family home, turning once bustling households into so-called empty nests. As familiar noise and routines fade, along with the sense of purpose maybe that comes from daily care, those left behind can feel unsettled and cut adrift.

Yet despite affecting lots of parents, this milestone has attracted very little academic research and is rarely acknowledged as a major life transition. Denise Turner, Professor of Social Work at the University of Hertfordshire, is seeking to change that through her work. She joins me in the studio, alongside parenting author and journalist Lorraine Candy, who writes about the challenges of the empty nest. Welcome both of you to Women's Hour. Thanks for joining me here in the studio. Denise, can I start with you?

Why do you think there is so little research? about this life transition? I mean, that's a really interesting question, Kylie. I think, obviously I don't know, but when I came to look at it, I found that there was no UK research, as you've said. My guess is that traditionally it's been thought of as something that affects women

and so perhaps hasn't been seen as a significant life course transition just in the same way that perhaps the menopause wasn't at one time. So that's my guess. Just explain to us before we start discussing what you found. What is the difference between an empty nest and emptiness syndrome? Okay, so the empty nest, and not everybody likes this terminology, but it's what we have.

The emptiness describes the time, as you said, when children might leave home, leaving the house, quiet, you know, parents facing different life trajectory. Emptiness Syndrome was popularised in the 1970s and is associated much more with things like depression, anxiety, you know, and more serious mental health issues. But I think that there's a bit of a convergence between the two. So tell me about your research pilot then

and why you wanted to look at the impact that this time of life can have. Again, that's an interesting question. I wanted to look at it initially because I'm an academic, it's it's something that appears to as we've said be completely under-researched or unresearched in the UK and also because I'm at that sort of time of life myself I've got lots of friends who are at that time of life so I was starting to have a look at what there was out there in order to kind of think about helping people with this phase of life and what I found as as you said was that there wasn't really anything in the UK at all most of the

researchers in China. So I did what is this fairly small bit of pilot research looking at 53 people, men and women, who'd experienced the empty nest, and seeing what had happened to them, what they'd made of it. And what we found was that, unsurprisingly really, it is a significant life-cause transition. Lorraine called it this morning a hard stop. So, you know, you can have been looking after children for all these years and all of a sudden, it can feel like falling off a cliff for people. Well, let's bring in, Lorraine. You've got four children. Three have now gone to university. What was it like? Initially, when your first child left? It was horrific. I think anyone listening who has come back from dropping off what still felt like a baby hundreds of miles away and

walked into that bedroom, it's a very lonely time. And there's a lot of clearly. There's a lot of cliches, well, fill your time with hobbies, go and meet new people. And it's not like that. It's a huge identity shift at a time of life when you are going through quite an identity shift anyway. You lose a sort of sense of belonging. You feel quite lonely. You wonder what your purpose is. You can have your job and your partners. And I think it's significantly harder, actually, if you're on your own or you're widowed. But it doesn't take away from the fact you're dealing with who am I now. And you've had 15 to 20 years of noise and activity and constantly. constant stuff going on and this house poured full of love and suddenly it's quiet and there's one teacup out in the morning instead of all the cups for all the kids.

It's incredibly sad and I think we underestimate it and how it affects men and women in society today. There could be a lot more support and I'm not surprised there's never been any research into it. But the latest figure showed that there's around 8 to 10% of population that would be facing empty nest. 5 to 6.8 million people. So it could have an effect on your health at this stage of life. Loneliness has a catastrophic effect on people's health. So we should be taking it a little bit more seriously. And you've now gone through this three times recently with your third child.

Did it get easier? It doesn't get easier at all because every time is, as I say, a complete shift in the household and your routine and how you work and how you interact with that, you know, I still have a 15-year-old left at home. it's a whole change of her childhood. You know, every time someone leaves, a sibling is left with a very different childhood ahead of them. So I think it is worth really looking at it seriously from an emotional and a physical mental health point of view. Denise, Lorraine brought up loneliness there.

Is that something that you found that people discussed? Yes, we did. We found particularly as Lorraine said, that people who were single parents and also people who may have had significant life events previously. So people that had been bereaved, would perhaps find the empty nest a kind of harder stop. Also, as Lorraine said, there are people who are facing other kind of issues around this time of life. So in the research there was somebody whose wife had recently been diagnosed with dementia,

so had become a carer to her at the same time that the children were leaving home. We know also that divorce is on the rise in the over 55, so that can increase that feeling of loneliness, who am I now, you know, identity, the things that Lorraine's talked about. Yes, yeah, and yeah. It's not always a sense of loss, a sense of grief for everyone, I expect.

You know, there are people who maybe feel, liberated. What do you think about that? I think it is, some of it is liberating. I think it's important we take a moment to pause and see what we feel and what we might want to do next. You certainly have a lot more time and as I say it's a big identity shift. Who can I be now? What can I try now? I've got more time to do that. And also we're still caring for our children. You know, we're still loving our 20-somethings. They're still a very big part of our life. But it's a very physical living loss, as they call it. There is something that was there, the Hurley-Burley-Ber. was there and now it's gone.

And I think we're not talking about, you know, you can, what you're going to do next and be liberated to do. We're talking about how do we feel that moment and how does it affect us from a kind of mental and possibly physical point of view. We've had so many comments on this. Please do keep them coming in 84844. Somebody here says,

when my youngest child turned 18, I cycled to work thinking, I've done my job. It's making me feel a bit emotional with a four-year-old. We raise children to let them go mostly like boomer, they will return. And that's it, isn't it? Denise, they do, you know, and Lorraine, they do kind of come back. Yeah, I mean, I think the boomerang thing is certainly an issue, but that in some ways can complicate the leaving and complicate the mental health aspects of the leaving, because if you're going to grieve to some extent and then the children come back, it can be

more difficult for that to be a sort of simplistic grieving process. And I just wanted to say about the liberation. I think a lot of what's talked about in terms of the liberation depends on money as well. You know, a lot of the kind of advice in the media is you take that holiday that you've, exactly take that holiday that you've always wanted, you know, go and see that film, all of that kind. And it tends to be very sort of middle class. So what we found in our research again was that, you know, economic situation had a big impact on the emptiness. What if your housing situation is dependent on your children, being at home, you know, what if you haven't got the money to do that travelling? So I think it's very complicated and I wouldn't want it to fall into a kind of

binary of you're liberated or you're not liberated. I think it's an incredibly complicated process depending on your circumstances, depending on what else has happened to you in life. And that's why it needs further research really because it is so complicated and it can be. It affects all families. Yeah, and it can be simplified, I think, in that kind of way of, well, you know, go and get a dog and go travelling. Yeah. And it's not as simple as that for some people. We've had a message here from a father who says, as a divorced full-time dad who's just taken his only daughter to uni, staring down the barrel of 30 years alone, I now have no place in the world.

So sad. Thank you for sharing that with us. But that does reflect that, you know, you've spent so much of your life giving yourself to your child. Well, it's about purpose, isn't it? And what we sometimes lack in society across all of, however we live, is this kind of sense of community and belonging to something. And you have a purpose at home in your home, suddenly that purpose. And it really does feel like a hard stop.

That purpose is gone. How if we had more society around us, more community stepping in, and we knew that people were going to be going through that and it was more recognised, more talked about, it was more in the media. I mean, I think it's because. coming more talked about. Culturally, it's in more things on telly and we're writing about it. And women in menopause and perimenopause are writing about it and how it affects them.

But having society around you gives you a bit of purpose as well. I mean, I took up volunteering and I worked with a charity that helps kids after school. So that gave me a bit of a sense of purpose alongside my job as well. But I think it's very difficult. I think it was very difficult for the women, the generation before us. I left home really early and just left my parents in a very small rural town. and I was gone. I mean, we didn't really think about how it was going to affect that generation. We know, of course, it affects fathers too. I mentioned at the very start of the program how Gordon

Remsey spoke about how he was gutted when his son left home at university and sat in his son's room and cried. You know, as we heard from that father there, it's not just mothers. Did you speak to any fathers, Denise, in your research? We did. We did speak to fathers. And I've, done some work with fathers and I think the message that you just got was very indicative of what fathers are feeling particularly if they're on their own, they're divorced

and I think because this can be seen as a bit of a niche area and something where the answer to it is just going to get a dog or go travelling so it's difficult for women to talk about and it can be quite competitive as well I think it's even

harder for fathers and I've done some work with fathers that are divorced or separated, you know, have had separation from their children who found this period of life really, really tough because they don't feel like they've got a voice or an identity at all. It is interesting. As somebody whose son has just gone to school, that seems to be something that's very talked about

and shared and discussed that emotion of them leaving you in that way. But it's almost, you know, something that people assume you should be happy about that your children are going on. Yeah, there's a lot of cliches around, you know, just get over it. This is a liberating time. You should be excited. There's a lot. Actually, your research found as well among older women talking about other older women

and not perhaps being as helpful as they could be. Well, I'm okay. I'm fine. I'm sorted. Gen X have a very, very much, you know, we can do this. We're capable. And we don't want to look like we're not capable at this stage of life. So we won't talk about it.

And I think that's perhaps a little bit unhelpful. So we should be talking about it more. we should certainly know it's coming and we should certainly know it's going to be really, really painful. Even if you're a really independent, capable, wonderful person who's got it all planned, it is still really painful to walk into that bedroom to not hear the laughter in the morning, you know, to not be there when they come home from school. I mean, I can see it's making you sad. I know, and I've got years yet.

So any tips then kind of for preparing or, you know, when this is coming, when this is going to happen? From both of you. Lorraine, let's start with you. I think be a little bit led by your teenagers and your 20-somethings. You know, you want to keep in touch with them, but you've kind of got to do it in the way that sort of suits them. What I volunteered, I found another community. I started very cliché, doing a bit of open water swimming and stuff like that.

I found other people going through it who I could talk to about it and then shared my feelings, but sit in the moment with it and really feel it. You've done a glorious thing. You've brought up these amazing kids. You've had so much love and you're still giving this. love. So just let that sink in a bit, I think. Denise, any advice? I think my tip would be very linked to what you were talking about, Kylie,

that at the other end of the parenting cycle, there is an enormous amount of help now and support, thinking about having a baby and the identity changes and, you know, all the things that brings up. But then when you hit this end of the parenting cycle, there's nothing. And it's like falling off a cliff for some people. So what our research found and the reason that the research is so, important is because that links to policy, it links to legislation, it gets people to take this seriously and, you know, hopefully that will start to build discussion and community around this topic in a way that there isn't at the moment.

Well, it certainly struck a call with our listeners and I'm going to read some more of those comments out a bit later in the programme. But for now, thank you to Denise Turner, Professor of Social Work at the University of Hertfordshire and also to Lorraine Candide, parenting author and journalist. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Your sales order says one thing, your inventory says another, your spreadsheet says good luck. Odu brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing.

Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's OD-O.com. Why were five men arrested in a counter-terror probe on Sunday outside an English airbase before being released on police bail on Monday. I'm Tristan Redmond, a host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The incident at the base used by the United States for its operations in Iran is becoming more confusing by the day. What's going on? For more, listen to the Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you listen.

Now, the United Nations wants to eliminate the practice of female genital mutilation by 2030, But with funding declining and some legal protections being challenged, there are fears' progress is not on track. More than 230 million women and girls worldwide, according to UNICEF. Now, a new fund is seeking to reach a tipping point towards ending FGM within a generation. Her Horizon Fund aims to pull $100 million from donors, with the initial support provided by the Wallace Global Fund, a private philanthropic foundation based in Washington, D.C.

Now, shortly we'll hear from Nimco Alley, an FGM survivor, activist and CEO of the Five Foundation, formerly known as the Global Partnership to End FGM, who has her concerns about this fund. But first, to set it out, I'm joined by Susan Gibbs, the Wallace Global Fund Senior Advisor on Women's Rights and FGM. Thank you for joining us on Women's Hour. So Susan, can you explain what her Horizon Fund is? Sure. Her Horizon Fund is a catalytic new pooled fund that is designed to drive unprecedented resources

into the hands of frontline activists and survivors who are working on FGM all over the world. And why? Because, as you indicated, 4.5 million girls are still at risk of being cut this year alone and five children die from FGM every hour. It is completely unacceptable. But there's this growing frontline movement to end FGM underway, but it has never received the resources that this crisis demands,

whether from governments, legal systems, political and religious leaders, and certainly not funders. And so her Horizon Fund exists to turn that around. Okay, so how will it work? And is all the money in place? The Wallace Global Fund, as you indicated, has provided seed funding of $14 million. Another donor has contributed $1.5 million. This is really designed to catalyze a much bigger effort.

We're hoping to raise $100 million. And the funding, how it will work, there will be two streams of funding. The first will, as I indicated, support frontline organizers working to end FGM in their own communities. and they, in fact, will decide where the funding goes. There's a second funding stream that will support national, regional, and global organizations that strengthen and support the frontline movement, including things like communications, media, policy research, care and well-being, the broader movement support work.

The UN has an approved list of organizations that are vetted for funding to help stop FGM. So why is Her Horizon Fund different? And why should it receive money over other organizations? Yeah, we went through a two-year planning process where we interviewed a range of donors, frontline activists, many, many organizations, individuals in working on FGM and heard time and time again that many funders, many larger funders, UN organizations, governments had trouble delivering funding to the small frontline organizations that were doing such important work in their communities.

They were eager for a new mechanism that could assist in directing resources at that level. And so we see this as a complementary mechanism that will support the important work already underway by others. Nimco, if I can bring you in here, what's your response to what Susan said? It's really unfortunate. Thank you for having me on, first of all.

But it's really unfortunate because the mechanism, in order to get this money to the front night already exist. And this has like, you know, large donors around the table, so large philanthropies, government organisations and the UN. So I kind of just see this as a vanity project in order to reinvent the wheel. And I'd just like to correct that one of the things that Susan said this

is not the largest funding that's ever been made. The UK government made close to $19 million, which ultimately was there to end FGM, but very little. of that money actually got to the front line and that program came to an end last year. Okay, so we just lost you briefly in part of what you were saying there. But essentially, you think that there are already organisations and this money should be going to them rather than starting a new fund. Is that correct?

It's not already organisations. There's already a fund that's stabilised, which we've already bought large foundations and governments on board as well as the UN. So kind of cuts down the bureaucracy and really gets, I think, like, you know, the cost level that we have at the moment is less than 3% of whatever's the donated gets to everybody else on the front line. But I think reinventing the wheel and doing another fund just kind of makes competition in a space which is already like, you know, under-resourced. All right. Okay. Susan, what do you say to that? I think the movement to end FGM needs many more resources, not less. I think Nimco and I would agree that the movement is significantly underfunded. So our feeling is, you know, we're going big, we're going bold and determined to work with others.

The Her Horizon Fund is also crucially global in scope and scale. FGM has been documented in 94 countries. Most of the, in fact, to my knowledge, all of the existing funding mechanisms are more geographically focused. So, yes, we are, we are, we think this is an important new contribution and are extremely excited about it. It's, it is a survivor and frontline movement led funding mechanism from, and frontline survivors will, frontline activists will be, will be governing and making the grant making decisions. And it's, we're, it's an unprecedented frontline led funding mechanism. Nimko, you've been working on this issue for many years.

Compared with when you started, where do you think we've made the progress most? I think the progress is one of the things that Susan is a lead into is that we focus on the African continent and we need to focus on the African continent. I'm not saying FGM, like any form of violence against women and girls, it's not a global issue, but where the issue really lies and where women and girls are dying on a daily basis and where poverty is becoming a reality is on the African continent. So I think that shift on actually African women leading the conversation

and being respected as the forefront of the movement is what's really changed. But ultimately, again, we're consistently talking about frontline activists and we're talking about survival-led. These women are experts on the ground, the ones that are doing the work. So ultimately, I think the respect that's been given to African women as the leaders of the conversation is what's changed. But the reality is that respect needs to come with funding. Nimco, people maybe assume FGM is a problem that may have already been solved in many places.

What do you wish the public understood better about the reality today? I think the reality today is that there are more women alive with the consequence of FGM and more girls are being born being at risk. And we're also actually kind of stepping back here in the UK. I've spent the last 11 years working on UK policies, and we got to the point where we accepted FGM was child abuse and there was no excuse for it. But then we had the government a few weeks ago bringing in articles

saying that we need to tell people FGM is wrong. The reality is FGM doesn't happen out of ignorance. It's an organised crime against women and girls. It's something that at the community level in Africa is a bartering system because women who are mutilated are worth more money. So the reality is that people are not just being cut because it's a religious issue or this, but girls are being mutilated in order for them to be sold for two cars

rather than one. So we have to look at the economic message. And I think that's one of the things that Susan is also missing is that the work with the funds that pre-exist, which is like, you know, her African fund, I accept that it's not a global fund. It's a fund for African women because that's where the need is. It's focusing on what really works to end FGM.

and there's realities of awareness raising. That's not what ends FGM is giving women access to opportunities to jobs, giving them access to opportunities to education, and giving them the ability to be able to be evident in their country as citizens. It's fundamentally key. So I would really have hoped that Susan would have contributed to that fund as opposed to starting something new. Okay, Susan, do you want to give you a response to that?

Well, I just want to say that I'm so encouraged by the incredible, momentum underway to end FGM and very excited that there are a number of efforts to address this problem. When Wallace Global Fund first began funding work on FGM 50 years ago, FGM was ignored. No UN agencies were addressing it. No laws were on the books. No donors were funding it. And today, there are survivors and activists worldwide who are building a powerful global movement. And so that's what gives me hope and I'm just very excited about the Her Horizon Fund's potential and I think we're determined to end this violence. Susan Gibbs and Nimco Ali, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Now, how do you tell a young child that their

parents are separating on the latest episode of the CBB's Parenting Download podcast, Katie, Thesselturn and Governor B explore honest, age-appropriate conversations that can help children feel safe when family life changes. They were joined by psychotherapist Zara Kedir. Kids thrive with predictability. So I think that I would always give them the headline of this is the grown-up decision that we've made, none of the gory details. And then I would go straight into telling them everything that's going to stay the same.

Like you're still going to live in this house for the time being. Grandma will still always pick you on Wednesdays. you're still going to go to football, you're still going to do this. Tell them all the things that will stay the same. How can parents make it clear that it was a grown-up decision and it wasn't their fault? It's really important to nip things in the bud before they become a problem. So don't wait for a child to say, was it my fault? But actually just assume that children kind of have what you call magical thinking

where they think that, you know, they can control these things that are so much bigger than them. So I think that when you have that first conversation where you say, mummy and daddy have decided that we're going to be better mummies and daddies if we live in separate houses. That's nothing because of anything you did. It's not because you were good, because you were bad. And being good or bad won't make us get back together either. This is a grown-up decision. And that way you just nip it in the bud before they've even had a chance to consider it could be their fault.

That was psychotherapist, Zara Kadir there. The program also heard from broadcaster and former Love Island contestant Laura Anderson and podcaster and author Aaron Dale. And you can hear that episode by going to BBC Sounds. search for CBB's parenting download. The Mexican-American comedian, actress and writer Lara Ricote, grew up in Miami before moving to the Netherlands to study politics, where she began performing improv and stand-up comedy.

She won the Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2022 for her debut show. And she's now starring in a new romantic comedy series, Break Clause, which starts on Channel 4 on Thursday at 10pm. Lara joins me in the studio. Good to see you. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. So you're starring in this romantic comedy. Your character's Lil, alongside Ben, who's played by Samuel Bottomley, and Sweethearts Ben and Lil have Finnish University,

moving from Leeds to London. Here's Ben's dad, who's played by the brilliant John Thompson, offering some fatherly advice. Ben, come on! Will, that's your route from King's Cross. Don't worry, we'll be behind you with all the gobbins. Now my sat nav is saying we'll get there around 4 p.m. That's only if we take two wee stops and eat our sarnies on route.

But between you and me, I'll have probably eaten mine before we leave. Alan, what the hell am I going to do without you? Come on, you're going to be all right. Incorrect, actually. Because who's going to tell me about slugs? Who's going to tell me that slugs' whole body is actually its foot? Oh, Alan, you're killing me. That's brilliant.

I love how he gives them a dog. advice on how to get there. It's such a dad thing to do. So just tell us then, Laura, what's it about? So it's a rom-com for sure. It is a couple. They moved to London. They are in love. They've been together for four years. She has a job. My character, Lil has a job. He doesn't have a job. He's going for her. And the day they get there, he confesses to her that he actually cheated on her the night before and they still have to live together for six months. And so it follows six episodes, six, every episode is a month after. And you get to see what it's like to live with somebody that had done something to you.

And then also look at the nuance of what we all do to each other all the time. And it's funny and it has so many wonderful comics in it. And yeah, it's written by Jess Bray, who's perfect. And it's, I love it. I love this series. It is very tender, as I said. And I believe there are some similarities between you and your character, Lil. Tell me about them.

Yeah, there are. She's a, I mean, she's Mexican-American. She's, um, she's hard of hearing like me. And, uh, she's weird. Like, she's a interesting sort of a character. She's, um, yeah, out there, I'd say. And like, she's really trying to figure herself out, I think, similar to me when I was little like that, 22. And, um, yeah, she's far away from her house. So she has, like, nothing really to grip. She didn't have her parents around. And, like, she's a bit lost and, um, and in love, but confused. And, um, Yeah, I think I really relate to what she's going through. And his family become her family, don't they in some ways? Because as you said, her family isn't around. And I think many of us will associate with that with breakups that you don't want to let go of their family. Yeah. And you'd gone through a breakup just before filming. So what was it like having gone through that and then playing that character?

It was deeply interesting. It felt like something serendipitous happened because we did a blap, which is like, a short-form version of the pilot. It's not really often that the channel will give you money kind of to go for it for the series, and it's not very often that a blap will turn into a whole series. It's kind of like a, yeah, like a 15-minute version of the pilot. That would be usually like 22 minutes. And it's really good for writers because they can kind of get a concept out there.

It doesn't happen so often. And it happened for us that we were able to make the blap a year and a half before we film the series. And during that time, I went through a breakup that gave me the emotional intelligence necessary for me to be able to play this character because I hadn't lived anything like that and I'm not really an act, I'm a comic and I've been like I've been doing stuff in the acting world and I like it but it is

like it is me that I'm doing I'm not uh yeah I'm not playing some sort of a chimney sweep type of you know what I mean I'm not really deviating so much from what I'm like but it was interesting I like I really live some stuff that I write after did

like yeah driving away in the car and like looking back and it's like, you know, you're not going to see them again. And like having to reap, it had been three months before I had done it in my real life. And I went through a really difficult and long. I did a 10-day breakup period with my ex. We did like a, it's called like a breakup moon, I think. And you just break up and you spend 10 days together kind of like decoupling is. Wow, I've never heard of that.

Yes, me neither. It was difficult. And, but it was also like the series is a decoupling as well. in a way. And my life just mimicked it just before I had to film it. And it was, yeah, deeply interesting and difficult. And also I was able to cry the whole time at work, which was thrilling. And like, yeah, sometimes we had to go and we had to do a scene. And we had four minutes and we had to get a scene where I was like, it's like you, you click a couple of things, try to get the soap out. The soap doesn't come out by the third soap that you're trying to get out. You

burst into tears. And it was like, I can do that for sure. Oh, because I'm like it might have been hard as well. You mentioned, you know, how they're living together. And we know that there are lots of people who end up having that situation where maybe for financial reasons, they can't move out of the home. What do you think holds them together throughout the show? Because they still, in an old way, get on. Yeah, they get on because they love each other. They've like, they started being together when they were 18 and now they're 22. Like, these are formative years. You're growing up, you're engaging with what you're like as a person for the first time, like, what you're perceived as. And, like, you have a relationship that is sturdy and made sense to you. And, like,

you were able to figure out who you were kind of also in relation to the person, but also in, like, well, yeah, you mirror each other in a relationship. You figure out what you're like, kind of with their outline. You find out yours. And then you show up in a new place and you don't have any sense of anything. Everything else is new. And the only thing you really have is, like this person you grew up with. And yeah, you hate them. You're angry at them. But there's still a person that you spent all this time with. There's still the person that you made yourself around. So they love each other. They know each other. And they're in the same house. And it's a tiny little flat. And this happens, yeah, this happens to a lot of people

when we've been filming like talking to people about it. A lot to people have said it's because it's a housing crisis. And like you can't just find somewhere else to go. And sometimes your parents don't want you back. Something they can't have you. back. Yeah. So they navigate it. They're really able to do it. And they fight and it's hard and everything. But they also, yeah, well, there's a foundation there. Let's talk about comedy. You mentioned that you are mainly doing stand-up and improv. So you grew up in Miami before you moved to the Netherlands to study politics. And that was when you began stand-up comedy. So how did that happen? Did you just decide one day this is what I want to do?

No, no, I thought I was a serious person at that point. My little sister is a wonderful clown who's doing her show at Soho Theater this next week. She's actually a clown. She's a clown clown clown. Right. Fedied in France, this like serious clown school. And she wasn't a clown then, but she was an improviser. She was one of the early adopters when she was like, very cool. She knew about it being interesting. And she came to Amsterdam where she was staying with me for a month and she was like, I have to go to an improv class. Like, I can't be a month without it. She's intense. And so we went to one class on a Sunday at like 12, and it was like a five-minute bike ride from my house, and it was the most fun I've had.

I was like, oh, I can just do this. I could just be stupid for like two hours with a bunch of people and like be playful. And we are all here because we all want to play. And it's like quite natural that that would be something that I would want. And I was good at it. It was like, yeah, just kind of following your impulse and seeing what comes out if you just start talking, which is what we're doing all the time. but like now in a setting where you're allowed to be stupid. It's just really the opposite of what I was trying to do the whole time.

I was trying to be smart the whole time. It was really quite liberating. And kind of soon after, I would rent out my room a lot because I didn't have money. And so I would rent out my room and sleep in my roommate's bed. And we had an American, two groups of, like, different people that came. And at one point there was like an American, two American brothers. And they said to me, like, you should do stand up. We're going to go on a big European tour.

We'll come back. and like you should sign up for a stand-up night will come watch you. And I signed up and they never came back and it changed my life. I did it once and I was like, oh, here's because the place that I can be like decidedly stupid and also decidedly smart, you know?

So what is your comedy like? What kind of thing do you talk about? Well, in this, I'm doing a show right now. I just did a show inkling. I just did a month at the park theater and I did it in Edinburgh. And that was like, I think the show where I'm like, oh, I figured something out about what I'm like in this show.

Because it's a lot of time like figuring out, figuring out, yeah, your relationship with the world and your relationship with yourself and, like, all of that together. And I think my stand-ups, like, about at least this show, and it changes all the time. But this show is about, like, how to hold onto yourself and also, like, notice what you feel and also be engaging with the world. It's like, yeah, I mean, I talk about, like, the Oracle of Delphi. I talk about, like, getting in a fight with a man in the museum. I talk about being hard of hearing. I talk about my breakup. I, like I talk about a lot of personal things and I weave them together to try to make sense of what my life has been like and and what are the things that I can can basically catch.

I feel like standups like we're like kind of aware of like the narrative arc of our lives while we're living it. And so you're like trying to look and see what what this moment meaning to me right now and kind of like as soon as you start engaging with your life like if it has meaning, it sort of then just does have meaning. You mentioned your heart of hearing. Does that impact your performing in any way? Yeah, big time. It impacts everything about me. It's a, yeah, a big, I relate to myself differently. I'm always trying to figure out what's going on, I think.

Like, that's kind of my baseline. I'm like, I'm engaging with the mystery of being alive and also I'm engaging with the mystery of what the heck are people saying. And, like, it's been this way forever. I think only recently I've started realizing that, like, yeah, It's a big reason why I'm like, I feel like I'm a lean forward type of person. But it's like, yeah, I'm leaning forward because I can't hear very much. But it has affected everything.

And I like it about myself. I'm not, well, I figured out how to make myself like it, basically, I think. So were you doing a lot of lip reading then? Yeah, I do. I do a lot of lip reading. I wear hearing aids. If I don't have them on, then it's difficult for me to be in, like, group situations. But I can usually, like, it's a pitch thing.

So it just means that it's a frustrating way to relate to reality. but it isn't that I can't. I'm not profoundly deaf, but I have a, yeah, I just can't really make out what people are saying. I can hear them, but I can't, I don't know what they're saying. You don't make it easy for yourself, though, because you perform in English and in Spanish, don't you? How does the comedy translate between the languages? Yeah, it's a different, kind of part of yourself that you're working with. I feel like I'm so much more connected to my family and the way that my family is in Spanish.

And like, yeah, sometimes I feel a little bit. like an auntie in Spanish. So I think that's like a different part of me that's not alive as often. It's just like the one that I engage with when I'm with, yeah, the people I grew up around. But it translates also because I'm not really like, I'm not like a one-liner writer. So it's not I have some of those, but it's not like the core of what I do. It's kind of like I talk funny. And so I just talk and then funny stuff kind of comes out in that way. And I can just do that in English and in Spanish. But I haven't done it in Spanish in a while. I've been focusing on English for, yeah, for at least a little couple of years, the last couple of years. Just very briefly,

are you going to do more acting? I hope so. You're very good at it, so you should. Thank you. I really liked it. It was, yeah, it feels like the same thing about the stand-up is like catching stuff. Like, it just makes you look at everything more. And I'm interested, I want to be looking a lot. That's what I'm interested in. And I think, like, yeah, looking at how people react and what people emotions are like and what my emotions are like and catching what goes on in me so then I can like map it on later. I'm interested. I would like to keep doing that for sure. Well, break clause is great. I've really enjoyed it. And you can see it on Channel 4 from Thursday at 10 o'clock. Lara, thank you very much indeed. Thank you so much. Lovely to speak to you. We've been asking for your comments about empty nest,

whether your children head off to all sorts of things, maybe for university. This one here It says not all mum's suffer emptiness syndrome. When mine left, I felt relieved at first, then bursting into tears when I tried to sort out the baking cupboard as I saw all the accoutrements of building a happy home unused. All those cookie cutters, mini rolling pins, but ultimately living with teenagers was hard for me. Does that relief make me a bad mother? Of course it doesn't. Thank you very much for getting in touch. Also, this one says, I tell myself what I would prefer my daughters to be at home, miserable locked in their rooms, or having the times of their lives.

or having the times of their life at uni like I did. I poured 18 years of love into my twins. The roots are strong and they now fly. That's all from me. I'm back tomorrow at 10. Bye-bye. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Parenting a young child today means navigating a whirlwind of advice,

opinions and relentless information. Tell me about it, Katie. But the good news is CBB's parenting download is here to take the edge off. Join me, Katie Thistleton, Radio One presenter, and new mum. And me, Governor B, Mobo award-winning rapper and dad of two, as we discover and unpack what it really means to be a parent. From the art of negotiation to tips on dealing with parental anxiety.

Each episode, we're joined by well-known parents and trusted professionals to share their own experiences. People say you never know until you have your own, but no one ever really gets into what that means. And it's very true. Someone, when I was on my first walk with him alone in the pram, someone went, Fresc Green, went yeah, you went, congratulations, and cheers.

And he went, welcome to the truth club. I went, what do you mean? You went, you'll find out soon enough. And to provide useful tools and advice to tackle the daily challenges that come with parenting, offering honest conversations and expert insight that can really help. The biggest thing that I've noticed since I became a negotiator is we don't listen. We're really good at pretending we listen and we do this, don't we? So our young people in our life, especially are talking away.

You've asked them a question. They're answering the question and you're like this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because you're not really interested because you're already thinking about what's next. We've learnt so much already. So whether you're a first-time parent, you've got multiple kids, you're a carer or a grandparent, this podcast is for you.

Search for CBB's parents in download with me, Katie Thistleton. And me, Governor B. Listen now on BBC Sounds. Why were five men arrested in a counter-terror probe on Sunday outside an English airbase before being released on police bail on Monday? I'm Tristan Redmond, a host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The incident at the base used by the United States for its operations in Iran is becoming more confusing by the day. What's going on?

For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you listen.