Woman's Hour - Foster care expansion, Romola Garai, Greenland’s Gender Equality Minister

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

The government has announced that fostering rules will be relaxed to create 10,000 new places for vulnerable children in England. Roxy and her mum Judy, from the BBC’s recent Traitors series, join Nuala McGovern to discuss the changes. Roxy was fostered until the age of five before being adopted by Judy. They are also joined by Sarah Thomas, Chief Executive of The Fostering Network.Golden Globe–winning actor and film director Romola Garai discusses her latest role in the ITV drama series Betrayal. She also talks about the importance of supporting caring responsibilities within the industry and the lack of female directors.Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s Minister for Business, Mineral Resources, Energy, Justice and Gender Equality, and a member of the pro independence Inuit Ataqatigiit party, joins Nuala to discuss the challenges facing Greenlandic women.What is the online world doing to our health? Science and health journalist Deborah Cohen explores this question in her new book Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Dianne McGregor

Hello, this is Newellamogarine, and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Well, the government plans to create 10,000 new foster care places. Roxy, from the Traitors TV show, was fostered, as you might know, if you were watching. And she's going to be with us in just a couple of minutes with her mum, Judy. Also, we'll hear from Greenlands Minister for Gender Equality, who tells me that despite women there, being more highly educated than men, challenges remain. for representation.

We have the author, Deborah Cohen. Her new book is Bad Influence, how the internet hijacked our health. And I want to know, do you lean on the internet when a symptom crops up before you dial your doctor? Maybe you feel manipulated

by ads offering spurious medical advice. Or maybe online information has been so incredibly helpful. Let me know. Text the program, the name is 844-on-4-4. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour.

Or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or a voice note, the number is 0-3-700-100-400-4-44. Also, another treat. We have the actor and director, Romula Garay, who is starring in a new TV show betrayal. It delves into the secrecy and lies that can hurt a fragile marriage.

That is all coming up. But let me begin. With that announcement about fostering rules, to be relaxed, to create 10,000 to new places, for vulnerable children in England. They say young people are ending up in children's homes rather than being placed with foster families because of a critical shortage of carers.

I want to bring in Roxy, as I mentioned, you might know her and her mum, Judy, from the recent Traitors series. She was fostered until the age of five and then went on to be adopted by Judy. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Hi, morning.

We also have Sarah Thomas joining us and she's the chief executive of the Fostering Network. Good morning, Sarah. Good morning. So Roxy, tell me a little bit, and welcome, I've loved watching you. Tell me a little bit of how it was to be fostered, to be part of Judy's family. Yeah, so I think obviously experienced foster care

for the first four or five years, which was ups and downs, challenging and all great at the same time. And then coming into my mum's family and being adopted was, it's hard to put into words really because it's like a new life. It's security. It's love, as love should be. And it's the start of being able to really thrive and live a life like somebody, can I say, who has had a normal life. But define normal, as you will. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, we got snippets of your stuff. story, I think, as we watched you on The Traders. We met Judy at the beginning as well. Judy, from your point of view, what do you remember off that time? Little Roxy coming to be fostered and then eventually adopted. Obviously, when we first met Roxy, the first time I saw it, my heart just was open, just an incredible little girl. And I just thought, yes, I want a part of my family. So I decided to adopt her. And how much support did you get? I know we're going back a number of years now,

but, you know, because at the moment we're talking about what needs to change in the system. And I'd be curious through that trajectory, how you found it, Judy, and then I'll come to you, Roxy. I think back then, I don't think I got enough support back then. Obviously, when we adopted Roxy, it was sort of like you've adopted her and you were sort of on your own. Whereas now there's a lot more support. And I think if people think about adopting or fostering, you know, we are there to support them. And, you know, you don't need to have a big house. You don't need to have plenty of money.

You just need to have a big heart. And I think moving forward with the foster carers, we just need loads more. If I could just quickly add to that as well, I think in terms of support, it probably is out there, but it's probably not known about and it's not sort of, you know, promoted enough. So sometimes foster carers, they don't know the support and they can't reach it easily. So it's all about making that support. First of all, the awareness that it exists. But second of all, making sure it actually does exist as well.

Growing up, and I'm not sure exactly when you were adopted, Roxy, but being a child that was looked after, how was that? I'm just thinking, you know, going to school, being a little girl. Yeah, I think it was quite. challenging because you're in like fundamental development stages as you get into three, four, five, six. And so to be a pass around and have instability and not really know how to make friendships and form social bonds and you're not sure of who you are as a child, your own identity is lacking. I mean, there's a lot of challenges that go with that and there were struggles. But then I also think all these challenges with the right support and effort and love, they can be undone. And I've got friends that I made from when I was adopted the very first sort of year to friends now. So, you know, I had enough support and guidance and love and energy and time put into me to be able to sort of get back on sort of the straight and narrow path, if you will.

I want to bring in Sarah here. Could you talk us through some of the changes that have been announced today? Of course, yes. So the government plans are in three different parts. We've got a strategy, which is very much about the action they intend to take about rewriting the national minimum standards. So those are the standards that apply for the fostering provision. They want to improve work across regions, create more consistency. Then there's a consultation, which is around two areas that's on changes to fostering panels.

So at the moment, foster carers are assessed. And then they go to a panel, a multi-disproary panel who looks through that assessment and really vigorously ensure. is that they're the right people to be foster carers. So there's a consultation around removing that process. There's a consultation around changes to the allegations process. And then there's also a call for evidence. Okay. So lots of different areas.

Yeah. And a lot of those, you know, the average person won't be familiar what they mean. They're looking to create 10,000 foster care places, new foster care places. Let's get into what would make the biggest difference, do you think? in layman's terms of what changes? So the biggest difference that foster carers tell us is support and really practical support. You know, we're talking about fostering is 24-7. When you step forward, take a vulnerable child into your home, they will have experienced trauma,

they will have experienced all sorts of things in their younger years. And what we're looking for is foster care is to be able to give them a different type of parenting and to reparent them and help them through that trauma. So that needs support, really meaningful support. And one of the things that foster carers always tell us is that they don't have that all the time. You know, who do your phone at 10 o'clock at night? Well, not every fostering service is set up to provide support that is 24 hours. So there's talk in these strategy and in the plans around creating better support, more meaningful support for foster carers.

And also training and development and really practical things that can support foster carers. So they also spoke about a foster care register. Why would something like that matter? What's there now? What needs to happen? So at the moment, we have foster carers who foster for local authorities. And the local authority is the person who brings the child into fostering. So they search for a foster carer and they can search through their own provision. Then there are foster carers who are in the third sector.

So they might be assessed and supported by a charity or in a private fostering provider, an IFA. local authorities can't access them as easily as they can access their own provision. We don't have a national register. Why? Because the government, you know, in fairness to the Minister McAllister, he really has identified that there are real needs to transform the fostering sector. We need to bring it up into the, you know, it's 2026 and we can't have those basic requirements of finding the right placement for a child.

It is why more children are ending up in provision that is not suitable for their needs. and we know that a third of children in residential care could be in fostering families. So we need to improve the transparency of the fostering system so that we can find the right foster care for the child in the right place as soon as we need it. I think that's quite interesting that there doesn't seem to be joined up at the moment

of where specifically there are places across the country. I was struck by a figure. This was from Josh McAllister, the government's Minister for Children and Families, who said 150,000 people last year came forward to foster and expressed an interest, but we only approved 7,000 of them. Do those figures sound appropriate to you, Sarah? No, that conversion rate is really poor and there are lots of reasons for that.

One of the things that the government intend to do is to really look at what does good practice look like. How can we improve recruitment practice so that more foster carers who share an interest and show that interest actually convert into approved foster carers. Some of those things come down to giving the right advice and information and also improving consistency. What we know is that at a local level, one fostering service will say we have certain requirements, you have to be able to meet certain requirements.

Like what? Like for example, whether you work or not, this can often be seen. So whether you work alongside fostering, every single fostering service will have a different perspective on this. And what we know is that in today's age, actually working and raising children is very normal. And this is something that we need to bear in mind. There are children who maybe you could not work alongside.

And maybe they would need that full one-to-one attention. But that's not every child who needs fostering family. Let me pop back to Judy and Roxy here. Judy, were you working while you had Roxy? Yes, I was actually. Yes, I was. Yeah, I'm just curious for your thoughts on that. It's interesting that it might be something that precludes something. from fostering in certain areas?

Yes, I was working. I was working part-time, so I could obviously work and look after the children at the same time. So, yeah, I can't see why not people can still work alongside a child, but obviously you've just got to get the balance right. Yeah. I want to come back to you again, Sarah. Sorry, Roxy, forgive me.

Sorry, yeah, really quickly. I was just going to say as well, if you're a parent, do you know what I mean? You might work and bring up your child as a parent. So why is it any different to doing that with a foster child? Exactly. Right. And it kind of, I suppose, would obviously open the door to so many more people if, in fact, they were able to.

You mentioned something else there, Sarah, as well. Allegations is one aspect that they're going to explore. Can you explain what allegations there might be and the context around it and why it's important to perhaps change that system? So when you become an approved foster carer, you become somebody what is known as a person in position of trust. So it means we've trusted you in the care of children, same as teachers, nurses, lots of people that work with children are considered people in positions of trust. When a child or a family member or somebody says that maybe a foster care has acted in a way that was not appropriate, we have to make sure that we are dealing with that appropriately. And what the government are looking to do is to make sure that it's proportionate to the environment.

information. Right now, we know that too often the information that is shared is taken down the route of an allegation, so named as an allegation against a foster carer, which means introducing safeguarding procedures, which sometimes means removing children, more often means removing those children. And very often children would say they did not want to be removed, they just wanted things to change. And what sort of allegation, just to give us an idea? I know they can be the range, but if you're talking about something where a child did not want to be removed, what might it be?

Yeah, so, you know, we've done a piece of work on this and created what's called an allegations toolkit to support practitioners. One of the examples that a young person gave is that they were living with a fostering family and another child in that fostering family, their parents made an allegation that the foster carers were harming them,

were physically harming them. Now, that was investigated. It was deemed to not be the case. That was unfounded. but all those children had been removed in that timescale rather than thinking about what can we do, can we move somebody in to support the fostering family, can we make other assessments of this risk?

Is there really a risk? And this is what needs to get back to make sure that the decisions are proportionate. And it's a very, of course, important and tricky decisions that people are making, but it does raise some of the issues that we find when we talk about fostering. I do want to say that the Minister for Children and Families

that Josh McAllister has said that 88 million pounds will help overhaul the fostering system at a time of critical shortage. I want to go back to Roxy and Judy. Roxy, you first. Any advice you'd give to somebody who may be listening and considering fostering? Yeah, I would say it's so rewarding and it's so fundamentally life-changing. If you have the thought process, explore it. If you think that there might be challenges, consider those challenges.

but equally consider the rewards and the change that you're making. And I think it always outweighs those challenges. And remember, challenges come with any parenting. It's nothing out of the ordinary to have challenges in any form of parenting. So I would say do go for it because it's so necessary and an example of how it can change a child's life. Judy. And I echo that.

And I just think that, you know, you just need to open your art and get yourself out there because there is so many children that need the support and, you know, they will, their support ongoing. So please, please, you know, up your art and be a foster carer. Judy and Roxy, Traitors' fans, will know them well.

Thanks very much for coming on Women's Hour this morning and also to Sarah Thomas, chief executive off the fostering network. The actor and film director, Romola Garay, is known for her extensive work on stage and screen, spanning everything from critically acclaimed period dramas, Vanity Fair, Atonement, Emma, Suffragette, more recent roles, News Night editor in Scoop,

a squadron leader in the second series of the BBC's popular drama series, Vigil, and she won a Golden Globe for her role as Belle Rowley in The Hour. Last year, achieved the rare feat of competing against herself at the Olivier Awards, nominated twice for Best Actress in a Supporting Roald for the years and giant. ultimately winning for the years. I saw her in that. I was very much hoping that that would be the one that we give her the gun. And she is back on our screens tonight in a new ITV drama series, Betrayal.

She plays Claire, a mother of two. She's a GP. She's married to John. He's a working class MI5 agent. So there has been betrayal and trust issues. Welcome back to Women's Hour. Thanks so much for having me. So I got to watch betrayal last night.

Watch a few of them before going to bed, went to bed a bit jittery. Yeah, probably not ideal for your calm hour before bed. But I did enjoy it. Tell us a little bit about Claire and her life. So yeah, Claire is married to a man, John, who has signed the Official Secrets Act. So they have had a very happy, successful marriage. They have kids together. They're kind of a normal couple in some ways.

but there is one very different thing about their marriage which is that he can't tell her anything about what he does at work and I think that that has basically started to corrode the trust between them and when we meet them at the beginning of the show they've gone into couples therapy to try and work on their marriage but her opening gambit is pretty much I think maybe the marriage is over so it's a really dramatic place in their life as a couple And, you know, although Manny won't be married to somebody who has signed the official secrets,

I think there's a lot in it that would be relatable. Couples in therapy, couples having a completely different opinion of how the marriage is doing. And also, when trust has been broken, for whatever reason, how difficult it can be to regain it. Yeah, and I think that the title betrayal opens up a kind of conversation, which applies to his work and solving an espionage crisis in the UK where there's a national security issue that he has to solve. But also what happens when a marriage becomes full of lies and they start off for small lies and they become bigger lies

and you maybe get to a place where you think there's nothing true here at all. And I think that those scenes, the scenes that Sean and I had where they're in marriage counselling and also when you see, the effect of that counselling afterwards were really fun and interesting to play and you really get into the kind of nitty-gritty difficulty of trying to sort of yoke your life to one other person for the whole of your life.

It was really fun and interesting subject matter. And also, I suppose, that backdrop because we do live in times where the terror alert, for example, can be heightened or lowered. What was that like? Well, it was really fantastic to have, input from people who work in the security services and to get to meet someone who was the part, actually he was a guy, but his wife worked in the security services. And I think that basically

when one person signs the official secrets act, they kind of both do because, you know, they both are like in service to national security. You know, one person is maybe at home like taking their kids to their school and making pack lunches and the other person is dealing with. like terror threats and I was really shocked by the number of threats that that have to come in and that have to be dealt with and I was really impressed by those people and by their families who kind of spend their entire time dealing with that. Which are sometimes perhaps forgotten. Yeah. I think it's very easy because of our, I mean, well, our show makes some kind of lighthearted kind of jokes about bond and everyone thinks they'd want to be married to bond. But the hard reality

is all of the people who do these like really difficult and dangerous jobs have families. Parents, young children, their kids don't know where they work or what they do. And I think that the sort of complexity of that is in some ways more interesting than a figure like Bond, who's a man who doesn't have any kind of caring responsibility. It feels like, you know, actually there's a real potential for more drama when you look at the sort of way that a person like that is life is interwoven with lots of other relationships. Yeah, which actually did strike me when he's pushing a pram at one point in a park. But thinking of a bond with caring responsibilities, that's a whole other drama that could be created. Claire also has is struggling as we, to raise these two children with a husband who is often not there. And you have been vocal about the difficulties of balancing a career in the arts, for example, with motherhood. I know you very much have an organisation that's trying to rectify that. How's it going? I think that there is a lot more conversation and it is a lot easier to go into negotiations with your employers about your caring responsibilities. You know, I did quite a long job last year, which was away from home.

And I was able to open a conversation about how that would affect my family life. That was on the table. Ten years ago and for the hundred years before that, that conversation was not on the table at all. And I think people would have felt and did feel very strong. that you have no, you should not ever have any caring responsibilities if you're working in entertainment. And definitely don't let people know about it. Yeah. And if you do, you shouldn't let anyone know about it. And that you're sort of there by their grace. And there's no, it wasn't really a reciprocal kind of employer-employee relationship. And I do think that that

has started to change. What do you think changed it or what? I think people were started to complain about it in a very vocal way. And also I think that there were more people who came through the system who, I mean, some people get quite kind of ossified by it and like, well, I went through hell so you should have to. But there were other people that I worked with who understood that it can be really hell trying to raise young kids and work full time, particularly in kind of peripatetic industries without like a lot of boundaries in them. And so, yeah, I have encountered more people who have tried to make kind of active changes. Like there was a recent initiative in the theatre side where people were trying to get people to sign up to a

scheme where you could talk about menopause, menstruation and child loss, like before you begin the project so that people understood where you were at in your life with those issues. So interesting. I just couldn't believe that that was happening, looking back on kind of 10 years of doing plays where like the idea that someone would be asking you about those issues at work was, It's unthinkable. So that is one aspect. And all those things that you've mentioned

often happen at a particular time period in your life, your reproductive years or menopause, you know. And I read a quote in a recent interview with you that said, male sexual desire still drives so much of what we consider to be marketable. And I think a lot of people, in some parts of the industry,

find women over 40 repellent. They just wish we'd all die. I didn't sort of I never sort of sugar coat it So when people read it back to you think that does sound maybe a bit more punchy than I put into it to

But I think I think it brings up really interesting points and let's get into it And even if it said slightly tongue and cheek that we all die We get your point

Yeah I do think that We still as a Society in this country do place a tremendous value on what we consider beauty is and that we equate beauty a lot with youth. And then because women do sometimes get farmed out of the industry as they get older, it makes you question the whole system. Like, was I only ever there just for window dressing?

Was I only ever there to just look a certain way? And it does sort of make you start to distrust the kind of relationships that you have with your, with your, job because just at the point where you sort of start to get really good at it, sometimes those roles can sort of start to disappear or become more supporting. And I do think that there's a real, there is still a massive problem with the kind of power balance that exists particularly behind the camera. I mean, there are still so few female directors that it gets to a stage where you start to think, is this because people just do not want women?

to do this job. I mean, that is a literal male gaze. Yeah. And there's not, I mean, although people talk about this a lot and it has been in the media a lot, and I can imagine people kind of rolling their eyes and going, oh, we're still talking about this. But the actual change in the industry has been quite minimal. And in the last couple of years, particularly on the film side, the number of film

directors has gone backwards. Like, it sort of peaked a little bit and then it went back the other way. So you're still dealing with a dynamic where there's like women in front of the camera. maybe potentially there to just be something to look at. And that feels like quite complicated and not entirely fulfilling dynamic for actors, I think. You remind me of Claire, actually, when her GP credentials were being questioned

even in reference to her looks by her husband when she's made partner, which actually, I think, echoes some of what you're saying there. And you're also reminding me of Amy Schumer, and I won't say the exact title of this comedy sketch she does. Oh, yes, I know the one you're thinking of, yeah. She's got four women, who is it? Julia Lewis, Dreyfus, Patricia Arquette, and who's my third?

Anyway, Amy Schumer, oh, Tina Faye, and she comes down and it's like your last day as a sexually attractive woman on film is just, I'll paraphrase it. But she brings up a lot of these issues, which these, you know, are also women at the top of their game. Yeah. And you talk about the UK, the UK being, you know, still centred on looks. but I would have thought maybe better than the United States? I don't know. I've not worked in America for a long time. But like as I'm sat here sort of saying that, I think, you know, there is this issue with that.

I mean, portrayal is quite a sexy role. And actually I did another job after betrayal called adultery, which is another ITV show. And that's also a very sexy role. So I sort of sometimes strange things happen as an actor where you're going along and you're like, oh, suddenly someone's decided that I'm like cheating wife. That's like my kind of. casting bracket. So I do feel like I've actually kind of had a year of playing parts where there's a sort of quite heightened sort of sexual dynamic in the relationships. And I'm 44. So I mean,

that has that has been a good thing for me. But there have been other periods of time in my career where I felt like, oh, I don't, I think that people are like, well, you're not an ingenue. So we don't really know what to do with you. Before I let you go, you are a director as well as an actor, scrubber, monstrous beauty, the other, you know, will that help? You get, you getting behind the camera and others. Yeah, I've really enjoyed writing and directing that feels like it's been a very positive change in my life. But trying to get films made at the moment in the UK is really, really challenging and difficult. But I do think that, you know, when you see great films in the cinema, that experience, I think, particularly with AI and everything will be something that people will

return to in a big way because that experience of kind of watching something you know a human's made and watching it with other people that I have real hope for that to become even more appreciated in the future. You'll have to come back to us, Romula Garay. You can see betrayal on ITV and ITVX and get ready to sit on the edge of your seat. Thank you so much for coming in. Thanks. Now, I want to return to Greenland. Last week we spoke with Tilly Martinusson, a former MP about what life is like for women who live there. It was fascinating. Naya Nathanielsen is Greenland's Minister for Business, Mineral Resources, Energy, Justice and Gender Equality. It's quite the brief.

But the Minister was unable to join us at that time. But I'm happy to say, since then, we have managed to speak to her. You will know, of course, that Donald Trump, US President, has said that the US should take control of Greenland. It's a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. and I want to give you a quick recap of some of the Greenlandic facts for context. About 80% of its surface is covered in an ice sheet. It's roughly nine times the size of the UK, but the population is just 57,000 people,

the majority who are indigenous Inuits. About 17,000 Greenlandic-born people are said to live in Denmark. Greenland operates its own parliament and government. It handles most domestic affairs. That's since 2009. Denmark instead retains control over 4,000. Foreign Affairs, Defence and Monetary Policy. Naya Nathanielsen is a member of the pro-independence, Inuit, Atakita-Gite Party,

and serves as a minister in the government. I asked her in a role as Minister for Gender Equality what the biggest challenges are that are facing Greenlandic women. We have massive problems with sexual abuse, violence in the homes and so on. So these are some of the very, I think, most alarming problems we are dealing with. then you also have the glass ceiling in a country like this with two few women in leadership roles, even though the Greenlandic woman is actually very well educated

in comparison to the average in the country. So we do face many of the similar issues that you would find in UK, you would find in France, in the US and so on. But I suppose geographically, politically, it's in a very particular environment, being autonomous but in the kingdom of Denmark. How do you see that affecting women, particularly where they are,

in kind of straddling both worlds, I guess, Danish and Greenlandic? Well, actually, that's probably not the biggest issue for Greenlandic women because I think we live in a macho culture with very traditional, I think, gender roles in Greenland. And that is more true in some regions than others, and also amongst generations, as you might also recognize in your own country. But this really affects women in Greenland. And actually, I would say the struggle we have had post-colonies, being a colony where we have fought for more equality within the Kingdom of Denmark, maybe has had that effect that the women issues have sort of taken a back seat. So we have been fighting our right to most of determination, and therefore the women's emancipation movement probably didn't have as much of a playground as it did other places.

So I think to some extent, we still have some discussions to take within our communities. I suppose about where it is on the list of priorities when it's a post-colonial society. Yeah, really interesting. I mentioned gender equality, but then I also saw as your Minister for Mining, you know, When we report on stories, we often see that women are the most affected by climate change. Greenland is on the front line of that. I'm wondering what you have seen in that respect. Well, actually, I think the climate crisis is real and is really affecting the livelihoods of Greenlanders and also women, also are men.

We are deeply affected by it. Mining is a means for us to get more self-determination in terms of economy and so on. So for us, it's a good way of developing. our society. It's a very slow-moving approach, I would say. But the fact about mining is that actually women do quite well in mining. They are often considered very good workers because they have another mindset to risk and so on. They have fewer accidents when driving the big machinery. They are more mindful of the hazards that can be. So women in mining are really sought after and they're a good workforce. So I always try to see my role as a minister of gender

equality. So how can I infuse this into all levels of community? Because gender equality is not a niche issue for itself. It goes into every part of society. And that's where it should be present. And that's why we should fight the corner and make sure that there is a balance. So yes, definitely, I do always talk about gender equality when it comes to mining. I do it also when I talk about energy development and other industrial developments. It's an issue for all sectors in society. And Greenland is a place that has reserves of rare minerals, for example, that some may not be familiar with.

We're getting to know more about Greenland, I think, perhaps these months than some would have known before. But as I stay on climate, you know, it's quite shocking to read, really, about the ice sheets that are melting, that it might even create a new shipping route in that part of the world that wasn't there previously. But, you know, there are people in Nook in the capital. There are many women living in more remote communities.

And I wonder what a change in the environment could mean for the women that are working and living there. Well, actually, I think this is one of the areas where maybe it's the men that is most affected by the climate crisis. because in Greenland, the women are the ones with the longer education. So oftentimes they will not be engaged in traditional hunting or fisheries the same way as men. But they are affected as families. Of course they are because they are so dependent on the income from that part of living. But actually women are the ones who educate themselves and therefore also have other types of jobs. And we see a movement from the more remote areas to the cities of women.

So they are more than men likely to move. to a city where they can find employment and raise families and so on. So we do have a lot of inequality within the inequality really between the sexes and between economy and lifestyles and so on. That's so interesting. So you have a more highly educated, more urban population of women than perhaps men. And what does that mean for life in Greenland? It can mean something on a more personal level because the men don't have the same level

of education. We put a lot of emphasis actually on traditional hunting and so on. So it's not that it necessarily give you more status to have a high education in Greenland. We are in new it. We value other things than money, right. But of course, it creates a difference between the men and women when there are these differences in education level as well. We have more men that are homeless and are more criminal, more likely to be criminal than women, which you also see in other countries. So there are differences within the genders that do cause tensions between the sexes on a more personal level. And it is kind of a weird thing that in this country you do have women being more educated, but they are not represented on political or decision-making rooms as much as men.

So this also is sort of, again, is a show of the structure of anti-feminism or the gender inequality. Your connection with Denmark is at times a contentious one. There were, for example, during the 60s and 70s, thousands of Inuit women and girls, some as young as 12 fitted with contraceptive devices as part of a population control program administered by Danish doctors. We did hear a little about this from the former MP Tilly Martinusson last week. There was an official inquiry. the Danish Prime Minister formally apologized, so that is very recent.

But how significant do you think that was for the women affected their families? Massive influence in our country. The birth rate dropped, which has a major effect not only on the women back then, but on the fertility rate in general and the population development over the decades. So we should have been many more than we are right now. also there is the personal hurt. I think a lot of it is just tantam out to assault of young women and girls that was not sexually active. They were just children given an IOD.

In that time, you have to mind you that it was not the same devices as today. They were quite big and hurt a lot and caused a lot of pain in the women. So without the, just the hurt alone was, I think, excessive. And then you have the shame you feel as a young girl being sexualized when you're not. So there's a lot of trauma, there's a lot of hurt, and there's a lot of really concrete negative effects on society, not only back then, but also dating up to the day. And for us, this is not ancient history, right? This is lived history. We have women today that are affected that didn't get the children they wanted or whose sisters or daughters or mothers were affected.

So it has a profound impact on our culture and societies. And recent history, as I mentioned, the official inquiry, the apology from Denmark. The Danish Parliament also agreed last year to establish a reconciliation fund. I'm wondering how far that has gone. Well, they just announced the criteria as I understand it, and it's possible to soon will be possible to seek through that, which I think is about time and I think it's only fitting. But as many women have said, we are really pleased about the apology.

It's only fitting there is a compensation made available. It doesn't take away the trauma and the hurt. But it makes it easier to be seen and acknowledge from the perpetrators what they did, what they inflicted on you. So this also has a lot of psychological effects more than just economical and legal. And coming back to Greenland and Denmark, There was a quote I saw from the Danish Centre for Social Research and this said that Greenlandic parents in Denmark

are 5.6 times more likely to have their children taken into care rather than Danish parents. There were also parental competency tests that were used to assess Greenlandic parents' fitness to be a parent. Can you explain that whole concept to us? because I think a lot of people will be hearing about it for the first time. Yes, and really it's not my area of competence because it's done in Denmark. But I think there is no doubt that there is as shown in sort of biases against Greenlanders in Denmark.

This has been showed in different surveys and analysis also before this, that shows that there might be this idea that Greenlanders are less capable of taking care of children or managing their own daily lives. And this, I think, bias is also shown. in the administrative case management of everyday life. And you see that in the, I think, disproportionate removal of Greenlandic children from their parents in Denmark. This, I think, really just goes to show the structure of a former colony, the post-colonial structures that are really still there and making effects of people's lives today. And I think there was a survey a couple years ago that also showed that it was.

racism towards Greenlanders. And this, of course, happens in a country that has a difficult time acknowledging that they do have biases and racist thoughts because it doesn't align with their own understanding of themselves. So it's really difficult to discuss even. I speak Danish because my mother was Danish, but Danish is not our mother tongue. So we speak it like you would, for instance, speak German, I guess. We don't speak it perfectly.

And I think to somebody in Denmark, this sometimes. times is equivalent to us being less bright or not understanding, but it's just us trying to make ourselves understood on a third language. So there's a lot of, I think, misunderstandings that play. And there are some Danes that think that we are just like Denmark, which we are not. So some of the tests being administered is, of course, tested on population that is not at all like ours or do not have the same cultural understanding. I'm a psychologist by trade, and I, when I was practicing as a psychologist, I also had to do tests that sort of evaluated the intelligence level of the children. And you have to look at different pictures, for instance, of an umbrella.

What is this? But we don't use umbrellas in Greenland. The wind is too harsh. So you would get a minus on something that people in Greenland just don't really use. So there's a lot of small things that differentiate us. And I think you need to recognize those in order to really fully understand us. How illustrative. And talking about recent history, Denmark did ban the use of the parental competency test for Greenlandic families last year. But as we've spoken with some other policies that were part of Greenland,

there is some, of course, of the ramifications of those policies. I know domestic abuse is your area of expertise. What is being done to tackle it? And how would you explain why levels are high? It's a really difficult question. I would love to have the answer. I don't really see any places where you really address this in a good manner. We try to have more housing, safe housing where women can go to, but because we live so remote, it's still difficult. And there's a lot of, I think, what are you called silent culture where if you say something, you will risk your entire collective community because you have to move away in order to

become safe. So there's a lot of pressure of the women to maybe even stay silent or just live with it because the consequences of leaving is so massive and invasive in your own lives. We have a lot of programs where you go into kindergartens, actually, just from when they're very small and talk to them about conflict management, how to solve problems, how to deal with your own emotion, to do this throughout also when they go to school. And so we constantly try to teach children to really deal with feelings and frustrations in a different manner. And we do see effects of that, but we are not there yet at all. Naya Nathanielsen, Greenlands Minister for Business, Mineral Resources, Energy, Justice and Gender

Equality. Thanks very much to her. Well, after that interview, we did put some of her points to the Danish government, and they did respond in great detail. So I want to run through some of those issues. regarding the abandoned parental competency tests from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Housing. They said since the 1st of May 2025, municipalities are no longer allowed to use standardised psychological tests as part of the child protection examination when making decisions about placing a child from a Greenlandic family into an out-of-home care.

Instead, they must use a special unit possessing expertise in Greenlandic language and culture affairs unless the family does not consent to the use of that special unit. Also since then, the municipal council is obligated to request that the specialised unit review all ongoing placements where standardised psychological tests have been used and must be assumed to have been used in connection with decisions about placing a child from a Greenlandic family. So an update on that. Also, regarding the IUD contraceptive programme, this is from the Ministry of the Interior and Health. They say last year, on behalf of Denmark, the Danish Prime Minister,

an official apology to the women affected by forced contraception. The next step is to establish a compensation scheme that will provide individual financial compensation to the affected women. The scheme requires new legislation. That's expected to enter into force on the 1st of June of this year. And then racism towards Greenlanders living in Denmark. The Ministry of Immigration and Integration gave us this statement. They say the Danish government has taken a stand against prejudice

and discrimination against Greenlanders in Denmark. The National Action Plan to Combat Racism launched in January of 2025, and it includes 12 specific initiatives combating racism. The government has allocated a total of 35 million crooner, so over £4 million approximately, from 2025 to 2028 to combat discrimination and racism and promote the equal treatment of Greenlanders in Denmark. Thanks very much to the government for those statements,

to give us as much context as we can as we learn more. about women in Greenland. Now, what is the online world doing to our health? It's a question I put to you today. If you start to feel unwell, do you go straight to your GP or do you look up symptoms online? Maybe you go on social media

to see what people are saying. Or maybe social media finds you, maybe bombarding you with ads about exactly the medical issue that you've just been Googling. Well, my next guest thinks that the internet has brought about radical changes

to the way we view and treat our health. Deborah Cohen's book is Bad Influence, How the Internet Hijacked Our Health. She is a medically trained, a science journalist, an editor and a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Now, you open the book with an anecdote at a barbecue. Yeah. I think it illustrates what you're getting at. Can you tell

us briefly what it was? Yeah, so I was at my aunt's barbecue in Liverpool, I'm from Liverpool. And one of my friends, one of my cousins' friends came to me and said, I've just bought an AMH test online and I said well what do you do that for and she said well it'll tell me how fertile I am and I said will it and she said well that's what the influencers on Insta told me and that's what the online and the clinic said and I said fertility isn't that simple there's a lot it's more complicated and an AMH test is anti-malarial and hormone it's one of the it's released by your ovaries and it's a measure of how many eggs but that you might have and so it

does decline with age. But there's so many more indicators of how fertile or so many other things that affect your fertility. But it was being marketed as such. It was being marketed that it would tell her how fertile she was. So she went ahead and she bought it. And you said to her, what will you do depending on what the results are? Yeah. So I said, what are going to do if the results are low or the results are normal? And she just sort of looked at me and she went, well, we'll go and see my GP. And I said, well, the is not going to be able to use it. So you've just wasted 160 quid. And that just sort of made me start thinking, well, if people are turning online, these are effectively big shopping platforms. You know, they're geared for entertainment and actually driven for commerce as well. And so I just

wondered what that would do to our health. And there are so many examples that you give. But one of the things you make really clear is that so many of us are, getting the majority of our health information online, particularly younger people, and a new term for me, what you call the patient influencer on social media. What can that refer to? Or who can that refer to? So patient influences, and I want to stress here that it's not all bad. For many people with chronic illnesses who perhaps feel isolated or need people to speak to, social media provides a community. And I quote Lizzo Rieden, who is a, the breast surgeon.

She's been on women's era many times. Wonderful, the wonderful Liz. And she describes it how she found a community of care when she went, when she had breast cancer. So I don't want to totally denigrate social media at all. But patient influences, they develop what's called parasocial relationships. So you feel like you know them. They develop trust.

They build up trust. They, you know, you see them at the most vulnerable. They talk about their symptoms. So you feel like you know them like a friend. And they cultivate that relationship. They might put comments underneath. They will refer to you. They'll answer you.

They might DM you. And so you build up what seems like a relationship. And that is, might be okay. But the problem becomes is when they're using that relationship to market and to sell. And I suppose it happens over a period of time, like you're kind of connected to this person. And it can be difficult, I think, to know when somebody's selling. something. I know it's meant to have the big word ad in it, but what have you found? No, but it doesn't. So often it doesn't. I mean, there was a European Commission survey that

found the majority don't show their advertising. And the thing with health is this is shown in so many different ways. It's not just advertising. So people might be selling merch, say, for example, against symptoms. But what I found as well is that people were tweaking. their symptoms. So, for example, in ADHD, according to what would go viral. And that monetises symptoms in a different way. So if you look at social media for ADHD symptoms, say, for example, what you're seeing might be sort of incentivised by entertainment, by virality, by commercial incentives. So you see ADHD through quite a different prism. And you see that across different conditions that your health is being marketed.

You talk about the expanding pool of symptoms. And, you know, it put me in mind of when I go to the States and turn on a television, for example, you are marketed to very over the head like a sledgehammer for various symptoms. Have you had this? Have your legs felt like this? Has your throat felt like that? Something you maybe even hadn't thought about before.

But their medical system is set up in such a way that you were then told to go to your doctor and asked for this particular medication and then a very fast, maybe double speed at the end on the contrary indications that could come from this medication. And in a way, some of it reminds me of that. What's happening with our algorithms? The ADHD is interesting

because I might have looked at it for research, but then you will get bombarded immediately afterwards even if you're not somebody who is experiencing it. So I think you pick up on two really interesting points there. To address the one about the US, is we've got a direct-to-consumer advertising ban of prescription drugs. It's really only the US and New Zealand where you're allowed to advertise. But now that I wouldn't say the laws are redundant because it's the Medicines Act that prohibits it,

but it becomes a lot harder to regulate. You've got influences now talking about, let's say, weight loss drugs or hormone therapy. We've all probably, well, I've definitely been bombarded with them. And so you get bombarded, but you hover over it. Take the ADHD example. You hover over it and you'll get your algalose. Picks up there's an interest, so you'll get fed more and more and more. And what's interesting, I think, with the ADHD stuff is, is a lot of the influences use what we call the horoscope effect or the Barnum effect where the symptoms they described are so vague.

You can always pick up one or two and go, oh, my goodness me, that applies to me. And so you get more and more and more in your feed, the more you sort of hover over it. And it can stick in your mind. And actually there's a bit of evidence that seeing lots of side effects of things online can influence how you expect to feel. And some interesting work going on in Australia along those lines. Is there anything we can do to stop patient influencers social media targeting us in this way? Well, there's the recent kind of limitation on adverts, isn't there, that we can opt out of adverts. I recently was asked on Facebook and Instagram to opt out.

But it's really, really difficult. And this is one of the issues. The algorithms are incredibly sticky. And I think what I would say is before you take any advice. And it sounds really cynical. I guess I'm a journalist. I'm skeptical, I'm used to asking sort of these sorts of questions, is why should I believe you?

What are you trying to sell me? What are you? And it's keeping those things in mind. But I think why should I believe you might actually get to a crux of an issue within society that, and we've spoken about it many times in women's, that sometimes they don't feel listened to, when they have an issue, for example, or perhaps there are waiting times that are very long, to get to their GP or to a doctor's surgery. Absolutely.

And I would never, ever blame anybody for trying to empower themselves, sound about their own condition, look on social media, and find, be listened to, particularly for women's health. And I know you've talked about it lots. Women don't feel heard, women don't feel listened to. Sometimes their pain is dismissed. And absolutely, you know, people turn to find out more information about the health. And we should not blame them for that.

That is a product of the health service. A quick one, I've just driven home from a surgery night shift. Last night, I told an 80-year-old man, he had an aortic aneurism on his CT scan. I went away to fill in his note. for three minutes when I came back to see him. He had Googled it. He said he googled it. Patients do this all the time.

Another online medical diagnosis probably saved me from having to go into kidney dialysis. I was prescribed medication for high blood pressure. After a few weeks, I was very tired and listless. I went back to my GP, who said there was nothing. I started investigating online and discovered one of the known side effects is kidney damage and the symptoms of damage was tiredness and listlessness. I went back to my GP.

I told him I researched it. We agreed on investigation. Turns out my kidney function had diminished about two thirds. And within another month, I would have needed dialysis. So two sides off the coin there. But because we've just another minute or so, I want to get briefly to wearable technology. I might have one on my wrist.

They do collect, however, a huge amount of data. It could be anything from menstrual cycles to activity levels. what should people be thinking about in that respect? Well, we have a tendency to think the more things we measure, the more the better our health, you know, the more we know about our body. But not everything we measure leads to anything meaningful is meaningful in health. And if you were just certain parameters,

it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to improve your health in the short term or the long term. So one example is the continuous glucose monitors in people that don't have type 1, type 2 diabetes that use insulin. In healthy people, our bodies adjust, but there's a massive trend for wearing continuous glucose monitors. But we don't really know those dips and peaks and troughs are just normal responses to food. And we don't really know what changing that according to a glucose monitor will do for our health in the short term and long term. So before you sort of strap it on,

really, what am I measuring? Why am I measuring it? These are the questions doctors ask will moving the dial, do anything in the short or long term, will whatever I do to move that dial offer benefits and also harms because there are harms of, you know, let's say in the case of glucose monitors, changing your diet and eliminating, we've heard people eliminating bananas because they get a glucose spike.

So they're the questions you really sort of need to ask. It raises a lot of questions. It answers them too. Bad influence, how the internet hijacked our health is out now. That is Deborah Cohn, formerly of this parish, medically trained editor, science editor and journalist. Thanks very much for joining me. Thank you. Come back tomorrow. 10 a.m. You've got Anita. I'll talk to you next week.

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