Woman's Hour - French student protests; Elizabeth Day and Sarah Solemani on TV drama The Party; could some adoptions be avoided?

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Hundreds of schools in France have closed after clashes between police and student protestors. Chloe Quesnel is a high school teacher in Nice in France. She's been watching her students take to the streets to protest over classroom conditions, lack of resources and the number of teaching staff. Chloe and Paris-based journalist Lisa Louis tell Kylie about the student protest of the last week, and what can be expected from today. The Party is a five-part ITV series based on the acclaimed novel by Elizabeth Day and adapted by award-winning writer and actor Sarah Solemani. At the centre are two men, Ben, a wealthy politician, and Martin, a political journalist, whose life has been shaped by their relationship. While the men drive the central plot of class obsession and co-dependency, the female characters serve as the moral anchors, truth-tellers, and catalysts for the story's climax. Elizabeth Day and Sarah Solemani join Kylie to discuss this tale of class, sex, shame, power, betrayal and secrets.A File on Four investigation has found that one in every 118 children in England who are under 1 years old, are subject to care proceedings - that’s a rise of over 60% in the last two decades. Experts believe that with intensive support many of the 3,000 children who are adopted each year could be cared for or remain in contact with their birth parents. BBC special correspondent Judith Moritz discusses what she's discovered, and Kylie speaks to Prof Karen Broadhurst, co-director of the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research.Artist and poet Cecilia Vicuña is regarded as one of the most important Latin American artists living today - she is often described as an eco-feminist drawing connections between the exploitation of nature and the marginalisation of women. She'll be talking about her new solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London.Presenter: Kylie Pentalow Producer: Cerys Maidment

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Listen now on BBC. The BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get to your BBC podcasts. Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Tuesday's programme. Thanks for your company this morning. Today, joining me in the studio, podcaster and writer Elizabeth Day, on how her novel The Party has been turned into a new gripping TV drama. She'll be joined by Sarah Soleimani, who adapted the book for TV. and also stars in the show.

Also, Cecilia Vikunia is one of Latin America's most internationally renowned artists, poets and feminist activists. And now her first major UK exhibition Living Threads opens in London. Her work is striking. One features unspun wool suspended from the ceiling. I'll be talking to her about her art, her life, and ancestral knowledge and tradition. Cecilia talks about making miniature text. textiles as a child and how she learned to knit from watching her mother. Well, that got us thinking, what did your mother pass on to you?

Maybe it was a craft or indeed a life skill, or it could be a personality trait. What thing did your mother teach you that you still use in your life today? Do get in touch with us. You can text the program. The number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, and you can email us through our website. or send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note, that number is 0300-100-444. Or on most smart speakers, you can say Alexa, ask BBC sounds to send a comment. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

Also coming up, 90% of adoptions in England happen without the written consent of birth parents. It's led to some calling for a national discussion about the system and why adoption numbers are persistently high. finding out more. But first, we're starting today's program in France, where protests by pupils about conditions in schools have been ramping up all week. Today, demonstrations are expected to be the largest so far. Students are demanding more investment in their education, and it's reported up to 40,000 protesters could join a nationwide day of action, following a week which has already seen students blockading hundreds of schools around the country. Yesterday, up to five

500 French schools were fully or partially closed after clashes between protesters and police. More than 5,000 people have been arrested so far and at least 190 students have been injured. Well, in a moment, we're here from Chloe Kessnell, a secondary school teacher in Nice. But first, I'm joined by journalist Lisa Louie, who is in Paris. So Lisa, can you start by telling us what's happening today? Just set the scene for us about where you are and what's happening. Yes, absolutely. I'm in front of a secondary school called Lise Auguste Noir in Annier.

That's a suburb just north of Paris. And here early in the morning, students have gathered, pupils have gathered to not completely block the school, but partially block it. And to later on join the demonstration. I was just speaking with some of them and they were telling me it's really important that we go to the barricades at our school. here in this suburb, you can hear them cheer in the background, there is, there are a number of problems, for example, they have sometimes no electricity, there's a lack of teachers, and also the buildings really badly quit for heat waves. You might remember that this summer was particularly hot here in France, several heatways, and they were just sweating away. A teacher here told me also that

there were classes with up to 35 students, pupils, so it's really difficult to teach them under good conditions and that's what they're demonstrating against. Okay, so why and how did these, when did these protests start? And what was the catalyst to them? Well, they started about two weeks ago in an adjacent suburb of Paris, Senzani, that's the poorest department in Mainland, France. And a few students, pupils took to the barricades because they were just complaining about the conditions at their schools.

there were pictures online that you might have seen of the ceiling coming down, water dripping to the floor. There were rats in the school and they're saying this can't go on like this. Sometimes there waits a whole month or even up to a year for a replacement teacher. And these students, these people were saying, you need to invest more money to make sure that we can get access to the proper education, become educated adults. Chloe, can I bring you in here? So you are a teacher at a secondary school in Nice. Your students are aged between 14 and 18. Just describe what the last week has been like for you.

Well, it's been worrying. It's been scary. So in my school, protests started last Tuesday. And so students started blockading the school. And it got messy pretty fast. So they barricaded the school using trash beans. they used barriers, anything they could find, actually. There was also a few bikes that were burnt as well.

It was city bikes, obviously, not bikes that belong to Veeble. So, yeah, they started on Tuesday, and the police came right away, right from the start, and it became messy pretty fast because what students were, afraid police were dressed with shields and spraying tear gas and charging the students as well. So people were chanting, people were singing, sorry, and people were raising their signs. But it was scary. It was worrying. I was, yeah, I spent my entire week worried about my students, worried that they might get hurt. What was that like for you? Because we see the pictures on the news here, but how does it feel for you watching your students go out to progress?

test? It's empowering. It's, it gives hope because we had students protest when I was a student as well, but they weren't as big. And to see that everyone is joining forces, it gives us hope that maybe something is going to change, that maybe they will be listened to. But at the same time, it feels awful that we have, that they're on the front lines. And that, uh, the, uh, the, the most dangerous thing is the police that might hurt them. And instead of just listening to them or protecting them. We'll hear the response from the police in a moment when we speak to Lisa again. Obviously, you know, the police need to prioritise public safety.

Are you afraid for the safety of your students? Oh, yes, I am. I am. On Wednesday, I just, I leave close to my school. So I left my home and I saw some of the students running. I asked them if they were hurt. And they were like, yeah, we were beaten, but we're fine. And so I ran up to the school and I gave some sort of medical supplies, anything I could find to make sure that they could, if they were hurt, they could at least do something about it.

What is it like for you being a teacher in a school in France? it's it's rewarding i think that the being a teacher is rewarding in itself but it's i've been teaching in france and in french guiana and i from personal experience i can say that public schools are difficult to to teach in because of the because of the atmosphere because of the way students are treated because of the buildings that we are supposed to teach in so um it feels it's difficult to have just one opinion. I'm really glad I'm a teacher. At the same time, I sometimes feel very powerless.

I'll come back to you in a moment if I can, Chloe, but I just want to speak to Lisa. So we heard Chloe there, Lisa, talking about the violence. As we said, more than 5,000 people arrested, most of them under 18. So what have the government or police said about this level of violence? The police are saying that they're just responding, to violent clashes by the demonstrators.

And they also say that there are people who are not pupils who joined the protests and supposedly left-wing radicals or anarchists who just want to create scenes of chaos. Mind you, I've been speaking with some of the students here. There are also two people at this secondary school where I'm right now that have been arrested. And they were saying that the police started the clashes. It's really two sides.

two versions of the same story. It's very difficult to see what happened in different places across France, but they're two opposing ways of seeing events. And what's been the response from the government? The government has been saying that obviously the pupils have the right to protest, but protest peacefully. And they were saying that there were other people, as I said, from from different parts of France who are not necessarily pupils. They were talking who joined the protest. They were talking about what they call urban violence. There is obviously the risk and the fear that this might turn into a wider conflict,

a wider demonstration and movement with possibly other people from destitute parts of France joining the protests. And this could lead to more clashes in the future. We heard on Sunday from Sebastian Lekwarni, the Prime Minister shared a lengthy statement on social media saying that a series of measures to address the difficulties faced by secondary school, students and educational staff promising visible changes in schools. He also said, however, will make no concessions to violence. We stand by students and staff who have been assaulted as well as police officers

and gendarmes who have been injured. So Lisa, of course, France has a long history, doesn't it, of student protests. I wonder how much support there is, generally in the public, for this. these protests? Yes, there are regularly student movements and pupils movements that are taking place

in France. When you look at the support site, actually there's a recent poll that came out about a week ago saying that two-thirds of the French support the demands by the pupils.

And obviously also teachers, I've been speaking with, as saying we fully support the students that take to the barricades because they see the concrete conditions in their secondary schools, but also out of solidarity for other pupils across the country. And also because they just don't see a future for themselves.

They're desperate with the current state of the world, with a war taking place in Europe with climate change. That is likely going to accelerate in the near future. And they also say that they're hardly any job perspectives for them. That's also the underlying problem. and it just erupted in this movement against very concrete problems in schools across France. Chloe, today is being called a nationwide day of action, and I understand that you'll be joining the protests.

What do you think is the feeling amongst teachers for these protests? Well, for most of us, at least the people and the colleagues who are going to protest with me this afternoon, we are all outraged, outraged by the students. situation outraged by the way the government is trying to stifle the students' protests. We've started online classes in my school, which is for me a means to stifle students' rights to protest and to do something about it. So I think we're angry. I think we're worried, but I think we're determined to change things and to support our students. Do you have any reservations about going out to protest, having seen what could happen?

Oh, I'm scared. I'm scared as hell. Like, I'm really, really scared. But I'm more scared for my students than I am for myself. I can't let them be in front-line and not do anything about it. We can't just speak. We have to act as well as teachers. And I think the government, instead of speaking, should act as well, instead of diverting the attention, obviously.

So I think it's our role to help our students and to give them better conditions. to make sure that they've got a future. Thank you so much for speaking to us. That's Chloe Kessnaa there, who is a teacher in Nice, and also to journalist Lisa Louis, who is in Paris there. Now, I've been asking for your comments about things that your mother has passed down to you. We asked about whether it was a skill or maybe a personality trait.

It's because we're speaking to artists, Cecilia Vikuna, a little later in the program about her work. She features an awful lot of knots from wool in her artwork that she says that she saw as a child and was passed down from her mother. She learned knitting and so on. So this one here says, my mum taught me the skill of cupboard cooking, how to make a meal out of what looks like very little. I've since taught it to my younger sister. This is lovely. My mother bequeathed me with a sense of the ridiculous, a love.

of a play on words and to keep going no matter what that's from Alison. Thank you so much for your comments. I'll read some more out because we have lots of them. 84844 is one way to get in touch with us. Next, what happens when a friendship built on a dark secret finally starts to unravel? The Party is a new ITV series based on the 2017 novel by Elizabeth Day and has been adapted by award-winning actor and writer Sarah Soleimani. Well, it stars Luke Evans as Martin Gilmore, a journalist who's shaped by his lifelong friendship with Ben, a wealthy politician.

The story unfolds over the course of Ben's 40th birthday party where a shocking incident occurs. While the men drive the central pot of class and obsession and codependency, the female characters serve as the moral anchors, the truth tellers and catalysts for the story's climax. Well, I'm delighted to say that Elizabeth Day and Sarah Soltz, Olamani, join me now in the studio. Thanks so much for coming in. Thanks for having us. Elizabeth, can I start with you? What was your inspiration for writing the party? I think my inspiration was twofold. I was going through a tricky time in my personal life when I started writing it in 2015. And I actually ditched a novel that I'd been writing, which I was finding quite sort of depressing and worthy.

And I said to myself, what do I want to write about? I want to write about something fun and glamorous. and one of my favourite genres is rich people behaving badly. So I started writing about a rich person's party. And then this voice of Martin Gilmore came to me as he was arriving at the party. And he was an outsider and an observer. And then I thought, oh, why is he an outsider and an observer? And that led me into exploring the British class system.

It was a vastly different political backdrop when I was writing it. But it was still a time when certain kinds of men with a certain type of education was still being elected prime minister. And so those things fed into the development of the book. What was it like writing from the male perspective? It was really liberating. And it's a great question, actually,

because when you're writing from a perspective that is not your gender, your imagination is given free reign. And of course, I want to make it convincing. But ultimately, that is really freeing because as a woman, I'm constantly aware as a writer that I want to do justice to the female experience in my characters. And I strive to do that.

And of course, that's only ever an aspiration because women are multifaceted and different and there's no big generalisation we can reach for. But with men, I suppose, I had less conditioning. And so it was actually really freeing and I enjoyed it. Did you kind of seek any help? Did you ask, I don't know, you know, friends, or family members for help on what a man would do in a certain situation?

I didn't actually, and I do think of men just as humans. So I think ultimately we're probably quite similar in all the most meaningful ways. But I don't want to shock Women's Hour listeners, but I did write a sex scene and I wrote from the perspective of the man. And I was a bit worried about that because obviously that's something I haven't experienced. And I had a very early male reader and he said, I don't know how you got that so accurate, but you really did. And I was like, tick.

Hooray. There's a skill. There have, of course, been criticisms in the past and jokes and memes about men writing women. So were you kind of conscious that you wanted to get it right? Definitely. And Martin Gilmore is a specific kind of man. And he's extremely nuanced. And Martin and I wrote in the first person in the book.

And I think Sarah's adaptations are such a brilliant job of this multi- layered nature of Martin. He's not a straightforward man. And so in a way, I wanted to honour his experience of life rather than thinking, is this a convincing man? It was more that direction. Well, let's bring Sarah in. Sarah, what made you want to adapt the party for television?

Well, I was sent the book, and immediately the British class system appealed to me. I've been living outside the UK for nearly 10 years. And it was something whenever I visited that really just astounded me. James Baldwin says that you can see better from a distance. And every time I came back, I was like, this is such a particular British hereditary hierarchical power system. And we're very good at satirizing it and joking about it.

but as Elizabeth said, it's still a power system that controls how we're governed. And I'd been trying to get a class show on the air and it'd been very difficult. People viewed class as almost a genre in itself. Are you making something like downtown Abbey? Are you making a Ken Loach drama? What are you making? And I wanted to do a character that was passing through class boundaries. So when I read the book, it's very instinctive when you read something.

Immediately I could see how I could expand the storylines and how I could tell quite an internal story about a man who realizes he's being exploited, he's being manipulated. In a way, the show became a metaphor for a world order that is falling away, falling apart. And a man realizes that there's a contradiction. in this world order and he wants to break free of it. But in order to break free of it, his whole life has to be dismantled. And we witness him over the five hours of the show.

We witness his life falling apart. The whole show is set at a party. And he realizes he can't live a lie anymore. He can't pretend to be something he's not. And by the end of the show, you realize that with great personal loss and great tragedy, he ultimately has his own liberation. It is a gripping watch. I've been lucky enough to see three so far.

And I'm very much excited to see the final two because it holds your attention because little bits of information drip through each episode. And I should say as well as writing the adaptation, you play Lucy Martin's pregnant wife. We can hear a clip now of Lucy and Martin arriving at their B&B, which has been booked for.

them before this extravagant party. Don't you think it's strange they didn't offer to put us up? I mean, it's not like they're short of rooms. It's his birthday, you're the kid's godfather. Makes no sense. Do you think they're saving them for their more fancy friends? I think this is the eighth time you've asked me this. I think you should just let it go.

So that's just before they head to the party. So Sarah, would you say that the female characters in the show like Lucy are under-mes. underestimated by the powerful men? Yeah, so the show looks at a conservative leadership race and I was really interested in sort of the women behind the men. I think they often have as much influence and power as the men themselves and I wanted to give them really complicated storylines. I wanted to make them rich and interesting and funny.

and there was one scene that I wrote between the wives that was about seven minutes long so in TV world that's epic and when I wrote it I thought there's no way that this is going to make it to screen but the auditions, the audition tapes from Sally Scott, Lydia Leonard, Shannan Matthews who are in the show

they were so fantastic that we ended up keeping the scene and the only way I can describe it is sort of jekylls kind of circling their prey. It's a very primal animal look at female power and power plays. So I'm happy to say that that made it to the screen. Yeah, it's very manipulative. It's a very interesting scene. Elizabeth, were you very involved in the adaptation process?

And I wonder what that was like for you in kind of passing on this work that I'm guessing you're very proud of and putting it into someone else's hands. I made a decision very early on that if I were to be lucky enough to get any of my books adapted for TV, I would be so happy to hand it over because for me, TV is a different art form

and to be lucky enough to have my book adapted by Sarah Solomon. I was completely thrilled to see what she did with it. I consider it a different creative iteration. And yes, so many of the themes and characters are based on what I wrote. But I'm also very realistic that five hours of TV is different from writing a novel. When I write a novel, I get to write seven minutes scenes all the time, Sarah. And I get to write internal monologue, whereas on TV, the dialogue has to do so much of that work. And I really respect and admire screenwriters, particularly Sarah.

And so I was honestly just thrilled to hand it over. And in terms of my involvement, world productions were so wonderful at involving me in casting decisions and they would send me scripts. But genuinely, and I'm not lying, it used to really annoy me when I interviewed stars at Junkets who were like, I just absolutely loved working with so and so. But it was a really joyful experience for me. And most of my feedback was, this is amazing, carry on. The one thing that I demanded as executive producer was that I got to be a supporting artist. So I am in a couple of the party scenes, which was extremely exciting. By supporting artists, many people listening will know that as an extra.

Yes. I was taught that that's actually what we call them. Okay, so tell me about what you, what role you took then and what you did. So I was one of the party guests, and my friend Kieran and I went down, one quite drizzly day to Dragon Studios outside Cardiff. And I got to dance to no music, which is a deeply cringed thing to do. And then Vivian Anderrigan, the brilliant. director said, oh, can we just try something new? Elizabeth, can you stand in front of the camera

and beckon the camera in? Because it's Ben Fitzmorest's point of view. I was like, absolutely no problem. And then she shouted action. And I totally forgot how a human being beckon, how does one beckon? Is it a cup hand? It was so nerve-wracking. But I did beckon and I thought, well, that I've really ruined that and that will end up on the cutting room floor. Anyway, blow me down. I then, months later, get sent the first episode. And I'm in the opening montage, beckoning the viewer into this new iteration of a story that I started writing over 10 years ago. So it was a really beautiful moment. It must have felt very surreal to be part of something that basically came from your head. So surreal. I mean, I imagine it's a bit like taking hallucinogenic

drugs because that was something that existed. You'll write, Kylie, as a figment of my imagination and to walk into this set and to be humbled by the talent on show. And the acting is exquisite in this show. But beyond that, all of the cast and crew was so brilliant at their jobs and such great people. It was a really happy set, wasn't it, Sarah? Yeah, it was a very, both Luke and I really mattered to us that everyone had a really good experience. We didn't feel that you had to sort of suffer and be uncomfortable to make good work. We can take the work seriously and not take ourselves seriously. And you also had a very strong female team.

You are both exec producers, a series directed by a woman. To both of you, Sarah first, is it good to have that? In what is, let's face it, still a male-dominated industry? Yeah, I mean, I get asked all the time, you know, how comes there are so few women directors. And I directed my first short film last year, Mashad, about my grandma living as a secret Jew in Iran. And when I directed myself, I realized actually the question is not why are there so few, but how are there any, how are there any women making films to externalize the internal workings of your mind to ask for millions and millions of pounds to close down roads and to hire 300 plus people? We aren't conditioned for that kind of confidence with our creative. of capacity.

And so to find Vivian, who was an incredible filmmaker, she had a young child, she lived in Berlin, to come over to Wales, to direct five hours, was really one of the most incredible creative collaborations of my career. We both would share shot lists and clips from films that we like that were inspiration. And I think you can really see on the screen. It's not just average TV entertainment. It's got a really magical cinematic quality to it. Totally agree with all of that.

And I think it speaks so highly of Vivian that she said to me, get in front of the camera and beckon us in. And why I say that that's important is because men have been in control of our systems of power for centuries, millennia. And they've also been in control of how, how we view and consume our art. And so actually having women at the helm is incredibly important. And it shouldn't be radical, but it still is,

because it's counteracting the predominant male gaze. This is how women see things. This is how women tell their stories. And this is how women use their voice. And we are coming into, I think, a really exciting wave of cinema and TV making. I don't think the motherhood, the female experience, has really been captured in cinema in a wave of expression. We've had the odd one pop through,

but now we're seeing an incredible time for movie making. I'm very excited to be a part of it. It's wonderful to speak to you both Sarah Soleimani and Elizabeth Day. Thank you. And the party starts on Sunday at 9 o'clock on ITV1 and ITVX. Now you're listening to Women's Hour with me, Kylie Pentelow. Thank you very much for your company. I want to tell you about tomorrow's programme because we'll be celebrating a very special anniversary as Women's Hour turns 80.

Nula McGovern will be live from the Glasgow Women's Library to reflect on our eight decades of women telling their stories and sharing their lives. Now, Nula will be hearing from guests, including Scottish poet, Jackie Kaye, Professor of Law, Jane Mayer and campaigner, Fats Timbo to talk about the theme for our birthday year of Use Your Voice. So don't forget to tune in at 10 o'clock for that. I want to read a few more of your comments about what your mother has passed on to you, what you learned from her, the skills that you still use today. Michelle has message in to say,

my mother taught me to sew and make my own clothes. I've been making clothes since I was 12 and amending patterns since I was 13. I had a 30-year career in the clothing and fashion industry and I now work as a leather artisan making handbags all thanks to my mum. Wonderful to hear, Michelle, thank you. This comment here says, my mum taught me to decorate and wallpaper and supported me when I decorated the living room in my first house. When I started to paint the first wall, I rang her to say, I wasn't sure about the colour

because it looked like custard. Her response, what's wrong with custard? Do you keep getting in touch with all your thoughts on that. 84844 is the number to message or on WhatsApp where 0.3.3.3. 700, 100444. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth, and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing,

so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odu.com to book a demo. It's ODbolo.com. The Hubble Space Telescape was designed to peer deeper into the universe than ever before, unlocking some of its greatest secrets. But after launch, a devastating flaw emerged.

The significant spherical aberration appears to be present in the optics. National disaster. Hubble launched with flawed mirror. The BBC Space Podcast 13 Minutes is telling the inside story of how NASA rescued Hubble. The future of space astronomy depends on it. From the BBC World Service, 13 minutes, trouble with Hubble. Listen now on BBC.com, the BBC app or wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Now, the number of children involved in care proceedings before they reach their first birthdays

is at a worryingly and persistently high level. That's according to experts who've published new figures. The majority of adopted children enter the care system as babies. 90% of adoptions happen without the written consent of birth parents. It's led to some using the term modern day forced adoption and to calls for a national discussion about the system. We'll file on four investigators has made a programme about this, which is presented by the BBC's special correspondent Judith Moritz,

who joins us now. Judith, thanks very much for your company here on Women's Hour this morning. Can you start by telling us why you began looking into this? Yeah, hi, Kylie. Well, last year, you might remember we made a programme for File on Four Investigates, which exposed a culture of blame within the UK's adoption system. And we heard from adoptive parents who said they've been given so little support, they were forced to return their children back into care.

That program had a massive response from social workers, from birth and adoptive parents and from campaigners who said it had resonated with them. And amongst them, a proportion asked us to turn back the clock and explore what happens before adoptions take place. Specifically, what's happening with birth families and children going into the care system before the point of adoption. And the question they were asking, is adoption always the right answer? So what have you discovered? Well, we've spent the last year researching in the current state of the state of the state. the system. Now, firstly, we've looked at the number of children going into care. We spoke to experts from Lancaster and Oxford universities. They've told us that the number of babies

under the age of one involved in care proceedings in England is at a worryingly and persistently high level. In fact, I can tell you, it's risen by 64% over the last two decades. And we've been told that those figures peaked during COVID and have then plateaued ever since at a high level. Now, that's relevant because it's children under the age of one who are most likely to go on to be adopted, which is something we know from government figures. And so what we're hearing from those in the sector is there's concern that some of those babies may have been permanently separated from birth families unnecessarily. Now before we go to further, I should say that, of course, you know, for some children, adoption will always be the best chance of a stable, permanent

home. The children's charity Coram warns that if infants in care aren't adopted, they'd likely remain in care. And research shows that children brought up in the care system experience much poorer outcomes in life than those outside. And there'll always be some children for whom it's just simply too unsafe to keep them with birth parents. But we've learned that as many as 75% of cases are not as clear-cut as that. They are featuring parents who may have complex issues, difficult issues like substance abuse, but issues which are ultimately treatable. And so you're looking there at the situation that social workers find themselves dealing with. They told us they have increasing caseloads, reduced resources,

and of course, there's always very high profile, extreme cases like those of baby P and Sarah Sharif, which they will have in mind as a reminder of how the stakes can be. But they have to make assessments of babies and children based on current evidence and past evidence to look at whether there's a future risk of harm to a child. And one social worker told us, you know, there's no crystal ball, and their work every day can have lifelong implications.

You also learn that a large number of birth parents don't consent to their child being adopted. Yeah, now it's the permanent, non-reversible nature of adoption, which most, well, some anyway, birth parents object to. Corum BAAF, which is the organisation which supports professionals working in adoption and fostering, have told us that according to their figures, only 10% of birth parents sign their consent to their children being adopted. Now, that leaves 90%. Well, of those, we know that more than half oppose the adoption but are overruled by the court. And the rest are clasters unopposed.

Many of them having typically been told there's no prospect of succeeding if they challenge. And that is something which we heard being referred to by parents, by academics, by campaigners, as amounting to modern day forced adoption. I'm just going to pause for a moment when I say that to you, because of course, it's a loaded term, isn't it? Forced adoption. And you'll be thinking probably of historical. forced adoption, which we know well was what was happening until the mid-70s, young women often

coerced or misled into giving up their children for adoption, something that the Welsh, Scottish and Westminster governments have apologised for. That is not what's happening now. The care system is very different. But the terms resurfaced in this new context because of parents who say that they've had their children adopted against their will and who have fought to try to keep their babies. And I put it, by the way, to the head of adoption, England, who said she can understand why there are parents, birth parents, using that term, and that there are uncomfortable elements to adoption, which merit a debate.

So what are the reasons that sit behind this? Well, something we heard repeatedly was that even tighter local authority budgets have taken away a lot of the preventative support that's needed as an intervention to help families whose children are poised to go into care. The government's told us it recognises the need in this area. and it's investing $2.4 billion to improve support. And that is with the aim, they say, of keeping more children with birth families where it's safe to do so.

And they want to see more intensive local support projects like one that we went to visit in Salford for Phylon Four Investigates. Now, this is a project called Strengthening Families who've had remarkable success in helping birth parents, who've had previous children removed, to get to a point where subsequent children can stay with them. Let's hear first from Jude Hannam, who's a lead support worker there. People have had experiences and some quite awful experiences in the life.

However, that can lead them to be an even better parent because they don't want to parent how they were. But also that's what strength in families are there to do, really, is identify that there might be gaps and how do we help support that and how do we help evidence a parent that has made those changes. So absolutely we believe that a parent can really be a good, parent, even if they've experienced that.

We also met a mum who we're calling Lauren, who's had three children removed previously, but now, with the help of strengthening families, has her eight-month-old Kai living with her. Hey, you want to do some walking? Should we go and get that box?

You like that box, didn't you? It's a joy. It's a blessing. Every day is perfect. I didn't feel judged. I felt like people wasn't holding my past against me. They was just going to support them with the future. That was good. Yeah.

I think it's brilliant the work that they do. Just like the things that I've learned, things that you don't normally learn to be a parent, baby brain development and yeah, it's made me a better parent, definitely. It's a fish look. I didn't understand really the impacts of certain behaviours you don't understand. I do now. They've literally been there the whole step of the way. Even like he's going through weaning now and he's just started crawling every different stage of his development,

they're there and they're there if I need to ask him anything and it's helpful. That was mum, Lauren, there talking about her experience. So Judith, do you sense that anything's likely to change? One of the things that we learned while making the programme is that some mums have found themselves in court within days or even hours. of giving birth because there are hearings which are held at very short notice to determine if their children are to be taken into care. Now, we can reveal today that the judiciary are looking into changing that with new guidance, which is due to be announced before the end of the year, for family court judges in England and Wales to significantly reduce such quick hearings. The judiciary have acknowledged there will always be a need for emergency hearings to deal with high-risk cases.

But judges say they will be rigorous in refusings. to deal with cases that don't meet that criteria of urgency. Okay, Judith, thank you very much indeed. Well, we can speak to Professor Karen Broadhurst, who is in the program that Judith was talking about, but also joins us live from Lancaster University, where she's the co-director of the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research. They look at a wide range of issues around family justice,

and in particular families at the sharp end of child protection and family courts. Thanks for joining us, Karen. So we heard Judith there talk about the term forced adoption. As she was saying, that's a term that many of us associate with the previous decades where women unjustly and without consent had their babies removed for a whole host of reasons, maybe because they were unmarried or too young or both. So is this forced adoption? So thank you, Kylie, and thanks for having me.

So I think critics of the UK approach to our current adoption practices use this. term because the family courts do have the power and use their power to place the child for adoption without parents' consent. And this will result in parents losing all their parental rights and will typically have little direct contact with the child until the child's an adult. Now, professionals don't really like the notion of modern-day forced adoption, and they prefer the language of non-consensual adoption. But I think if we set these linguistic differences aside and put language aside. What professionals, critics and indeed parents are describing and are concerned about is that very few parents do agree that their child should be adopted

and their views will be overruled by the court if this is deemed in the best interest of the child. So from my lengthy engagement with parents over many years, the majority of parents in care proceedings do recognise they need help with bringing up their children. We heard from Lauren today. but they would much prefer to share care with foster carers or prefer that their children live in care or with kin for a period while they recover their lives and continue to have regular contact with their children. I mean, of course there will be a proportion of parents

whose struggle is so great that they can't do that. But parents don't want to have their parental rights completely severed and they don't want to face the painful prospect of not seeing that child again, in many cases, until the child's an adult. Why do you believe there's been a rise of over 60% in two decades of children under one being adopted? So I don't think there's a single cause. I think the cause is a multiple. But in the past two decades, we've seen much greater professional concern about developmental harm to babies

and whether that harm is reversible. And that's, of course, a very legitimate concern. So we've also seen families being under far greater pressure and obviously continue to do that to experience greater pressure now in respect to rising child poverty rates, housing, energy costs, access to services. All of these factors combined create greater levels of family breakdown. We've also witnessed a different approach to domestic abuse and children's services are now more likely to remove a child from situations of domestic abuse than they have done in the past. And obviously women face reduced options in terms of safe escape from domestic abuse relations. And then, of course, finally, the other strand in this is that there's been major reduction in funding to local authorities.

So local authorities are particularly poorer than they were prior to the introduction of austerity measures in 2010. So if we put this together, this is an incredibly difficult set of challenges for professionals and family members alike. So what are the consequences for mothers then of these very young children being removed? I mean the problem is if we remove a child, that's not the end of the story. And so the research that we've been doing for a long time at Lancaster, with our collaborators at Oxford and Swansea, is we've been looking at the proportion of women who return to court. So if we remove a baby, we know that one in four of the youngest mothers,

one in three, will return within a short space of time with another pregnancy and face another removal. So in terms of both the impact on mothers' lives but also the public purse, we need to think again, and I think many practice pioneers are about the impact of child removal. Because child removal, we know, leads to an escalation of mental health difficulties, greater social isolation, perhaps return to risky relationships, and in a sense creates the conditions for a further subsequent pregnancy. of course mental health issues and addiction issues are actually treatable issues, treatable conditions, but we have to have sufficient services to provide that.

And of course, as Judith was saying earlier, there are of course cases where the child must be removed for its own safety. Finally, if you can be brief on this, what changes do you see that need to happen to improve the situation for everyone involved? So I think that the DFE Families First program is great. I think we've got a fantastic judiciary committed to justice, but I think we need to strengthen the infrastructure of family life

in terms of adequate housing, access to mental health services. So, I mean, parents in care proceedings principally have issues of mental health, social isolation, self-esteem, and then that leads to issues with drug and alcohol addiction. We need to look at rolling out lower-cost services that are, community-based and community-led, peer support advocacy services in particular, their low-cost and those services can be led by mothers who've been on their own recovery journey, who are in an incredibly powerful position to speak to other mothers and motivate change. So not just a bureaucratic casework model, a far more community-based approach which gives

voice to parents and illustrates the power of recovery. Professor Karen Broadhurst, thank you very much and also thank you to BBC special correspondent Judith Moritz. And you can hear this episode of File on 4 Investigates Adoption, the Blame Game. It's on at 8pm this evening on Radio 4 or on BBC Sounds. And if you've been affected by anything you've heard in this item, details of organisations offering information and support on adoption and care

can be found on the BBC action line. Now, regarded as one of the most important, Latin American artist living today, Cecilia Vikunya is a poet, an artist, an activist and a filmmaker. Over the past 50 years, she has produced an extraordinary, multidisciplinary archive of work, which was seen as ahead of her time. Much of her art looks at bodily experience, fertility, blood and birth, drawing connections between the exploitation of nature, colonial violence, and the marginalisation of women. Now, in her late 70s, it's only within the past decade with a growing acceptance of the climate crisis and the re-centering of feminist and indigenous voices that her work has garnered mainstream recognition and appreciation.

Well, tomorrow, a solo exhibition of her work, Living Threads, opens at the White Chapel Gallery in East London. I'm delighted to say that Cecilia joins me in the studio now. Hello to you. Hello. Lovely to see you. and it was wonderful to see your exhibition that I got a preview of yesterday, without giving too much away. When you first enter the gallery, you're greeted by a monumental artwork, Kipu menstrual.

It's an installation of different shades of red, unspun, woollen thread, suspended from the ceiling. Now, Kipu means knots. So can you explain to our audience what a Kipu is? And why did you decide to adopt and adapt the Kipu? Kippu in Ketra means not as you just said but in the past the knot was not just a physical object but it was a metaphor

I call it a poem in space because not if you look at how it is produced it is a thread that turns around into itself so it's a sort of form of self-consciousness represented by the knot and it then twist around and pursues a different route. So it's like an image of liberation and of growth and it's like a seed sprouting and it is like the baby falling from the mother's womb.

You see, I see the kippu as the child, you know. And so I didn't decide to work in the kippu, but it was more or less the other way around. I found the Kippu represented in a book because there was no awareness of Kippu having existed. Kippu had been killed, had been erased at the end of the 16th century, but the Spaniards that were threatened because Kippu was like an alternative system of documenting information. So Kippu contained the evidence or the testimony of the ownership and responsibility for the land, for the water sources, for everything. And Kippu had been going for at least 5,000 years. So it makes it hold it and writing. But what happened to me is that when I saw a Kippu in a book, something happened to me and Kippu began to appear in my poetry, in my art of its own.

accord. You explore the female body and menstruation through your work. Why was that important to you? Because it happened. You know, I was a teenager like old girls and at the time we used pads. And you look at the pad and the pad is just like the sculpture that you just saw. It's not red. It's not brown. It has like 20 different shades of colors because it's not really blood. It is a crystal. you know, this I have learned recently. And so what is it about this beauty that it has to be erased and that it has to make you ashamed and that women speak of it as a horror to have to endure menstruation as a punishment? And I somehow saw it the opposite way. I saw this is beauty.

So I made a painting of my drive. pad and put it in my room as a test. Lots of people walked in my room saw lots of my little paintings. This I was a teenager. And look at them. Nobody remarked in it. Nobody ever recognized it. And that told me something.

There's a wonderful photograph of you in the exhibition, boarding a plane from Chile to London. You're smiling, you're full of promise and excitement. And you came to London on a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Art in September. of 1972. You must have had plenty of offers. So why London? Oh, because I saw a film, a Pasolini film.

And this film was so incredible. And it was Vanessa Redgrave, you know. And how was it called? How? In this moment, I can remember the name of this film. But in this film, what really impacted me was there was this grey light. that caused green to be radiant. And it was that scene of Vanessa Redgrave, removing her shirt.

This must have been in the Hampstead Heath, I gather. And I saw this kind of green that I had never seen. And it was that greyness and the green that made me feel that's the place I want to go. Your life changed a lot, though, didn't it, while you're in London? How do you remember your experience in the 70s? as a young Latin American woman? Well, I could learn in a few minutes that you were unwanted, that you were despised just because I was small and brown

and I looked like I was 12, not 24. And so just the way I spoke, the way I moved, the way I dressed, everything was a no-no. And somehow that instead of diminished me, empowered me to tell me that whatever we were I was coming from the Chile of Salvador Allende

so it was a Chile where a young woman was empowered you know at age 21 I believe I had a TV program that was reached the entire Chile and I had won that program

in a contest I mean it was open for screenwriters and I with a small group of friends, we presented a beautiful proposal we won. And so at age 22, I had two one-woman exhibitions at the National Museum of Fine Arts. You know, my poetry was published and translated already when I was 20 years old, not in Chile, but in Latin America. And so to come here and be seen as not valid because of your own. color and because of your culture

told me that our culture and this democratic revolution that we were experiencing was the future was beauty itself. You've been in exile since the coup

in Chile in 73. How has that shaped your imagination and your idea of home? Erased. There's no home other than your soul, your spirit and your work. That's what I learned.

I was here in London when the coup happened in Chile, and I had still three months to go before returning to Chile. So that was the last thing I had imagined that I would have to stay in Europe, you know. And I was given asylum through a trial because there was a trial. the Home Office tried to kick out all the Chilean students. There was a small group of us. But we were defended by an extraordinary group of lawyers. I don't remember exactly the name of the organization,

but it was something like Civil Libertice Union and Pro Bono. They just defended us and we want the right to remain here. You've said that you were drawing and painting. before you could even speak. I wonder where your artistic drive comes from. We were talking about things that mothers pass on to you. Yes, I think it comes in the Chinese and ancient indigenous view. It comes in the blood.

It's like the blood continues in the pencil, continues in the ink, continues in a form of love that is visible. That's basically what art and poetry. are, you know. And my mother says that I was writing and speaking to the signs before I was actually taught. And I was reading before I knew how to read because my house was full of books and I could see that my father and mother, they loved the books, so so did I. So it's like I didn't think I was going to be an artist. I just was, you know. It's so wonderful to speak to you and to hear your story.

Cecilia Vikuna. Thank you. And your solo exhibition opens tomorrow White Chapel Gallery in East London and is there until the 14th of February next year. We've been asking for your comments about things that your mother taught you. We've had so many. This one here says my mum and my grandmother actually taught me that all good things come to an end. Kind of sounds depressing, but actually it's really true. It's a really good advice for life. And it's really helpful for transitions and general. for living, all good things come to an end. Well, I'm sorry to say that this program is almost coming to an end. Just time to tell you that Newlert will be here tomorrow with a special program to celebrate Women's Hour's 80th anniversary. She'll be live from the Glasgow Women's Library to hear about the theme for this year's celebrations using your voice. Anita will also be giving us the results of a specially commissioned woman's hour poll looking at where in the lives of women they feel most and least able to use their voice. So join us live from Glasgow tomorrow. But from me, thank you very much indeed for listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

I'm Darrell Breed. And I'm Hannah Fry. And we're back with another series of curious cases, exploring a whole new set of scientific head scratches, including... Are identical twins, basically human clones? Why is yawning so contagious? What is the mathematical magic behind tessellation? And why do we find tiny baby animals so cute? We are tackling all of these vitally important questions and more in a fresh batch of curious cases. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

It's late 2007 and while attending a Christmas party, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg meets a woman who would change the course of his company forever. She joined Facebook as chief of operations in 2008 and has been credited for making the company prospers. profitable. And herself enormously rich. On Good Bad Billionaire, we're exploring the life and fortune of billionaire tech leader Cheryl Sandberg. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your podcasts.