Woman's Hour - Friendships, Nursery safety, Sudan

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

If you've been watching The White Lotus, you might be counting down the hours until the season three finale airs tonight. One of the themes central to this series has been female friendship, and it's left us wondering - is three a crowd? This dynamic plays out in the show between the trio of friends Jaclyn, Kate and Laurie, played by Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb and Carrie Coon, who alternate between loving and loathing one another. So can friendships between three people work? TV critic Rachael Sigee and relationships writer at the Independent Olivia Petter join Nuala McGovern.An investigation for a documentary that will air on BBC1 NorthWest tonight by the BBC's Hayley Hassell asks: How safe are our nurseries? There have been almost 20,000 reports of serious childcare incidents in nurseries in England in the past five years, some with devastating outcomes. Nurseries are highly regulated, so how did some of them mislead Ofsted about their practices?Two years ago, Sudan was thrown into disarray when its army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and a powerful paramilitary group called Rapid Support Forces, began a vicious struggle for power. The civil war, which continues to this day, has claimed more than 150,000 lives, displaced millions of people and plunged parts of the country into famine. Mass sexual violence has also been widely documented as a weapon of war. Hala al-Karib is a Sudanese activist and regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA). One of the BBC World Service’s 100 Women 2024, she gives us the latest from Sudan.Conceiving Histories: Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present is a blend of memoir and history, illustrated with over 100 original colour images. More than a decade in the making, its author, Dr Isabel Davis, talks about using frogs for pregnancy tests, phantom pregnancies and the brief fashion for looking pregnant even if you weren’t.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Kirsty Starkey

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Well, this morning, we're going to look at an increase in serious child care incidents in nurseries in England over the past five years. The latest figures for serious incidents in the year 2023 to 2024 are 40% higher than the previous five years. We're going to be speaking to the BBC's Hayley Hassel who has carried out this investigation.

We want to know what is behind those figures and we'll also hear from families who were affected including the parents of Genevieve Meehan who died at a nursery when she was just nine months old. Also on Women's Hour, the Sudanese activist Hala Al-Karib pushes for more recognition and support for the women and girls who have become victims of Sudan's civil war. Plus, three is the magic number. Or is it three's a crowd? Fans of the TV show The White Lotus will have seen the three female friends who go on holiday together only for that friendship

to dissolve into a toxic trio of blame, anger, gossip, competition and judgement. The relationship dynamic has generated so many articles asking whether it is possible for three women to have a truly healthy relationship together. Is one always going to be somewhat left out? Is there a temptation to gossip about the one that is not with you? Or can a trio be a bigger, stronger bond than any duo can have together? That's the question we're asking. There will be no spoilers about the White Lotus. That I can promise. The finale is on tonight for those that are following avidly. Want to know about your friendships?

Tell me about those trios, the ups and the downs that you may have had. You can text the program. The number is 84844 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 03 700 100 444. Now, if you type into any search engine, am I? The next word that comes up in the predictive text that is offered to finish the sentence is pregnant. You know, when you get those little words, am I whatever pregnant? Am I pregnant? Well,

am I whatever pregnant? Am I pregnant? Well, just the fact that that predictive text is offered to finish the sentence means just how many times must women type in that question? It is a regular one and it is a question that women have asked themselves throughout history. Dr. Isabel Davis has written a history of how women have managed that uncertainty and also the methods they have turned to, tropical toads for example, to try and get an answer, Conceiving Histories, that book also coming up. But let us first turn to an investigation by the BBC's Hayley Hassel, who asks how safe are our nurseries for a documentary that has just gone up on the BBC iPlayer. There have been almost 20,000 reports of serious childcare incidents in nurseries in England over

the past five years, some with devastating outcomes and I do want to let you know that some of the stories you will hear you may find distressing. Nurseries are however highly regulated so how did some of the mislead Ofsted that regulates the nurseries about their practices as Hayley has found? Hayley joins me now from Salford. Welcome back to Women's Hour. Hayley, let's talk about those figures. What have you found? Good morning, Nuala. Well, first of all, we put in a Freedom of Information request to Ofsted, the regulator for early years, and asked how many serious childcare incidents

had been reported to them over the past five years. So we looked at the last five financial years that's 2019 to 2024 and we asked them for the allegations from non-domestic nurseries in England. They responded with a total of 19,414 for this period. We also looked at the figures and saw that they had risen by 40% compared to five years ago. So these reports, these serious incidents, are what Ofsted categorise as urgent, so they can include anything from harm and abuse, to serious accidents or injuries, including deaths, or major incidents on the premises like a fire or a flood. Now this number was much bigger than we expected and Ofsted say this could be

due to the increased efforts to get staff to report such incidents to them. They also say they brought forward over 1,500 inspections after receiving these reports. And do we know exactly how many children we are talking about when we talk about these figures? These are reports of incidents so it doesn't disclose the information apart from we know that they were serious incidents but some of them could have been found to be accidental or some of them could have been found to be

non-proven. But Ofsted, although they could tell us these serious incidents, they couldn't tell us how many of these incidents or accidents or harm were caused by nursery workers, so staff at the nursery. So we went to every local authority in the country, that's 150 local authorities in England, and we asked them how many reports they'd have of children being harmed by nursery workers in a nursery setting in the past five years. Seventy-two councils got back to us and their figures showed that there were five thousand seven

hundred and ninety-five reports of allegation of children being harmed by nursery workers in nurseries. Now we, as well as part of my research, have spoken to many nursery workers who have told me As well as part of my research I've spoken to many nursery workers who have told me that they often work in unscrupulous nurseries where there are dangerous practices and they are able to hide some of those dangers from Ofsted during the inspection. And one of the reasons they say they're able to do this is that Ofsted now do announced visits so they will let most nurseries know a day in advance that they are coming only about a third of them are unannounced and because of that nursery workers told me they were able to hide certain practices like if

they were understaffed they were able to bring in fake staff if they had too many children they were able to hide children in cupboards and put on fake activities so we went back to the local authorities and asked them how many reports they'd had of children being harmed by nursery workers pre-2015, so before Ofsted changed that policy. And we found that the number of harm to children from nursery workers had tripled. I mean I think the first thing for people that are listening, Hayley, these figures sound very concerning. You mentioned there that it could be staff reporting at a higher level perhaps, maybe that's one of the aspects,

but is it possible to know the percentage we're talking about when we consider how many children are actually in a nursery setting? Well what I can tell you is that Ofsted regulates over 27,000 nurseries across the country. The early years alliance has told me that most places are safe and caring place for children and that if there are any safeguarding breaches then they're very rare. We know that there are tens of thousands of children who attend nurseries at least once a week in England but I do know that those figures haven't necessarily increased over the last 10 years, although the number of harm has. But as Ofsted had told us, that could be down to the fact that they're better at reporting it. And because in your documentary you speak to many people, some of it

heartbreaking I should say as well, but you did speak to Ofsted's head of social care, Yvette Stanley. Let's listen to a little and then we'll speak about it. It is always a concern when a child comes to harm, it's not something that any of us want to tolerate. So it's something that we're giving conspicuous care and monitoring to. I worry about each and every one. Regarding the reports that have nearly tripled from pre-2015, does that not indicate that nursery is getting advance warning about an inspection means that there is the chance of more harm to children going unnoticed?

We absolutely can't rule out the occasions where people have a lack of integrity and don't share information with us. The whole basis of inspection is built on that and you would have to significantly invest in a much larger system for us to do more regular checks on those things. We think we do enough no notice inspections to reassure ourselves in the cases where the data, where the information is worrying. Okay, a couple of things there, Hayley, struck me. The no notice that we've touched on, why was that revoked in the sense of many times now, nurseries know that they're coming?

So the answer to me has been quite vague on that but what I do know and what what Ofsted have told me is that it's a 50-50 opinion. They've spoken to many nursery owners as well as parents and some like the fact that they get advance notice but some find it stressful and was causing more problems. So they decided on this new structure where most of their inspections they would be given a day's notice but they still do about a most of their inspections they would be given a day's notice, but they still do about a third of their inspections with no notice and they also respond immediately to any reports of major concern. Of course we saw with Ofsted and its designations that it was given to school and the stress

that was putting head teachers and teachers under, we've spoken about that at length. So I suppose nurseries could be wrapped up in part of that thinking as well. The figures you mentioned, I mentioned there are devastating stories within this as well. You spoke to Katie Wheeler and to John Meehan. They are the parents of a nine month old, Genevieve Meehan who was killed at Tiny Toes Nursery in Stockport. Such a sad, sad story. Perhaps you could remind us a little of the details. Yeah, Genevieve was a beautiful, smiley, joyful little girl.

She was nine months old when she started attending Tiny Toes Nursery in Stockport. And she'd been at the nursery for only a week when she was killed at that nursery by a nursery worker called Kate Roughly who strapped her to a beanbag face down and left her unattended for 90 minutes and she suffocated. This is the first time that Katie and John have spoken to the media about that and they wanted to tell me about their daughter in the hope that this will change things for nurseries in the future so that other children don't suffer like Genevieve has. I went to meet them and first of all I asked them to tell me about their daughter Genevieve.

She was born on the 18th of July 2021. She was three pound twelve and she was a tiny beautiful little person and she had been wanted for a very long time. She was Andy's everything that you could have wanted. She loves to dance, she loves to smile, she loved to wave. And really she had a very, very happy life and she loved being with her family. She just loved cuddles. She was attached to my hip and she just wanted to be. She wanted to be everywhere that we all were. And she was just a really beautiful little soul.

And can you tell me about that day on May the 9th, 2022, from your point of view? The day itself was such an ordinary day. The phone rang, so I answered it and the woman on the phone said to me that they'd gone to wake Genevieve up from her sleep and she was limp and blue. And you think in those moments, I don't really understand what I'm hearing because it was such a shock

and you're thinking, that's my little girl and she felt so far away. And I said, is she, because I felt desperate and I said, is she breathing? But it was the question that I asked but I didn't really want to know what the answer was because I didn't want them to say no and in the car on the way there I was thinking she's got to be alright obviously it's bad but she's got to be okay because I love her so much and she can't nothing bad could happen to her and then I got to the hospital and went to Rhesus and there she was, a tiny little person and she was surrounded by so many doctors and I felt absolutely desperate.

And then after, that seemed like a very short time, they asked us to go into a side room and I knew then what they were going to say. And mum said, we've been trying now for 40 minutes, there's nothing more we can do. And I said you should go and hold her. So you're holding her and just willing for it to be different and you don't want to let her go. It's so utterly horrific. I couldn't understand how this had happened. I couldn't understand how a baby of Genevieve's age this had happened. I couldn't understand how a baby of Genevieve's age could go to sleep for a nap in the afternoon and then not wake up. So what have you both

found out now after the event since Genevieve has died about what actually happened that day? So we now know that morning that Kate Roughly became increasingly exasperated with her. She was verbally abusive towards her, so she called her all sorts of names, she called her vile, she made up songs about her. I have to say I found it so moving to hear Genevieve's parents speak about their love for her and also so harrowing to hear what they and Genevieve have gone through. I do want to let our listeners know to please go to the BBC's Action Line, bbc.co.uk forward slash Action Line, if you're being affected by what you're hearing right now.

But Hayley, there was CCTV footage from that nursery and you viewed it. Can you describe what you saw? Yeah, it was incredibly difficult to watch and incredibly distressing and for that reason we decided to not show it in the documentary, but I was allowed to watch the footage and also the body cam footage and the police interviews of the nursery workers and when police arrived at the nursery first of all Kate Roughly who was in charge of the baby room said she'd been regularly checking Genevieve but when I looked at the nursery CCTV it told a totally different story. Kate Roughly came into the nursery and said that she was going to put Genevieve to sleep on a bean bag and because she wanted to save a cot, she didn't want to waste a cot, she placed the bean bag on the floor

and she then takes Genevieve from where she's quite happily playing, swaddles her in her blanket very tightly and puts Genevieve on her front on the beanbag. She then straps her into this beanbag tightly and you can tell Genevieve is distressed. She's crying and she's trying to raise her head up. And then Kate roughly walks away into the rest of the nursery. She walks past her about two times to do quite distant checks. But over the next 90 minutes you see that Genevieve stops moving and it was about 45 minutes in when Kate, when you notice she stopped moving. 90 minutes later Kate goes to check on her, you notice her body language changes, she flips Genevieve onto her side and runs out of the room and you know that Genevieve has passed. Kate roughly was convicted of manslaughter on the 20th of May in 2024 and she was sentenced to 14 years in prison.

I also spoke to Katie and John about this and asked them how losing Genevieve had affected them. From my perspective, I felt like I completely lost who I was that night in hospital holding her and the impact it has is so far reaching because it's you have this family unit with this beautiful person in it and then you have to then deal with one that she's not there but also the horror of what happened to her. Can I ask you both why you decided to do this interview today? It was a very difficult decision because we're very private people but then you find yourself in this situation and you think

it can't have been for nothing so you can't be living like this and not do something about it because no child should ever come to harm ever. And we felt that it was important for Genevieve to do this. We want people to know who she is. She's not just the baby. She's not the person that suffered this way, that's part of her life. But there was a long time where her life wasn't that. And it's important for us as people to know that. But also, so much has to be done,

because it should never happen and it can't happen and you find yourself in this position that you desperately don't want to be in but then what's the point of it all if you can't do something that brings something positive? Katie, Genevieve's mum speaking to Hayley. Hayley is here with me. You also spoke to former former nursery workers, Hayley. Hayley is here with me. You also spoke to former nursery workers, Hayley, who worked at that nursery Tiny Toes and that included a woman called Jade. Yeah, that's right. So I should say that Ofsted inspected Tiny Toes in 2017.

That's the last full inspection the nursery had before it closed in 2022. And they rated it as good. Now, nurseries are legally required to comply with staff to child ratio set out by the government but Jay told me that nursery workers were told to hide the extent of their understaffing and their ratio breaking. They said your group's over ratio we can't find a member of staff for you can you take eight children so that's double my ratio into this sensory cupboard and close the door and pull the curtain across. We were basically, we were hiding from the inspector so it wasn't obvious that we were over ratio.

Jade resigned from Tiny Toes in 2019. She says she tried to report concerns to the management but was ignored. In a statement the former owners of Tiny Toes in Stockport said they refute all allegations made by Jade and say they cooperated fully with the investigations by Greater Manchester Police but said they cannot comment further because of an ongoing investigation into the nursery by Stockport Council. Ofsted also told us they cannot comment while the investigation is ongoing. But Hayley you spoke more to Genovese parents about what they'd like to see done. Let's listen to that.

It's really important for us that there are changes and certainly in Genevieve's case the CCTV was so crucial and we consider that CCTV should be a mandatory requirement in any nursery setting, that should be able to be done at fairly low cost and without that we simply would not have known. And we want a rigorous and robust inspection regime. That inspection regime has to place the care of children and safeguarding at its absolute core. And if there was CCTV footage available for example, it should be straightforward for an inspector to review parts of that footage as part of their inspection. And similarly and similarly also with the inspection we want truly unannounced visits of nursery settings. So coming back to that point Haley and I were speaking about a little earlier. Well for nurseries where there has been a serious incident

Ofsted will inspect more frequently. They say there is currently no government guidance on CCTV use in nurseries and that it does not have the resources to check it during inspections. The Early Years Alliance, which is an industry body representing nurseries, says the majority of providers prioritise safeguarding and breaches are extremely rare. I want to bring you another part of the conversation that Hayley had with Katie and John, Genevieve's parents. The person that's lost everything is Genevieve, because she would have had such a wonderful life because we love her so much and we'd have given her anything. We're still Genevieve's parents and it's so important for us that she has a legacy. that she has a legacy. Hayley, because we've spoken through so many aspects at the moment, I want to return to parents who would be listening today.

They place their trust in nurseries to provide safe care of their children. Can you put in context just how common this is or how significant the figures are? Yeah, of course. And of course, it's worrying if you're listening at the moment and you have a child in nursery and the Early Years Alliance has told us that most nursery settings are safe and caring places for children and they say most providers prioritize safety and if there are any safeguarding breaches they're very rare. Although they added that children's

safety should never be compromised they are welcoming any action which strengthens this. Ofsted regulates over 27,000 nurseries across the country and tens of thousands of children attend nursery settings at least once a week. Now the number of children in nurseries as I said previously has not significantly changed over the past 10 years but the number of harm has. So if parents are worried then there are things they can do. Well run nurseries that I've spoken to have told me that they will always welcome parents to come and visit and look at their children

and spend time observing their children and checking on them. Now, if this is something your nursery is not happy to agree to, I would start asking why. And also not all nurseries have CCTV, but if they do, you can request to see it. You are able to see anything that your child is in on a CCTVctv camera

thank you very much Hayley I do also want to read a statement from the department of education they say they're introducing a wide range of strengthened safeguarding measures from September 2025 including enhanced recruitment practices to further prevent unsuitable individuals from working with children as well as new whistleblowing and safer eating requirements. They say we will continue to closely monitor whether any further changes to safeguarding requirements are needed in the early years to keep as many children safe as possible. I've been speaking to my colleague Hayley Hassel, thanks very much for coming on. Our documentary is How Safe Are Our Nurseries and it is available right now on the BBC iPlayer.

I want to let you know that we are going to have a special Easter programme that I would like you to get involved in. Particularly if you are, what would I say, battling with too much stuff. Are you the sort of person that keeps everything just in case you might need it one day, that one day looming somewhere in the future? Or does your home operate a strict one in one out policy, whether it's clothes, books or kids crafting creations? Well, maybe you've had to sort through a load of stuff, maybe a loss or a big move.

Maybe your parents home is full of clutter that you are dreading having to tackle one day. Or maybe you're conscious of the big mess you might leave behind for someone else. We want to hear about you for a future episode of Woman's Hour. You can email us via our website with your thoughts, your experiences, your advice, your dilemmas. The usual text number 84844 on social media at BBC Woman's Hour, or indeed you can email us through our website. Just want to read a comment or two before I go to my next item. From Julia, when I was 10 years old, I had two good friends.

We were an inseparable trio and I look back on it as the most innocent and idyllic friendship of my life. Perhaps this is only possible for pre-teen children. Well, if you have been watching The White Lotus, you may be counting down the hours until the season three finale airs tonight. One of the themes central to this series has been female friendship and some people asking the question, is three a crowd? There is a dynamic that plays out in the show between the trio of friends, Jacqueline, Kate and Laurie, played by the brilliant Michelle Monaghan, Leslie Bibb and Carrie Coon. And the three of them alternate between loving and loathing one another. So can friendships

between three people work? Is it different between three women, as it is between three men? I'm joined by the TV writer and critic for the iPaper, Rachel Sige, and journalist and author Olivia Petter. Now, we're going to have no spoilers, ladies, in the next little bit. We do want to get into these friendships. Rachel, maybe you could give us a quick rundown of the friendship that we see on TV. Yeah, absolutely. As you said, it's this trio of women, Jacqueline, Laurie and Kate. They've

been friends since school, I think since they were nine, so it would fall into that pre-teen category. They don't see each other very often anymore. And so they're on this luxury girls' trip in this beautiful hotel in Thailand to unwind and reconnect and relive all the old good times. But quite quickly the cracks start to show because on the surface they're quite similar, they're all white, wealthy, they're blonde, they're in their 40s but their lives have gone in slightly different directions. Jacqueline's a famous actress with a hunky new younger husband. Laurie's a high-flying corporate lawyer and Kate's a wife and mother in Texas who's become quite conservative. And it's clear really quickly that there's sort of these

decades of memories and tensions and things that have been said and things that haven't been said that just can't help but bubble to the surface in this pressure cooker where they're all supposed to be having the most fabulous time. Do you think there is any reality within it? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm not sure that we'd all be having this experience at a hotel like that in Thailand. No, sure. Lovely as it would be. But I definitely the long-term friendships, particularly the ones where you don't see the people as often as you used to. That's a really difficult

thing to maintain because there's a huge amount of pressure for that short time that you spend together to go really, really well. And it's also not the time, you don't want to spoil it by saying something that might upset someone. Let me bring in Olivier here. How do you see it? An accurate depiction of some female friendships? And I'm ready for my listeners to jump to the defense of the trio 84844. Yeah, absolutely. I think so many women have really related to this dynamic that we see because, you know, they arrive and there's this idea of perfection.

It's like we're childhood best friends. We all adore each other. We're going to have the most amazing girls trip. And then slowly you start to see there's actually a really clear power dynamic between the three women, as there often is in trios. And Jacqueline is the famous actress. She's also footing the bill for the entire trip.

Oh, I forgot that. Yeah. And so you learn that that immediately sets an interesting precedent. And then you learn about all of these different kind of external factors of their lives and how they've become so different. So yes, two of the women are married. One of them is a divorced single mom.

And they all start kind of competing against one another, but very, very subtly because you see the scene where they all kind of complementing one another being like, oh, but you know, you have your lovely house and your lovely kids and your lovely husband and but you're doing so well too. And you look so great. And then it reeks of this inauthenticity, which kind of bubbles to the surface in one scene in particular, really early on in the first episode really kind of almost triggered me in a way because they're all kind of complimenting one another being what you look so great and you look so great. And then like, but how much work have you had done? And who's your doctor?

Tell me who your doctor is. And it becomes about this competition of who looks the youngest, but they're all ostensibly being so nice to each other's faces. But it's so interesting. So you talk about power, you talk about competitiveness. Rachel, do you think a trio of women is different to a trio of men?

I think you could definitely have a version of this with both genders, but I think what's really specific to this trio and them being women is the fact that it's their age, they're in their 40s, they're at a point where society has told them that they should have ticked off certain achievements regarding motherhood, marriage, career. And in looking at their two friends that they've grown up with, they're seeing kind of different versions of how their life might have turned out if they made different choices and different decisions. And that's meaning that they're questioning their own paths and exposing all of their own insecurities. And they're just sort of searching for this validation that very naturally spills

into judgment because they're so used to being judged by other people and by society themselves. It's such an interesting concept, Olivia, the sliding doors moment. And maybe that's what intrigues us. Yeah, but I think it also harks back to just this idea of women growing up consistently being pitted against one another, right? So you're always kind of comparing and contrasting your lives to one another, particularly if you've been such old childhood friends. And I think we see this almost like playground like dynamic playing out between the three of them, particularly when, you know,

one of them will go off to go to bed and the two other two will immediately start about the third. And then the third woman is sort of crying. I think it's Laurie Carey-Koon's character. And that again, it's something that you see probably among nine-year-olds. And those dynamics really persist. And I think, you know, as women, we have been kind of forced to compete against one another and see each other as enemies just through our social conditioning. But you will know that some people will really push back against that. We'll hate that characterisation of women instead of pulling together that when they're put together that they're going to be at

one another's throats. Rachel? I think it is important to remember that this is The White Lotus, a TV show in which broadly everyone is terrible and none of, we're not supposed to like any of these characters very much. They're very rich, not particularly nice people spending a lot of money to have a terrible time. So that's the kind of conceit of the show. But I think I definitely have some sympathy with them because like Olivia said they kind of slip into this school dynamic which makes sense. There's a real high school element to this because they've known each other for a long time. And the fact is, they're not as close as they used to be. So the thing they have most in common is their relationships with each other. And as they realize that they're sharing different values now, they just sort of default to talking about the

other one because that's the thing that's holding them together. And no one wants to be the person to say this isn't working anymore. We've outgrown this. That's a really hard thing to admit. Let's read a couple of the comments that are coming in, 84844, if you'd like to get in touch. From Marie, I'm part of a trio of female friends which has stood firm and supportive for over 25 years. We have weathered births, deaths, illness and child-rearing storms. Our friendship is built on trust and love and every year apart from Covid, we take the time to go away for a long weekend together. We all know that we can rely totally on each other.

Luckily, our husbands also get along. I think in many ways, a trio can be the best because you have three different stories, three different opinions, three different people coming into a friendship and giving each other that support. It can absolutely work. I think it just requires a little bit more work. And as Rachel said, you know, these

three women haven't seen each other for a long time. And I think that plays into it quite a lot because they might think that they know each other really well, and they are really good friends, but actually they're relying on a dynamic that is, you know, decades old. And actually, you know, like she said, they have probably outgrown one another, but they're clinging on to this idea that, oh, we're BFFs forever. Another one coming in, here's for you, Rachel. I'm pretty sure the answer is it depends. It depends on whether there is an underlying respect of each other, whether any issues that arise are dealt with and communicated with kindness and honesty, how much love is in the relationship.

I'm sure there are more, but these come immediately to mind. And I'm struck by that, immediately to mind. And I'm struck by that, Rachel, because what we see in the TV show is that to resolve, I put that in inverted commas, to start talking about the other one instead of a transparency or an honesty that is flowing between all three. Yeah, I'm glad the word honesty has come up because I think that's the key thing missing from this trio of friendship because they're so desperate to present perfection to the others and to prove that they're as happy as they could possibly be because they're trying to convince themselves of that, that they're not very honest, they don't share their insecurities and that's where they actually might find a connection and instead they're

searching for that connection by desperately proving their bond with one of the other women at the expense of the third woman who's not there in that moment. Looking forward to the finale tonight. No spoilers? Oh, yes. I have a good feeling. Let us see what happens. I want to thank both of my guests, the TV writer Rachel Sige and journalist and author Olivia Petter. Thank you both for joining me. Oh, here's one Suki coming in. I go on holiday most summers with two other friends.

We find that the group of three works really well. One person can have peace if they wanted and two of us can chat if we want. And the three of us together have a lot of fun. We went on holiday about 18 years ago, all traveling alone and have holidayed together since then. Perhaps the three women in the White Lotus were never even really friends when they were young. 84844 if you'd like to get in touch. Now two years ago, Sudan was thrown into disarray when its army, the Sudanese Armed Forces or

the SAF and a powerful paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces, the RSF, began a vicious struggle for power. The civil war, which continues to this day, has claimed more than 150,000 lives. It has displaced millions of people and plunged parts of the country into famine. Mass sexual violence has also been widely documented as a weapon of war. In March, the army recaptured the presidential palace at the centre of the capital Khartoum and that was a key victory which it hoped would mark a turning point in the conflict. Well, Hala Al-Karib is a Sudanese activist. She's also regional director for the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. She was also one of the BBC World Services

100 Women 2024 for her achievements. I do want to warn you that some of this conversation may be difficult to listen to. I asked Hala what life is like now for women and girls in Sudan as we come into two years of civil war. It's horror, absolutely horror. This war is centered around violating women and girls across the country. Why do you say that? Well first of all sexual violence in women bodies has been used as war strategy and women bodies were used as a tool for across the country. Of course this is not something new to Sudan. It has been happening in the foreign other regions of the country. Of course this is not something new to Sudan. It has been

happening in the foreign other regions of the country for more than 20 years. In previous conflicts. Absolutely. Because we've heard about that over the decades now really and I know this is its latest iteration, is there no accountability or consequences or even ways to protect women and girls in a situation like now? Well, you know, the sad part, Sudan right now is literally the capital of sexual violence in the world. I cannot speak about the scale of the crisis. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of women being exposed to conflict-related sexual violence, rape and gang rape, sexual exploitation, forced labor, and sexual slavery. Now, issues of

accountability and impunity towards the perpetrators, this has been a chronic reality of Sudan political scene. You know, the perpetrators were never held accountable. And so sexual violence has been largely normalized and enabled. Why do you think there hasn't been anybody held to account? We know that Sudanese women, let's take this latest civil war when the uprising first started, it was Sudanese women that were at the front of those protests, you know, that were out on the streets. How has it come to this point? Well I think it's a war against women, you know, because women, they symbolize civilization, they symbolize civility, they

symbolize, you know, enlightenment and this implies democratic transformation and freedom. Sudan is located in a very bad neighborhood, I would say. So you mean geographically? Geographically. You know, our neighbors were not interested in Sudan transformation to democracy. And so they have been a push back towards, you know, Sudan transiting to democracy. And so they have been a bush back towards Sudan transiting to democracy. And this has largely resulted in the situation we are in. They do say on reports that I have read, there's been blame pointed at one side or another, but it seems to be, for those who've been looking at it over a longer space of time,

that there are people guilty on both sides of what we see the various factions in this particular conflict. But with your organization, I mean, do women feel that they can come forward, that they can speak to people about what's happened to them? Well, I'll start with the first part of your comment. It's absolutely a collective failure from the side of Sudanese, you know, militarized actors, Sudan political elites, because this war, it was very obvious that it's going to happen, you know, but they have not been any significant steps that were taken to counter it and from the international community side. What do you think they could have done, just as I interrupt you on that first point?

Well, they could have supported Sudan transitions much more stronger, the international community. The transitional government. Absolutely. So it wouldn't escalate again. Yeah they could have invested more on the security sector reform, they could have monitored the flow of arms to Sudan. We have I don't know how many Security Council resolutions about banning arms coming to a region, a volatile region like Darfur. Contrary, you know, they ended the mission of a UN African Union mission who was providing some support to civilians in Darfur and a level of protections to women and observing the flow of arms. So we were quite exposed.

But when it comes to women and coming out and reporting, it was difficult at the beginning, a few courageous ones. And then we reached out to our networks. And how do you do that? We have more or less about 100 grassroots women networks across the country. So from the first day of the war on April 15, we had women activists who were reaching out and reporting on observing conflict-related sexual violence happening. So at the beginning, it was the service providers, the community workers, but then gradually the victims themselves,

they stepped up and they talked about it. I mean, we know, if you take the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, and conflict that was there, when sexual violence has happened within a conflict situation, within a war, it then can seep out into society as a whole, that it doesn't have to be within that conflict situation. And I wonder, I mean, do you think about that with Sudan? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm speaking specifically really about rape. No, absolutely. Rape is normalized. I have no doubt about it.

You know, violence against women is normalized. And wasn't like that before. It was like that in the four, but it was denied and there was a silenced about it. Like politicians, they want to talk about it. And despite the fact that the international community highlighted that at the beginning, eventually they forget about the fact that violence against women is happening repeatedly in Darfur. And that has enabled the perpetrators. It emboldened them because they were not ashamed. What happened to the victims was never acknowledged. And then it extended to the whole country. And right now, there is a strong trend of denying that sexual violence is happening as well.

So you feel that still that denial within the country? Oh absolutely. It's such a lonely path, you know, for organizations that choose to work on documenting and holding perpetrators accountable and speaking about that publicly. It's not easy. Sometimes perpetrators are only brought to account if they're brought to account after the war. Is that what you're hoping for? What is it that you want to see in the short and long term? What I was hoping for in the short term is for people in Sudan and around Sudan who are working on Sudan to take responsibility of what's happening to women and girls. This is a crime. And when I say taking responsibility, acknowledge what's happening to us, acknowledge our experiences and what we are encountering.

That is not happening. So when you speak to the Ritz, I know there is obviously at the heart of this conflict of leadership, if you speak to people in those factions, what do they say? Well you know, unfortunately people use violence against women as political points, you know. Say the other side does. I have done that, yes, but you have done that. You are raping women, but you are bombarding civilians, things like that. And similarly, among the polarized political scene, you know, everyone utilizing the violations as a point for their own political gains. And it left the civilians very withdrawn and angry. Sudanese women, as you said, they were at the forefront fighting for freedom and fighting for Sudan and fighting for democracy and stabilization of the

country. And there is no support for them. There is no investment on enabling Sudanese women to regain their agency again on the ground. And I know you are trying to support them with your organization. How is the support being funded? Oh my, that's another challenge. The funds that's going to Sudan is one of the minimal funds. It's the worst in the world. Sudan is, I would say, 5% of what's needed to be supported. Do the cuts to USAID that were made by President Trump when he took office

make a difference to your organization? Well, you know, we are not a big USA funds recipients, but it made a huge difference to grassroots community groups, you know, and community kitchens. And then it affected us indirectly because in one day we started receiving applications, you know, from grassroots groups to support them to be able to continue to extend. So they're coming to you for the help that they would have got previously from USAID. What is the support that people need, women and girls? They need mental health support. They need access to sexual and reproductive health.

There is still women who deliver children. Women are having this in the worst circumstances. Under TRIIS, they need access to health services. You know, they need access to the very basic items, sanitary pads, and they need investments on their groups and organizations for them to have agency and to be able to push back against all this repression and to contribute to the stabilization of the country. Sudan has often been called the Forgotten War. Why do you think it was forgotten or is forgotten? Well, I guess it's, Sudan has been abandoned for a very long time. I would say after the

independence of South Sudan. In what year in? 2011 you know I think Sudan was Completely been abandoned and right now Sudan is falling apart I always say that Sudan is too large to fall apart alone This is the third largest country in Africa So the conflict in Sudan, you know, is spilling out into other countries around the region in Chad and... That already have issues.

Exactly. This is a strategic and important country and it was just let go of. Too big to fail? I think it's too big to fail. I strongly believe it's too big to fail. Sudan is huge. And if it completely falls apart, that's going to be a disaster. Hala Al-Karib, there Sudanese activist and regional director of SIHA, the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. And if you have been affected by anything you may have heard today, please go to the BBC's Action Line, where there are links for support. I want to turn to a new book that has been called

Thoughtful Company for those who are trying to get pregnant, those who are done trying, and everyone in between. It is Conceiving Histories, Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present. It is a history, a personal memoir, and illustrated oh so beautifully. More than a decade in the making, its author, Dr. Isabel Davis, has collected a wide range of stories to inform and intrigue us. There's science, there's pseudoscience that the un-reproductive body can encounter in the pursuit of a viable pregnancy. And the illustrations, I should say, display really the myths and the fantasies that surround that

uncertain time when you're asking, am I pregnant? Isabel's with me in the Women's Art Studio. Good morning. Hello. Thank you for having me. OK. Where did this come from, this concept to have a history of trying to conceive? Well, I was a historian, a medieval historian researching in a university, and I was struggling to get pregnant and struggling to stay pregnant, and I became very preoccupied by it. And that developed into a curiosity.

And I started to read in the history books and I thought other people would like these histories. And then I thought, but they don't want a medieval history. So I started to freewheel in time. And I also got in touch with and started working with Anna Burrell who's done these illustrations. So we really explored that through text and image. On the front there is a woman, a naked woman, there are fish that are swimming by, just kind of sitting on a globe. Just to give us an idea of the crazy thoughts and fantasies

that might go through the brain of somebody who is hoping to concede or perhaps has given up on it as well. So many elements in this book. Let us start with frogs or tropical toads. Why did you want to tell us about them? Well, I mean, I heard that in the middle of the 20th century, the main way of testing for pregnancy was with a frog. And I just thought that's extraordinary. I wanted to know more about it. So I went to the Wellcome Collection. I looked at the Family Planning Association archive. So this was between the 1930s and 1960s that in the UK there were labs which were taking in urine

samples. They would inject them into these African clawed toads and if the frog laid eggs that was a positive pregnancy test, incredibly accurate. You had to have missed your period by a couple of weeks though. But quite early for those times. Yeah, two weeks after a missed period I think. The advantage of the frog is you don't have to dissect it because it lays eggs externally. They use mice really before that, but you have to dissect each mouse and use more than one to get a pregnancy test. So really the frogs are better. Consequences for the women of South Africa? Yeah. I mean, this is an example of a trade that really directly benefited the South African apartheid government and

they didn't share those benefits with everybody. So if you think about healthcare, black people's healthcare was not as well served as their white counterparts. And if we think, you know, obviously that's complicated by the racist investment in contraception. But if we think about today, where South Africa still has an AIDS crisis, and early antinatal care is so important for women and their children, still black women have a disadvantage. And pregnancy testing is part of that picture. So, you know, whether it's available quickly is really important. Let us talk about false pregnancies and the very famous story that you highlight, but maybe not known to everybody, about Mary Tudor in the middle of the 16th century. Yeah, I was really interested in false pregnancy, partly because I thought... And meaning?

Well, I mean, sometimes I felt I was pregnant when I wasn't. And when I Googled feeling pregnant when I'm not, I think other people experience this too. But because the pregnancy test solves it for us after a little bit of a wait, we don't tend to present to our doctors. But obviously, it's got to be a spectrum, right? And there's going to be people who suffer this in a really serious way. But in the middle of the 16th century, this is a story quite well known to historians, and particularly to the historians, and there are great biographers of Mary Tudor, but I really wanted to tackle it a different way. I mean, it's obviously a switch point in history. It must have been incredibly humiliating for her not to have these children that were expected. But I really feel that this screen's really quite a common experience that lots of people must have experienced. And so I wanted to look at how and why she really became

this kind of screen, which is hidden, if you like, a really common thing. Which is? Just thinking you're pregnant when you're not. And I mean the person I came across in my research who's got such a fresh approach to these kinds of topics is Angela Carter, the novelist, who she self-diagnoses with psychosomatic pregnancy in the sort of 60s and she's very funny with it. You know she says at one point like her next-door neighbor Jane says she's pregnant and Carter says Jane's not not any more pregnant than I am, perhaps less so.

Being a little bit pregnant, you also talk about that particular phrase. But I think many women who wonder, are they pregnant or are they not, will relate to that uncertainty that I think you underline. But you do talk about people have always had to live with that unknown, but perhaps dealt better with it in the past, do you think? I think there is a way in which that's the case. So today we think we've solved this problem because we've got the pregnancy test, we've got sonography and microscopy, but really that solved it for clinicians. You know, outside of a clinic, I can't see what's happening

or not happening inside my body. I can't see if I'm, say, losing a pregnancy. And so women at home on their own in the bathrooms and their partners are actually in the same position as people in the past who didn't have these technologies at all. And I think that historical physicians are quite interesting because they're in some ways in a similar boat to their patients, and they're much more honest about how difficult it was, you know, everybody in every period of history thinks they're modern, you know one Writer that I look at from the early 19th century is looking at the hot air balloon and say look people can literally fly And we can't solve this really can't gather the data we need on this really mundane problem.

Mundane and miraculous all at the same time. Let's talk for a moment about the 18th century fashion for appearing pregnant. Yeah, I mean this is so rebellious, I just really liked it. For most of Western European fashion history, maternity wear tends to be about cover-up because pregnancy is sort of rude. But there are some points in history, in the late 18th century is one of them, where it's fashionable and patriotic to be pregnant, to have children. And Marie Antoinette is the real kind of fashion icon and she styles this really well. And so as well as you know it being fashionable for pregnant people to look pregnant, it was also

fashionable for un-pregnant people to put on this false tummy simulating pregnancy. There's quite a bit of evidence for it, so some satirical cartoons, a play, a ballad, some newspaper stories. And so... And they would just wear the pad for a while, like when they're out in company, like somebody admiring a nice hairdo or something? I think so. I mean, it's a really outrageous fashion moment. You know, the hair, you know, everything is really outrageous. But the cartoons sort of have like, you could kind of perch a bird on it.

Or, you know, it's really something you could really enjoy. You know, fashion is about humour and I guess I wanted to take this slightly humiliating thing where you can't get into the exclusive club and think that's pretty, you know, to wear this thing. To join that club. We just have about a minute but you don't go chronologically. It's quite fantastical is the way I would describe it in a way although lots of them actual reality in it as well but you describe it as the life cycle of an infertile person I'm sorry just to give you about 40 seconds yeah so I didn't want to do like a narrative of progress through time or in terms of my own life so I sort of look

from sex ed to thinking you might want to get pregnant to trying to self-help to finding support paying for it and the mind-body experience. So look at the experience as it's experienced. Yeah it's really quite something. The jargon that has grown up, the way it's diffuse across whether it's social media and all platforms at the moment, but it was ever thus. Yes, I think so, and that's quite consoling, I think. It is a nice way of thinking about it. Conceiving History's Trying for Pregnancy, Past and Present is available now. I want to thank my guest, Dr. Isabel Davies, for coming into the studio.

Friendship. I can't believe what I'm hearing says a listener about three women friendships. They need to get better friends. We aren't all power hungry and competitive. I will leave that as the last word today. I will join you tomorrow 10 a.m. right here on Radio 4. Thanks very much for listening to Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. led me on a trail into corporate espionage, cover-up and death. From New York to Northern Ireland and countless UK factories in between, few towns are left untouched by the legacy of asbestos. Newly discovered documents reveal who knew what and when,

and perhaps explain why workers at that curious factory opening had to sign oaths of secrecy. Assume nothing, kill or dust. Listen first on BBC Sounds.