Woman's Hour - Female Offender Strategy, Midwife shortage, Zara Rutherford, Annalena Baerbock

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Concerns that the criminal justice system is not responsive enough to the specific needs of women are longstanding. In June 2018 the government published its Female Offender Strategy. It sought to reduce crime, pressure on services and the cost of dealing with women in the CJS, and to improve outcomes for women at all points in the system. The National Audit Office have just released a report examining the success of that strategy so far and are critical of the government’s efforts in implementing it. Kate Paradine, Chief Executive of Women in Prison joins Emma. Midwives are under a ‘worrying amount’ of pressure and are being ‘dangerously overworked’ according to former NHS midwife, Piroska Cavell. According to a survey by the Royal College of Midwives from October 2021, over half of their members considering leaving the profession due to the current situation. Emma speaks to Piroska about her own experience of being a midwife on the front line and Royal College of Midwives’ Dr Mary Ross-Davie about the challenges facing maternity services. Nineteen year old Zara Rutherford has become the youngest woman ever to fly solo around the world. Her journey spanned 5 months, 32,000 miles and five continents. And to top it all she only got her pilot’s licence two years ago. Who is Annalena Baerbock? The new German foreign minister met with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov last week in Moscow, and delivered a warning that her country was prepared to pay a high price to defend its values, if Russia invades Ukraine. Why is her role in the diplomacy significant, and how did she become Germany’s first female foreign minister? Emma speaks to Michaela Kuefner, Chief Political Editor at Deutsche Welle. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Piroska Cavell Interviewed Guest: Dr Mary Ross-Davie Interviewed Guest: Zara Rutherford Interviewed Guest: Kate Paradine Interviewed Guest: Michaela Kuefner

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. And on the first day of the week that the rules are changing again in England, meaning that from Thursday the 27th of January, if you have an office job in England, you can go back into the office and leave wherever you have built some semblance of working life in your home. Whether that's in your bed, on the floor, behind the door, behind. Or perhaps not quite, but starting to. Depends on, of course, where you work and some of the rules there.

But is that good news or bad from your viewpoint? According to a YouGov poll, there's a difference between the sexes on this one, with more men in London certainly wanting to return to the office than women. We'll get into some of the figures and some of those details shortly. But how is this playing out in your life? We've had nearly two years of disruption. Are you welcoming going back to the office if that does affect you? Do you want to? Are you looking forward to it? Perhaps you're not looking forward to it, but you know it's good for you. Or maybe you're hoping the whole shape of work will have changed during this time, that greater

flexibility will now not be frowned upon. The humanity of work perhaps will be a bit more reflected. Or when you do hear that there is a sex-based difference on this, men wanting something more, going back to the office in this case, certainly according to this poll, versus women, but also I'm stressing just in London, it could be different elsewhere, of course. Are you worried that some women will be left behind in this if this is the trend and that the harm on women's careers is something we shouldn't lose sight of, the potential harm?

Text me here at Women's Hour on 84844. Text, of course, charge your standard message rate. I've got to mention that to you. On social media, I'm at BBC Women's Hour or email me through the Women's Hour website. Also on today's programme, forget about the office, meet Zara Rutherford, the youngest woman to fly solo around the world. It's not about the office for her. It's been about a small aeroplane. And you'll hear why the government is being accused of taking its eye off the ball when it comes to women offenders. Of course, another inquiry just been commissioned by the Prime Minister

looking into the experience of a female Muslim MP, a former minister, Nozgani. We'll, of course, keep across anything developing on that. And, of course, waiting for Sue Gray, the woman at the heart of what's going on with the inquiry into the Prime Minister and those around him because of lockdown rules potentially being breached, that due to come back this week. So a woman at the heart of that and will of course keep across all of those stories as they develop and move. But coming right to the home front and the work front where the two have met,

if you have been working from home, how are you feeling if you are in England, about getting back potentially to your desk again alongside your colleagues in person? This YouGov poll that I mentioned has found more men than women in London never want to work from home again once the crisis is over. I'm joined now by the author and journalist Cathy Lett, who's coming to us actually from down the line in Australia and never short of a strong opinion. Good morning, Cathy. Good morning, Cathy. I am. Hello. Lovely to have you. And we've also got Sue Uniman, chief transformation officer at Mediacom and the author of Belonging, the key to transforming diversity, inclusion and equality at work. Cathy, I'm going to start with you.

Were you surprised by the survey? Because it is different. 31% of men living in London never want to work from home again compared to 21% of women. Cathy? Well, it's not as bad to me. I mean, I think men want to go back to work to have a little rest because even though you know women make up 50 percent of the workforce we're still doing

99 percent of all the housework and all the child care and working mothers juggle so much we could be in the Cirque du Soleil I think the Dunkirk evacuation would be easier to organize than a working mother getting her kids up and out of the house in the morning. And I used to have these arguments with my own husband, you know, say, you've got to help me work more around the house, and he'd be like, well, I'm a man, I'd like to, but I can't multitask.

Now, this is a biological cop-out because no man would have any trouble multitasking at, say, an agentoire. He'd be tweaking and twirling and twanging, you know, no problem. And I think even though the average man's contribution to housework is probably giving a room a kind of sweeping glance, during lockdown men couldn't get away with not contributing because it was far more obvious. My work friends tell me they mainly took on PE so they could,

you know, do the physical ed outside, get the kids to ride the bikes up and down the street while they played on their iPhones. So, yeah, no wonder they want to get back to work just to get out of housework and childcare. I'm slightly aware our line's a little bit difficult, but I'm going to persevere, Cathy, because there will be some shouting at the radio right now saying vast generalisations by Cathy Lett

and then there'll be others saying you've just painted the most accurate picture of my household. Right. Well, I mean, I would say, you know, we know the research does show that the average man doesn't contribute very much to housework and childcare. We know that's not just me jumping on my feminist high horse. But I would say to men,

it's in their interest to help more around the house because I do all my research in a scientific, in-depth fashion over cappuccinos with girlfriends. And what I've realised is that they're just not having sex with their husbands because they're exhausted and resentful because if you've homeschooled all day or worked all day and you'd come home, cook dinner, you know, defrost the chops for tomorrow, help with the homework, do the nagging

about the teeth cleaning and read the bedtime stories, by the time you get into bed, the one thing you're fantasising about is sleep and then you get the hand, you know, groping over the sheets. I mean, most men make horror movies called The Blob and The Thing. Women would make, those exhaustedalted working mothers would make The Hand. And you think, here's this guy who hasn't helped me around the house or done any homeschooling or helped with the kids.

And he thinks I'm in the mood for love. I'm in the mood for running him through with a carving knife. So, yeah, boys, pull up your domestic socks and, you know, you just might get a bit more lucky. Cathy, shooting from the lip, as we always expect. Thank you. I'm going to just go to Sue now and see if we can also improve that line slightly and Sue Cathy there for some will not be painting an image that they recognise for others really will be because like it or not a lot of things did go back to type in some ways certainly domestically during the lockdown which we know both anecdotally and from some data sets that are already in. But with regards to actually going to work and who wants

to go back to the office and who doesn't, is this a concern for you around men versus women? Well, look, and thank you for having me on the show. What we know is that during lockdown and during the pandemics globally, the gender pay gap in the world increased by 36 years. And it was at 100 years anyway until you get to equality. So we're now at 136 years. We know that 78% of jobs that were lost in the first part of the pandemic because of COVID were lost by women. So you've now got a situation where inequality that was already around, frankly, because you still have the tops of companies.

You can see it in the FTSE, you can see it in government dominated by men versus women. I mean, it's just statistical. The number of executive directors on the FTSE 100 is around two or three percent so it's a bit of women that it's still very low so we still haven't got equality in terms of gender and I don't think that working from home rather than being in the office has helped that having said that I completely understand that all kinds of people want to get away from domesticity and want to get into the office because when you're in the office particularly at a senior level somebody brings you a cup of coffee don't they and they ask you how you are and they want to make sure that you're at

your best which frankly however much your husband or children adore you they they rarely go that was a brilliant job of motherhood that you did today you know it's like really you know five out of five stars i mean we should say also generationally there's a difference here that that actually a lot of younger people regardless of being male or female do just want to go back because they're at the beginning of their career they want those connections they need to to actually understand what they're doing sometimes a bit more than they are and also just they're lonely you know and they're not they've not experienced that work culture some of them exactly and they're not all they're sharing the flat sharing as well and they haven't got a space to actually comfortably

work and they're not parents yet uh in any way just a few of the messages coming in and jay says after managing to combine a full-time job with raising a baby is now 19 months i'm dreading the return to work and the lack of flexibility my employer is proposing. But Anne says two years from working from home has left me overweight, lonely, unfit with high blood pressure. Last week back at the office for three days, I haven't felt so happy. My only worry is now the workplace wants to make hybrid work and hot desking normal. And that fills me with dread. And Derek's texted and say, I'm a man working in the city of London where the reality is many alpha males enjoy the culture of flirting, banter and office affairs. It comes as no surprise that many London men want to get back to the happy hunting ground of the office where

they can pursue the usual extramarital attractions. That's from one of our many male listeners. Always good to hear from them as well. Sue, just on that point, I suppose, about the social side of work, it's coming across a little bit. But again, I'm aware of generalisations that, you know, men just perhaps want to go and have the fun and the freedom. And it's women perhaps who are thinking about the benefits to the whole family, perhaps, or the whole home by having home working. Is that something you've seen when you've spoken to people Sue? Yes I think look when you are a mother especially a mother of young kids then you feel like you're doing two full-time jobs anyway so it's easier to have that kind of flexibility I think it's certainly what we've seen from people we've talked to when you've got a father of young kids he's happier to kind of

shut the door you know in terms of state of mind go off to work and get on with the work. What concerns me a little bit about that comment that we we do know that the number of people who have experienced harassment, inappropriate behaviour at work, is one in three in the UK, which is far too high. And for certain groups, like the under-25s, it's even higher. It's one in two. And in our sector, which is advertising, there was some really good research that was done last year

by an organisation called Time 2, which indicated that people think there's a, that people are worried that there's kind of like a pent up demand for this sort of thing, because it hasn't, we haven't been in the office. And that really speaks to my sense of fairness, because if you've got that anxiety about coming into work, if that's one of the reasons why you want to stay out of the office, that's something that the culture of the organisation has to have zero tolerance for. I mean, we'd all agree with that, right? That's an extraordinary figure.

I had no idea in terms of that being that high. Well, Sue Uniman, thank you very much for talking to us. Author of Belonging, The Key to Transforming Diversity, Inclusion and Equality at Work, the Chief Transformation Officer at Mediacom. Cathy Lett, going to try and come back to you, despite our slightly difficult line there. As predicted, some railing against your comments, but equally some in praise and also needing a laugh this morning. I mean, that's the other thing. People miss having a laugh with their colleagues, don't they?

Oh, that's absolutely true. I mean, it's fair. You lose your sense of humour so quickly when you're working from home and you're both sort of tapping away on your laptops on opposite sides of the duvet, you know, food-stained tracksuits. So, yeah, going back to the office is good for women as well. But it's only going to work if men do their fair share at home. And men might be there. Of course there are some men who are domestically inclined.

But generally speaking, as I said before, giving the room a sweeping glance is the closest most blokes come to housework. And, you know, it's in their interest to help us because it's scientifically proven that no woman ever shot her husband while he was vacuuming. So, you know, it's a good thing for all. Kathila, thank you very much indeed. And with a great deal of Rai smiling now, I think some will be saying if this was being said the other way around,

it wouldn't be allowed. But Cathy, thank you very much for talking to us this morning. That is your take on this and wanting to, I suppose, bring, I remember we had a woman on who was anonymous actually, just after I started at the beginning of last year, who was talking about just the frustration being a mum, her husband wasn't able to work from home, because I think that's important to remember.

Some people haven't been able to, and one half has and one half hasn't, and who's been able to pick up the pieces? But the frustration and then the guilt, because he didn't have it, she felt that bad. I don't know if you remember this interview, but I'll post it again on our social media feed. But it struck such a chord with so many of you just just trying to get through. And yet now looking around and seeing what we've learned from that

time and what you'd actually prefer, it is really interesting. On the week, the rules change again from Thursday, certainly in England, just to stress again in England, where you are with this and the fact that more men certainly in this study say that they want to never work from home again. Where are you on this? Pippa says, if I asked to return to the office more than occasionally, if, excuse me, I would quit my job and possibly leave the workforce until my children are older. I have two small children. I work a stressful job. My husband's also working from home. On top of that, it's actually made our home life really quite manageable, despite us both working long hours. I don't think I'm alone in thinking that the previous way we worked was designed by men

to the massive disadvantage of women. Sophie says, I much prefer working a combination of office and home. The variety keeps me refreshed and motivated. However, my bosses, all male, if that's at all relevant, are pressuring us to come in full time.

We all get the impression that they don't trust us working from home as they cannot physically see us working. This lack of trust has made me really disenchanted, so much so I'm currently looking for new positions elsewhere. Sophie, thank you very much for that. Do keep your messages coming in on 84844. While talking about work and the culture of work and doing your best work, a former midwife has raised the alarm over the worrying amount of pressure being placed on midwives who are overworked and being overworked with not enough resources or staff support.

It's predicted that there is a shortage of nearly 2,000 midwives across the country. Of course, the majority of them are still being women, with several maternity units being forced to shut due to a lack of people. In a week with another inquiry, of course, as we've discussed by the Prime Minister and to the lack of people. In a week with another inquiry, of course, as we've discussed by the Prime Minister into the conducts of his ministers and those around him, attention is also required many other places. We've already highlighted on the programme

the problems with the move towards compulsory COVID jabs from April for frontline NHS staff. There's a story of a maternity unit where nearly 40 midwives are refusing to be vaccinated. You can catch up with that on BBC Sounds. And of course, ministers now, there is You can catch up with that on BBC Sounds. And of course, ministers now, there is a debate apparently about whether that will go ahead. But the government has pledged to hire nearly 1,200 new midwives.

But will it be enough? Well, joining me now, Paroska Kaval, the former midwife who sounded the alarm, and Dr Mary Ross-Davie, head of professional midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives. Paroska, good morning. I'll start with you. Hello there. Thank you for joining all of us today. Could I start just by asking why you chose to quit? For me personally, I had worked in many trusts across the UK.

I started quite late in midwifery. I was 40 when I decided to go into midwifery. And I was thinking about maybe future teaching perhaps, but I felt I needed to get as much experience as possible so I then became an agency midwife and literally worked everywhere in the UK London, South East, Channel Islands, everywhere and what I noticed is common amongst all the all the trusts the midwives are doing an absolutely fantastic job we're all you know for us it's about caring for the women and the families but actually within the institution I do refer to the NHS as the mothership um there's there's very little care for us um so you're

working in a really high pressure environment you know you're looking after two maybe three people's lives when you're with someone delivering. There are all sorts of factors that can happen. Labour is normally, you know, very straightforward, but it can change very, very quickly. And you have to deal with the very sort of the other side of it. People tend to think the midwifery is very lovely and we cuddle babies and we chat to women and it's very straightforward. But when we have a bad day in the office, it's as bad as you could possibly imagine. And you have to pick yourself up and go straight on into another room with someone else and it's very lovely and carry on there's nothing you know there's very little if any support you're working extremely long hours um and you're trying to mentally deal with that because you invest in

every patient a hundred percent you're in there you're invested in them you want to make sure their experience is as good as possible and after a period of time you you can't sustain that so and and that's your personal choice i know you're still working at now in with a in a sort of private health care uh setting or your own private health care company but but i know you care still greatly about this. And in terms of raising the alarm, what you actually said, you talked about being dangerously overworked. And that would then lead, of course, as well as the staff being put at risk, but those that you're caring for. So is it a case of more midwives and then that being the solution? Because, of course, that's what's being prioritised allegedly by the government undoubtedly more midwives is going to help you know because the staff shortages are huge and

the impact on that is huge but also the way they structure it at the moment you know things are really pared down to the very very bare bones so you have a minimum number of midwives who have got to cover for instance a labour ward an anten ward, a postnatal ward, a triage, and you're forever mixing and pulling people from different areas to try and cover. Yeah, it would be great to have more midwives so that you could then probably address the work-life balance as well. You know, I have colleagues that have suffered heart attacks and strokes purely due to the pressure of the job. Let me bring in Dr Mary Ross-Davie at this point. What are you hearing from people on the ground, from midwives on the ground at the moment? Yeah, unfortunately, exactly what we've just heard. We've had a widespread survey with our members in the autumn last year, and it really reflected what we just heard.

So more than half of our member midwives were saying that they were seriously thinking about leaving the profession over the last year. We've also seen that evidenced in terms of lower numbers of midwives in the workforce. What we think has happened is lots of midwives who were due to retire at the beginning of the pandemic, they thought, no, I'll hold on, I need to look after my colleagues, I need to look after women during this really difficult time, so I'll stay. But then the pandemic has rolled on and on and people are completely burnt out. So those midwives who were able to retire have now made that decision to retire. So I think the answer is more midwives, it's more midwives coming in. We don't have a problem particularly in attracting people to come into the profession, though.

So we do have a large number of people who apply to be student midwives. Our problem is then in retaining them. So retaining them during their education is really important. So we need to look seriously at reintroducing the bursary for student midwives and student nurses as well. So they're not dealing with financial difficulties during a really tough course and then we need to keep the midwives that we've already got you know as as has been talked about already we need to look after them they've got great experience they know what they're doing but they need to have the support I expect your answer Mary I'll come back to you in just one moment Prosker but I expect your

answer is going to be of course you know people be reassured, but there will be people listening to this who are thinking, well, is it safe to have a baby? You know, at the moment, you know, if I hear that there are these conditions being endured by those who are meant to be caring for me, you know, as a woman expecting and men who are listening to this as well what do you say to them? Absolutely what we don't want to do is give people unnecessary fear and concern during their pregnancy so it's a it's a difficult balance we want to raise the alarm we want to say to the government we need more midwives we need more support we need more sustained investment in maternity services and at the same time we don't want to create anxiety for women the two can't be the two can't be true i'm sorry to interrupt but you know how can let me put it to you prosca how can it be the case that if you explain that and you just painted a very vivid picture uh that you know people are working around the clock having

really difficult shifts and there aren't enough people how can that not cause uh concern for those receiving the care as much as i also want to shine the light on those giving the care i think that women you know should be reassured that everyone who is at work is working and they give their all to make sure they're committed to you it will be us that take the impact of the stress and the worry if i'm walking into a room with a woman and my job is to calm her down, to make sure it's going to be fine. I'm going to look after you. I'm going to make sure that nothing's going to happen

apart from the best experience possible. I'm not going to walk into a room and be nervous and stressed and allow her to know that I'm concerned about what's going on out there. We tend to absorb the impact and that's what makes it very stressful. That's why I ended up leaving to open my aesthetics clinic.

But, you know, in terms of retention, that's absolutely right. We've had students, as a midwife, you become a mentor. But what we're finding is that more and more students are going straight, for instance, straight onto a run of night shifts after completing their training. Night shifts are very hard to get used to. And then you're dealing with everything else as well. And then they're just breaking.

Three to six months in, we'll find them crying in a cupboard somewhere. We're trying to gather them up and reassure them that they'll get through it. They'll be fine. But in terms of, you know, the safety, patient safety, we do our absolute best. I don't think, yeah, so I think that's really important to hear and I think especially from someone who's been doing it, you know thank you for saying that. But just

to come back to you, Mary, as the head of professional midwifery at the Royal College of Midwives. In October, the Care Quality Commission found at times staff numbers were so low at the East Kent Hospital Trust that women had to be transferred to different hospitals during labour. It also

found, as people will remember, there weren't enough staff to keep mothers and babies safe at that hospital trust at the centre of a baby death scandal. Since 2011, 15 babies died in the trust's care. Yes, the CQC mentioned how much improvement had been made and there were comments of gratitude on that side of things, that things were getting better from the trust's point of view. But there is an example, a rare one, but there is an example, not about the individuals who were on shift, but about the actual numbers causing potential issues. Yes, absolutely. And there are reports and there are reviews of very concerning situations like that. But the example of where you are transferring women to another unit that is an

example of midwives heads of midwifery keeping women safe they're saying it's we don't have enough staff in this unit so we're going to need to transfer you to another unit it's not something we ever want to do because we know it's so disruptive not to know the place where you're going in um to give birth so it isn't something we want to do, but there are those things that we can do to keep people safe. I think the other thing to remember is that we will always focus on labour and birth as our priority for making sure that we have that one midwife in the room with you, you know, shutting the door and making that time special and really focused. It's the other areas of service that really get affected, actually, and postnatally.

No, no, no. And that's very important. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off there. I was going to say, because postnatal especially has been a huge area of concern for a very long time as well. There's a Department for Health and Social Care statement here, which says midwives do an incredibly important job. We know how challenging it's been working through the pandemic. There are more midwives working across the NHS now than at any other time in history. And we are aiming to hire, as I've said, 1200 more with this £95 million recruitment drive. Is that the case? There are more midwives now working across the NHS than any other time in history. I think it's really interesting the different figures that can be picked here. Yes,

we have welcomed the investment that the government have announced and their intention to try to recruit a thousand more midwives. It's fraught with difficulty trying to recruit those midwives. Where are we going to find them at the moment is a key issue. Also, what we know from guidance from NHS providers is that actually maternity services need between £200 and £350 million a year that continues to really provide high quality care. And that isn't the level of investment that we've seen announced by the government yet. And that is what we're needing to really make services really safe. The issue is not so much about numbers because we do see a falling birth rate but what we see is increased complexity of the women that we're looking after. We see far more women giving birth after the age of 40.

We see more women who are giving birth when they've got real medical complications and that means that they need more care, they need more assessment. And so that puts more pressure on the service as well. Midwives are doing an amazing job. What we saw in figures that were released last week by the ONS is that actually the still birth rate is continuing to fall despite the pandemic, despite all of these shortages. You know, midwives, obstetricians... So that's to um to definitely also know about as well in this uh thank you very much to both of you for talking to us proska cavill the former midwife there who sounded that alarm about her former colleagues and dr mary ross davy head of professional midwifery at the royal college of midwives and continuing to talk about work so

many of you getting in touch about the ability certainly certainly in England, from Thursday to be able to go back into the office if that's been okayed on your office side and if you do do an office job. Just responding to the author, Cathy Lett, Louise says, Cathy, pushing the angle of men doing more in the house to get sex is incredibly outdated, simplifies a complex situation for women and men trying to find a work-life gender balance in their lives. And Phil says, wow, you need to meet my two sons. They do full-on demanding jobs and contribute massively to childcare and work around the house. What an amazing generalisation. And we've got a message here from Claire who says, I can't wait to go back to central London.

I love my colleagues, all young women too. I can't wait to see them regularly in person. My partner on overhearing our video calls refers to it as BBC Women's Hour. We talk pay, bosses, gender differences at work and future plans. Claire, I'll tune in. Thanks very much. Well, I did say, think about where you've been working and think about how it could be and how you might like it to be. Well, never mind working from the home or in the office. What about flying around the world and your office being a small plane? You might have read about the extraordinary feat of 19-year-old Zara Rutherford.

The British-Belgian teenager has become the youngest woman to fly solo around the world. She arrived back in Belgium at the end of last week, two months later than planned, a journey that spanned five months, 32,000 miles and five continents. And Zara only received her pilot's licence two years ago. Take that. I spoke to her just before coming on air

and she started by telling me why it took her a little longer than planned to get back home. I was planning on coming back mid-October, but then I got into some delays coming up the west coast of America and then that meant I was late to Alaska, which caused visa problems with Russia. And then that then led to me being stuck in Alaska for a month. And by then, winter had fully kicked in.

So then Russia became really tricky, and I was stuck there for a month as well. I mean, it's kind of incredible because of all the environmental and political scenes that you've been flying over and through. Right. Yeah, it's been crazy, especially, I think, yeah, politically, North Korea was a problem. So I was flying from Russia to South Korea. And obviously, North Korea is kind of in the way. And I had to do this huge detour to avoid their airspace.

At first, I was actually going to fly over China. But because of COVID, they said no, which meant I had to go way out over the sea, which was a really long six-hour over-water flight. And obviously, at that time of year, again, it was pretty cold. And so if the engine stops, I have a huge problem. And at one point, I thought the weather might the weather looked like it was getting worse and I'm not allowed to fly into cloud so for me cloud is a really really big deal and so I had to briefly consider whether I would either cut the corner into North Korean

airspace whether I would go to Japan even though I did not have the necessary permits although in an emergency you can obviously go to Japan or turn back to Russia and fly back for four hours. By then, obviously, I'm not sure if the weather in Russia is still good. And then fuel, I have to try and recalculate my fuel and make sure I have enough for that. So yeah, there were some interesting flights. Hang on, so you just said some things that I needed to understand. You can't go through cloud?

That's right. My plane is, well, both my plane and I don't have the right things to fly through cloud. So my plane doesn't have the right instrumentation, really. Okay. It does, if I do accidentally fly into a cloud, or I have to, then it does have the right, so I can fly, but I also don't have the right training or the right license for it. So, again, I do have basic training for an absolute emergency, but I'm not properly trained to really do it comfortably. Another issue is that in Russia and Alaska, it's so cold. The clouds have a lot of moisture in them and water droplets, if you will.

So when you're flying along the droplets will kind of stick to the wing and if it's mine if it's zero degrees or underneath it will freeze and over time ice will accumulate on your wings until ultimately your wing is no longer a wing it doesn't produce lift anymore because the ice is kind of making it not so smooth and just just so people can picture this it's a it's a microlight plane, is that right? That's right, yes. So which means it's very small, it's very light. And yeah, then ice becomes a real problem.

And it's just you? That's right. So I'm flying solo around the world. There's no other plane following me. It's kind of just me and then I'll meet people at each airfield. And when you're making these sorts of decisions where you say, I don't know whether I'm going to go back into this country, I don't know whether the weather's going to be, you know, ultimately it's you doing this or you are in constant comms trying to make that decision with others? I am the one making the decision, but I am in

constant comms to kind of help me make that decision. So even again, when I was flying from Russia to South Korea I messaged him and I said look I'm not sure if the weather's going to be good enough to get to South Korea can I consider cutting into North Korean airspace to kind of have a shortcut direct to Seoul and straight away I got a response saying whatever you do do not go into North Korea which I kind of figured out already and then I've had to use it a lot so I've had to divert a lot due to various reasons usually weather related and then I'll ask them for okay can you please check the weather from your computer yes and let me know what the best

airfield is to land that because I have to get on the ground what what are you like during this you know are you calm are you stressed like give give me give me a sense of you in the plane it really depends so it depends basically depends on whether i have alternate airfields so if i can land somewhere else comfortably i am i'm pretty happy throughout the flight the issue was in very remote places where there are no other airfields, it's either where you departed from or where you're landing at. This was, again, in Alaska and Siberia, that was kind of a thing where if the weather where I was landing at was not good,

I had a really big problem because, especially at the time of year I was flying through Siberia, the days are very short. And at the time, I didn't have enough fuel to get back to the airfield where I left from. And then let's say I decide, OK, I'm going to have to do an emergency landing in the wilderness. Suddenly I'm stuck in minus 35 degrees Celsius, I was away from rescue. And then I was nervous 100% throughout the whole flight. I think that was six hours where my heart rate was pretty high. And I mean, what did happen with that particular instance?

It ended up being really nice. There was a certain point where I was a little bit stressed because it said it's snowing. And I was trying to find, I can't really fly through snow because visibility is kind of reduced. So I was trying to kind of wiggle my way through some snow showers, if that's a word. And then I got through to Magadan, that's the city where I landed at. And it was blue skies and I was super happy. I was really, really.

Your family, it's been described as a family of aviators. What does that mean? Who flies? And is this why you fly? That's right. Yeah, I'm really lucky. My parents are pilots. My brother's a pilot as well. So I really grew up around airplanes, which makes it a little bit easier to learn how to fly as well.

And yeah, so the whole family are pilots. I think that's where that comes from. And were they instrumental in, you know, you can grow up doing this and taking the interest, but you don't have to become a record breaker. Who came up with this idea and why did you want to do that? Right. We're a really adventurous family. We're always looking for the next big adventure.

And for me, flying around the world was kind of this thing I really wanted to do. But I never really considered breaking a record or anything. It was for me, it was like, you know, it'd be cool to one day fly around the world, but I always thought it was too expensive too complicated too dangerous so I never really thought much about it and then I was finishing school and I thought actually I could do something crazy right now and make this happen fly around the world so I planned the route which basically consisted of me taking a world map grabbing a pen and kind of drawing where I wanted to go and after that it was like I think sponsorship so this whole thing has been self-funded through sponsorship and that was

that's probably the major challenge before I left after you got the marker out and just I love that yeah that was the easy part that was the fun part yeah well I mean huge congratulations of course the youngest woman to fly solo around the world. And what's the other record? Our youngest person to do it in a microlight. In a microlight. Okay, because we wanted to make sure we could picture what you were in, why you were doing it.

And a very important question is what music did you listen to? So at first I was really picky with my music. And then after spending about 100 hours in the plane, I kind of got bored of the same songs. So I downloaded this huge playlist, I think about 40 hours worth, and I would just listen to that on repeat. And that way I always had kind of a new song. What are we talking here?

What kind of music? It was pop songs between 2010 and 2019. Oh, good range. Songs that I kind of recognised. Yeah. So it was songs that I recognised kind of from, you know, back home. And so that was quite nice to have something I was familiar with. I cannot compare what we do here, you know, writing scripts,

but I always write scripts listening to music and I always listen to some of the same albums over and over again. So I was wondering if you're going around the world, how do you get a playlist that is not going to get you bored and is going to get you through it? The trick is to have a giant playlist. A giant, taking in a decade of pop music there. And I mean, the joyous moments, you know, away from the stress,

everyone always wants to be about stress, but what was just one of the more exhilarating moments, you know, where you're, I don't know, listening to the most amazing music, you've got the perfect weather conditions. What were you above or what was that moment that you can recall? Yeah, there were moments that were extremely rewarding. I think reaching Greenland, it's a beautiful, beautiful country,

but it's quite intimidating. So it's kind of, so the coast is straight into mountains. There isn't really a coast, it's mountains. And then they surround the whole island, if you will, if you can call Greenland an island. And in the middle, it's an ice cap. So it's this just flat ice. And it's at like 10,000 feet.

It's extremely high. So flying over that was, it was beautiful, but very intimidating. And then seeing the icebergs as well. There was a time when I flew over an active volcano in Iceland, so that was incredible to see kind of the lava. You could see the lava on the crater and flowing out. It was quite turbulent because of all the heat,

so I learned that the hard way. And then otherwise it was just seeing, yeah, every country was really beautiful. Latin America was amazing, although there were a few thunderstorms here and there I'd say Taiwan Taiwan has these beautiful mountains at the background and a very green city so that was incredible to see and Saudi Arabia 100% the desert is so diverse it would go from sand dunes to kind of more rocks kind of sticking out and then camels everywhere so I'd fly kind of low to try and take pictures of all the camels which is really cool

of course people listening to this and hearing you appreciate the environment may be thinking at a time when we think about how green we are uh why fly around the world why do this and I know you made efforts to to try and offset what were those I actually planted trees uh back home so I I am trying to do everything I can to minimize my impact obviously there is a negative impact I am flying a plane that uses petrol however I used a an extremely efficient aircraft compared to others. It's very quick. The fuel consumption is amazing.

And I would have loved to do it in an electric aircraft, but sadly, the technology is not quite there yet. And considering the aviation industry is going to continue to grow and continue to be this huge thing, I do believe that there should be more women involved. At the moment, only 5% of commercial pilots are women. And hopefully, as the aviation industry goes further closer believe that there should be more women involved. At the moment, only 5% of commercial pilots are women. And hopefully as the aviation industry goes further closer towards electric aircraft, you can have more female pilots as well.

And you're based in Brussels. You were talking to us from there this morning. I know you wrapped yourself in a British flag and a Belgian flag when you got home. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. So my father is English and my mother is Belgian. And I wondered, have you been having women in your country, from the UK, elsewhere? Have you had them getting in touch with you off the back of this?

I have. So that's really nice to get. Sometimes I get messages from both girls and boys saying that I've inspired them to start flying, which is really, really cool. I have also met a few girls who said they want to beat my record. So that's really fun. And your response to that is obviously bring it on said they want to beat my record. So that's really fun. And your response to that is obviously bring it on because I want to keep my record. Yeah, let's go. Let's do this. What is next for you?

So for me personally, I'm probably going to study engineering at university in September. And off she flies, Zara Rutherford. And Elaine says she's done something extraordinary. Indeed, she has. Thank you so much to her and also for you and your messages perhaps being inspired by her this morning. Now, I did say we'd bring you up to speed with regards to why the government has been also facing criticism around

what it's doing with regards to female offenders. You may recall in 2007, following the deaths of six women at Stile Prison within a year, that the government commissioned the Causton Report. And when it published, it stressed that the underlying reasons why men and women offend and their response to interventions and rehabilitation differed. Consequently, it suggested a different approach was needed to achieve equality of outcomes for women caught up in the justice system. In June 2018, the government launched its Female Offender Strategy, focusing on early intervention, community-based solutions and an aim to make custody effective

and decent. But the National Audit Office, the UK's independent public spending watchdog, has just released a report examining the success of that strategy so far and is critical of the government's efforts and success in implementing it. We did invite the relevant government minister on from the Ministry of Justice, but no one was available. I'm joined now by Kate Paradine, Chief Executive of Women in Prison, a national charity supporting women affected by the criminal justice system. Good morning. Morning, Emma. Your response then to the criticisms that the National Audit Office have levelled at the government? So the government has completely failed to implement their own strategy, which you've just outlined. And that's a result of really a failure of good government, a failure of project

management. They haven't funded the strategy. They haven't provided the funding for community-based support services like women's centres that they know and have stated are the answer. And instead, they've decided to build 500 new prison places for women at a cost of £200 million, which is an absolutely baffling decision that has been widely condemned, including by many of those working in the system. Yes, I recall last year in February,

we had a justice minister on, Lucy Fraser, talking about the building of those cells in line of saying, well, we've hired or we are hiring 20,000 more police officers. So we have to be responsible in having those prison cells available. Have they been filled? Because I'm looking at the statement from the Ministry of Justice that we got in lieu of actually having a guest. And it said, we launched the female offender strategy in 2018, steering women with the aim of steering women away from crime. And since then, the number of women entering the criminal justice system has fallen by 30%. We're investing tens of millions of pounds over the next three years into community services, like women's centres, drug rehabilitation and accommodation

supports the fewer women end up in prison. Is that right then? Fewer women are now in prison? That's largely put down to the results of the pandemic. And it is right that fewer women are being sent to prison. But this needs to be something which is addressed in terms of why are we building new prison cells if the number of women in prison is reducing? And why has there not been a commitment and funding adequate to fund the women's centres and support services that the government itself has set in its own strategy and according to its own evidence of what actually reduces crime and enables women to address the root causes that are bringing them into prison? The vast majority of women in prison are there for non-violent offences

like theft, often shoplifting, or on remand, a waiting sentence. And the government itself has said the vast majority don't need to be there, which is why it published its strategy in 2018. So it is completely baffling that £200 million of public money is being squandered, increasing the scope of prisons to hold women when that should not be needed. As for police officers what will the police officers be doing that they will be arresting more women? We were understood that this was to prevent crime and to address things like violence against women which most women in prison have experienced

domestic abuse or abuse in childhood before they reach prison. And it's actually crimes against them that need to be addressed, not putting more women in prison. So the number of women's gone down as the number of cells has gone up. The number of cells being built, we don't know if they're fully complete yet, but that's still the plan. That's right. And there is still time to stop that plan and to redirect that commitment of 200 million pounds of public money into support services that the government itself know work. And what would you say to those listening who perhaps quite reasonably would say, well, the last two years have been a write-off because of the pandemic. Or was this not being done before the pandemic in terms of the building of these centres, following their own recommendations?

This announcement was made completely unexpectedly last January in 2021. The advisory board that was advising the government on the implementation of its strategy was told about the plan and the day it was announced to the press. So the government isn't taking the advice of experts, it's not following its own plan and the National Audit Office published its report last week that confirmed that this is not what should be happening. Good government isn't being demonstrated here. I'm sorry, what shouldn't be happening? The government should be implementing its own strategy and it should be following the advice of experts and have a plan to implement this strategy. And there is no evidence that that plan should include building new prison cells for women. And why do you think it's not? Do you think it is because of the fact that it's been having its attention, they've been having their attention diverted elsewhere?

Well, this is an example of women's needs being overlooked. Women are 4% of the prison population and they do have distinct needs. We know they're a particularly vulnerable section of the prison population in terms of domestic abuse, substance misuse, mental ill health, experience of poverty and so on. And the government hasn't paid attention to its own strategy and has overlooked the needs of this particularly vulnerable group of women. And more importantly, it's not investing in reducing crime, which this current approach isn't reducing crime

and it isn't addressing the root causes of offending. And it's that that the government needs to get its head around. Victoria Atkins is the minister responsible, and Ellie Reeves is the shadow minister. And both of these leaders are brilliant ministers to take this forward and to finally deliver an area of public policy change that you've spoken about on Women's Hour for so many years, and which we all know can be changed. We all know that this section of the criminal justice system can be transformed if the government invests, stops building new prison cells for women and has a plan to deliver. And in terms of some prison cells remaining, do you accept that there do need to be some? Well, when we look at prisons at the moment, they're not safe. In the last few months,

we've had two reports from the prison's ombudsman of two babies that have died in prison, one born in a prison toilet, one in a prison cell. Prison is not a safe place. Self-harm is rocketing. And it's that the government needs to deal with. Of course, I mean, some would say that about male prisons as well. They don't have the same issue around pregnancy, but there are a lot of concerns about prisons for both men and women. Absolutely. The prison building programme is a disgrace and it's a waste of billions of pounds of public money. But my point very briefly was, do you accept that there still needs to be a place to put women in prison at all? There are a tiny number of women who may have committed offences that would require custody. And it's the vast majority of women in prison that we need to look at.

And it's that problem that is overwhelming prison. We hope to get a minister to talk about this in more detail. Kate Paradine, thank you for your time. Chief Executive of Women in Prison, which is a national charity supporting women affected by the criminal justice system. Now, turning our attention to what's going on or not going on with regards to Ukraine, because the Foreign Office is withdrawing some staff from the British embassy in Kiev. Fears are growing that diplomacy by the Western powers may not be able to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine. There's particular concern about Germany

after the country's naval chief resigned over the weekend after controversial comments in support of Putin's position. Well, yesterday, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said he had no doubts over Germany's determination to stand up to Russia, despite its refusal to supply the country with weapons. The woman at the heart of this possible fissure in NATO's approach to the Ukraine issue is Germany's first female foreign minister, Anna-Lena Baerbock,

who's apparently trying to advance feminist foreign policy. Well, earlier I spoke to Michaela Kufner, chief political editor at Deutsche Welle, Germany's international TV channel, and I started by asking her where things stood. Germany's head of the Navy had to resign because he essentially said Crimea wouldn't be coming back. And he clearly was very much understanding of Vladimir Putin, saying that he's just simply asking for respect and probably deserves it. And this undermines Germany's position. It's completely against German policy. It throws more doubts on how firm the West stands and how resolute Germany will be in this whole brewing conflict. At the same time, the US and Britain actually are pulling out some diplomatic staff, certainly their relatives out of the region. So it's getting more and more serious with more and more pledges

that diplomacy is needed to resolve this, but no resolution in sight. Which would make arguably the role of Germany's first female foreign minister even more important here to make that point that they hope in America is the case, that they have no doubts over Germany's determination to stand up to Russia? Well, yes and no. At the same time, it's been open secret here from the Merkel era that the real benchmark foreign policy in the end, when it comes down to it, is done at the Chancery. And we're seeing that in this conflict as well. Yes, Annalena Baerbock headed to Moscow and met her Russian counterpart Lavrov there,

but she had come from very different directions when it comes to things like the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which directly connects Germany to Russia. She was adamantly against that pipeline until she came to office. The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was absolutely in favor. He still is, although he vows that everything in brackets, including the pipeline, would be on the table if Russia crosses that border into Ukraine. So there's a bit of soft touch approach and finding a common position going on between the green first female foreign minister

and the German chancellor, whose opinion, whose benchmark policy will trump hers in the end. Does he not trust her then in this respect because of those previous differences politically on this? I'm not getting that impression at all. If anything, she's proven that she's still critical of it, but that she will toe the government line. We have a government here made up of three parties. That's the first in German history and the Social Democrats lead it. The Greens are a junior partner. That's where it stands. And how has her diplomacy been received? I recognise the very top is where the decisions are going to be made. But as you say, meeting with the counterpart on the Russian side and, of course, representing Germany.

Well, that went surprisingly well. Many had felt that she might not live up to the job. Certainly her performance during the election campaign as wannabe next chancellor, she was the chancellor candidate, was seen as not really convincing. As foreign minister, this was seen as the baptism of fire going into the Russian lion's den of diplomacy. Lavrov, of course, being the longest serving foreign minister of any leading country. And he didn't torture her. That's what he did a year ago with Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief. She got a bit of questioning over media freedom because

Germany is not in favor and is certainly not supporting Russia today expanding its interests here but he left it at that and this was pretty much at eye level for her it was certainly a success. And yet at the same time I mean, you mentioned a little bit about her bid for being Chancellor. There have been doubts about whether she's cut out for the job, mother of two young children, whiffs of misogyny, some have said, or are there fair doubts about her generally? Well, she made some beginner's mistakes. Certainly. She was basically caught out dressing up her CV. There were allegations of plagiarism in a book that she published during the election campaign where many were asking the question, well, why did she have to publish a book in the first place,

leaving her open to more and more criticism. And that cost her party dearly in the polls. Some critics claim it cost them the chance of actually being the leading party of ending up in the chance. I actually disagree with that. I think they were never going to really bring home what some opinion polls saw them scoring in the midst of that campaign.

And so the price she had to pay is that she's not the vice chancellor. That would have been her prize, her natural prize for being chancellor candidate for the Greens. That's now Robert Habeck, her male counterpart. He also has the bigger, arguably more influential ministry in charge of the transformation towards a green economy. But she is now the foreign minister. And now she can prove that when she talks about feminist foreign policy, she means it and that she will translate that into something concrete here in Germany and across the world. How on earth do you do feminist foreign policy with Russia right now?

It's a difficult one. I mean, what we've been hearing out of that conversation with Lavrov, they had unsurprisingly very different views on how important women's rights are, particularly when it comes to Afghanistan. Lavrov is a tough nut to crack. I dare say that generation is a very difficult one. But what she certainly means is rights, representation and resources for women. She wants to really translate into action a two decades old UN resolution that sees, that's resolution 1325, that sees women as a part of really the solution to conflicts, that strengthening women, that's something that NGOs actually have been telling us for decades, that women are key to bringing stability into societies.

But with Russia, I dare say that will not become a point in case. Well, it would be very interesting to talk to her. Hopefully we can extend an invitation for her to come on. Women's Hour and perhaps enlighten us more about feminist foreign policy. Just finally, do you think Germany is missing Angela Merkel? Yes and no. You see, her party certainly isn't. That is completely broken away from her and just elected her biggest political inner party foe as the new leader, 66-year-old Friedrich Merz. And with Olaf Scholz, the Social Democrat Chancellor, they still have a bit of Merkel, you see. The first thing he said

is that he stands for continuity. And he is looking pretty much Merkel style, although he has a very different tone on key issues like China and transatlantic relations, for instance. Michaela Kufner there, chief political editor at Deutsche Welle, Germany's international TV channel, reflecting on the country's first female foreign minister. Thank you so much for your reflections today.

Back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. My name's Jonathan Myerson, and I wrote and directed Nuremberg, the new scripted podcast from BBC Radio 4. My father was a lawyer, and he worked with several of the British prosecutors who'd been at Nuremberg. So I grew up taking this huge trial for granted, the trial of the major Nazi war criminals. With 6 million murdered and 10 million enslaved,

how could these men not have faced justice? But it wasn't until I started researching that I discovered it very nearly didn't happen. In the end, verdicts were delivered and sentences were carried out. But was it justice or was it vengeance? Subscribe to Nuremberg on BBC Sounds and you can make up your own mind. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.