Woman's Hour - Ghislaine Maxwell verdict, Novelist Susie Boyt, Girls' education in Afghanistan, Disability rights activist Abia Akram

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell is facing the prospect of spending the rest of her life in jail after a jury in New York found her guilty of grooming and sex trafficking teenage girls to be abused by the sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. What impact will this high profile case have on future cases f alleged sexual abuse against women and girls? Andrea talks to Harriet Wistrich, who is the founder and director of the Centre for Women’s Justice and a solicitor.It's now 100 days that teenage girls in Afghanistan have been banned from going to school in the majority of provinces. Yesterday, former prime minister Gordon Brown who is now UN special envoy for global education said 'we're sleep-walking towards the biggest humanitarian crisis of our times in Afghanistan. Andrea discusses the situation, particularly for women and girls, with the BBC Correspondent Yalda Hakim.We've been talking to women about their scars. Today Laura, a burns survivor, tells her storyMany will have had empty chairs at the Christmas dinner table this year, for lots of different reasons. In Susie Boyt's novel Loved and Missed there is a particularly memorable Christmas dinner scene. In order to see her daughter on Christmas Day Ruth has to improvise. Susie joins Andrea to describe how people try to help and love others in the most difficult of circumstances.Abia Akram is a Pakistani disability rights activist. She is the founder of the National Forum of Women with Disabilities in Pakistan, and a leading figure within the disability rights movement in the country as well as in Asia and the Pacific. She has been named as one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2021. She joins Andrea to discuss how she became involved in this work and what more there is to do.Presented by Andrea Catherwood Producer: Louise Corley

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Andrea Catherwood and welcome to Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4. Good morning, it's good to have your company. Now, as you'll have no doubt heard on the news, Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty by a New York court of sex trafficking girls, aiding Jeffrey Epstein in his abuse of minors. We're going to look at what this means for those women who came forward to testify and the wider impact that this case may have.

Will women be more likely to speak out? Will they feel more likely to be believed? We're going to have all the latest reaction this morning. We're also looking at what's happening in Afghanistan. It's been 100 days since many girls were banned from attending secondary school by the Taliban in the country. And the country is also facing a real risk of famine. Author Susie Boyd will be joining me in the studio to discuss her latest novel, Loved and Missed. And in our series on scars, we're going to meet Laura, a care worker in South Wales who lives

with childhood burns. And Abiyah Akram is a Pakistani disabilities activist. And she's going to be talking to me about how she's working to change attitudes in the subcontinent and beyond. Well, as ever, we are very keen to hear from you. You can text at Women's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Do check with your network provider for exact costs on social media. It's at BBC Women's Hour. And of course, you can email us through our website. Now, Ghislaine Maxwell is facing the prospect of spending the rest of her life in jail

after a jury in New York find her guilty of grooming and sex trafficking teenage girls to be abused by the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The 60-year-old British socialite was convicted on five out of six charges. She's going to be sentenced at a later date. The jury gave their verdicts after five days of deliberations. Damian Williams, the US Attorney General for the Southern State of New York, hailed the verdict against Maxwell for one of the worst crimes imaginable, facilitating and participating in the sexual abuse of children. The road to justice has been far too long.

But today, justice has been done. I want to commend the bravery of the girls, now grown women, who stepped out of the shadows and into the courtroom. Their courage and willingness to face their abuser made today's result and this case possible. Well, Maxwell's lawyer, Bobby Sternheim, told reporters the defence was disappointed with the verdict. We've already started working on the appeal and we are confident she will be vindicated, he said outside court. Lawyer Lisa Bloom, who's represented a number of other Epstein victims in civil suits, said she didn't believe Maxwell was made a scapegoat for Epstein's crimes. The trial showed that she was no scapegoat. She wasn't on trial for just hanging around with

Jeffrey Epstein. She was on trial for her own actions, for enticing and recruiting girls, for bringing them into the home where she knew they were being sexually abused as young as 14, for teaching them how to give the massages that ended up as sexual abuse, for participating in the inappropriate touching herself. That's what came out at this trial. There were four women who testified about very similar instances, and the jury found that they were telling the truth. Well, the case was brought on behalf of four victims of Maxwell and Epstein. After the verdict, the only one to have waived her anonymity, Annie Farmer, gave this statement. She said, I'm so relieved and grateful that the jury recognised the pattern of predatory behaviour Annie Farmer gave this statement. She said, I hope that this verdict brings solace to all of those who need it

and demonstrates that no one is above the law. Well, one of Epstein's best-known victims, Virginia Guffrey, who has also accused Maxwell of being involved in her abuse, said that she would remember this day always. My soul yearned for justice for years, and today the jury gave me that. She said on Twitter, I hope that today is not the end, but rather another step in justice being served. Maxwell did not act alone. Others must be held accountable and I have faith they

will be. Well, Guffrey is suing Prince Andrew in a civil lawsuit, claiming he had sex with her on three occasions two decades ago when, aged 17, she had been sexually trafficked by Epstein. Well, Prince Andrew vehemently denies these allegations and in an interview with BBC Newsnight said that he had no recollection of meeting Miss Guffrey. Well, Harriet Wistrich is the founder and director for the Centre of Women's Justice and is a solicitor and she joins me now. Harriet, let's start by just thinking about those four women who have been testifying in that New York courtroom.

They were, you know, today we got this sort of outpouring of relief. Just what have they been through in the past weeks? Well, anyone who chooses to come forward to report sexual violence and anyone who eventually gets to the courtroom. And we know that there are so many other women who were accusers as well who haven't participated in that trial. going through the trial process and being subject to great scrutiny, fierce cross-examination from the defence, will have been incredibly tough. And, you know, it's a huge relief to them that on this occasion they have got justice. But we know that women, you know, across the world, whether they're accusing somebody famous or not, do not get regular justice. In the UK, you know, less than 1.5% of women who report rape, for example, end up with their cases charged. And the trial process itself is incredibly hard. So it's

incredibly tough. And it just shows how important it is that women will put themselves through this, sometimes for years, constantly facing suspicion and their credibility being questioned in order. Indeed, that is what happened in this case. I mean, a line that stood out for me was used by one of the US lawyers, Lisa Bloom.

She said that the lesson is that you do not have to be perfect to stand up for justice. All four of Maxwell's accusers endured pretty tough cross-questioning. I mean, they're asked about their drug use, their sexual behaviour, inconsistent statements. Is that something that all victims have to be prepared for? Well, unfortunately, that is the way in which these cases tend to be tried. And, you know, it's really unfortunate that they feel like the people that are on trial themselves rather than the person they're accusing, that their credibility in anything that can be found to undermine their credibility. What we do know is that women who tend to be targeted and groomed will often come from more damaged backgrounds. That's why they're easier to groom often. And so there will be things that one can try and find to cross-examine them on. And of course, once they've suffered abuse,

often they will resort to drugs and other ways in which to survive. So the fact of the abuse itself then works to undermine their credibility. And that's very common in many of these cases, and certainly with young women who are trafficked, that they suffer immense damage. And that's why these convictions are so important. But it's very hard. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about something that the defence relied on. They had an expert talking about memory. She was called Dr. Elizabeth Loftus. And the implication was that when women or when people suffer from very traumatic events, they're often wrongly remembered. The implication being, of course, that these women couldn't accurately remember what had happened to them when they were girls basically trying to discredit their accounts of abuse. Now, clearly that line this time didn't work because, you know, the jury convicted. But what do we know about how traumatic events are remembered and whether or not victims do remember it accurately?

Well, I mean, clearly these are events that took place when they were much younger. The trauma of something like a sexual violation is likely to embed itself very strongly in the memory. But of course, memories can be distorted in certain ways. But the importance is that they're absolutely clear that this happened to them. And, you know, that is the important thing. And the reason why often these prosecutions fail is because memory becomes difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened. But the significance here and the significance in most cases is that they're absolutely clear that they were violated,

even if, you know, did they come into the room at this point or that point, you know, those sort of details may be difficult to grasp. I mean, it's very difficult for us to grasp things that happened to us many years ago, and to be very precise exactly what order those things happened. I'm not a psychologist, but, you know, my understanding is that holding on to very specific details of exactly what happened when. It is going to be hard when you've suffered trauma. But the reality is that, you know, and you can test somebody in terms of trauma because of a whole range of different symptoms and ways in which victims will react when questioned in terms of hypervigilance, panic attacks and so on.

Those things will be indicators of trauma. One of the lawyers who represented several victims, Sigrid McCauley, said that today's verdict is a towering victory, not just for the brave women who testified in this trial, but for the women around the world whose young and tender lives were diminished and damaged by the abhorrent actions of Ghislaine Maxwell. I wonder what you think this verdict means for women being believed. Well, it's obviously really important that there's been an outcome and that these women have been believed.

Of course, we've been here again and again and again in the last, you know, decade. You know, we go back to the Saville case, the Epstein, sorry, the Max... Harvey Weinstein. Harvey Weinstein. Weinstein, Bill Cosby. In another New York court, yeah. You know, the recent conviction. There are a whole series of cases where women are now beginning to be believed in some of these high profile cases. to continue to abuse because they can pay people off,

they can defend themselves because of their power. And so the fact that there's some degree of crumbling of that ability to protect themselves and their power is very positive. But we mustn't forget that we're still facing a massive problem in terms of the day-to-day prosecution and convictions of sexual offences. And it's a huge problem and there needs to be, you know, the sort of resources put into this case, put into prosecuting all the other men who benefited from the trafficking that Maxwell provided, that Epstein facilitated, and of course just more generally to sexual violence cases. Look, Ghislaine Maxwell was obviously very well known.

She was the daughter of a former press baron, Robert Maxwell, and Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell moved in the highest circles of American celebrity. So this was always going to be a very high profile trial. Do you think the fact that she is a woman is important? Because it may be that there are people who feel that a woman is less likely to have committed these crimes. And indeed, the girls themselves actually testified that one of the reasons they trusted her was because of her gender. Yeah, well, this is a very common tactic of traffickers and abusers, that if they can use a woman to lure in other women,

then they will do, precisely for that reason that women, that, you know, young women may be more likely to trust a female. That doesn't make her crime more abhorrent than the crime of the men that actually abuse and rape these young women. But it certainly makes her very complicit in that. But the focus of her as a defendant, because she's female, and the way in which she's monsterized as a female, is in some ways disproportionate to the way in which male abusers are focused on so that that is not in any way to say her crimes are not uh you know very very grave but um you know the the where a woman steps out of line uh and behaves in this way um she will she will be the focus of extreme um media attention and monsterizing and what we want to see now is and what we should see is what about the rest of the entourage who facilitated the grooming and trafficking and abuse of these young women?

And what about all the powerful men that were provided with young underage girls to rape? What about them? Are they going to be held to account now you mentioned that this is a is is one in a series of of high profile cases recently do you think they really have a positive impact do you see more women coming forward and stepping up to go through what is a very harrowing process because of these high profile show trials, if we can call them that? Yes, I think I think they are an important signal. They're an important signal, particularly if you've been abused by somebody powerful to know that this is not the that coming forward can result in justice. So I think it is important, and I think we have seen increased reporting because there is an increased focus and possibility of justice.

But it is an incredibly tough journey to undertake. And, you know, we should absolutely salute the courage of those that do come forward. And they do so not just for themselves, but they do so because they know there are other victims out there. And, you know, that is why so many women put themselves through what is an incredibly tough process to try and bring rapists, sex traffickers and abusers to justice. It's a very adversarial process. And we understand, of course, that when someone has been accused of very serious crimes, there needs to be a robust process to make sure that the right person is being convicted. But is there a way that it could be done that would put a less onerous

burden on those women and on victims whatever their gender who come forward yes i mean i think that the the process is incredibly brutal and in fact we are um certainly in the in england looking at a whole range of different sorts of measures that can that can um make women feel less like they're the ones on trial. And that starts at the very point at which women report that they should be, you know, taken seriously and believed unless there is, you know, absolute evidence that they're not giving a proper account,

that they shouldn't be subject to scrutiny as though they're coming forward to report for some ulterior motive. They should be supported. And all the way through the investigation process, you know, they should be given much more support. And they should, you know, the focus of these investigations should very much be on suspects, not on the victims. And in finding ways in which to support and corroborate their evidence rather than that the whole case is based just on them. And, you know, and finding a way to try and undermine their credibility. Harriet Wistrich from the Centre for Women's Justice, thank you

very much indeed for giving us your insights today. Now it is a hundred days since many teenage girls in Afghanistan have been banned from going to school. The Taliban has been in control since August and American and British troops pulled out just days before. It's very difficult now to see those hard-won rights and opportunities for girls that have been accrued over decades slipping away. Yesterday, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is now a UN Special Envoy for Global Education, said we're sleepwalking towards the biggest humanitarian crisis

of our times in Afghanistan. The figures he gave were really shocking. 97% of people there, he said, would soon be too poor to fend for themselves. I'm just going to read you a few lines of what he wrote. He said, by standing aside, we have not just taken leave of the country. Historians will look back and ask if we've taken leave of our collective senses. Well, at Women's Hour, we've been keeping across the situation, particularly with what's happening to women and girls. And the BBC's Yalda Hakim joins me now. Yalda, welcome.

Thank you so much. It's about 100 days since teenage girls were prevented, many of them, from going to school. At the time, the Taliban said that that ban was temporary for the girls' own safety and they cited security reasons. Obviously, the fear is that it's permanent. What are your thoughts? Well, indeed, I mean, the Afghan people have a reference point, and that is the rule of the Taliban in the 90s, when they said that they were putting a de facto ban on girls' education and women going to work because of security concerns. Now, those security concerns lasted for the duration of the Taliban rule.

That was a total of five years. The big question has been for the last more than 100 days now, 104 days to be precise, why this ban on girls over the age of 12? Why when they put out the statement more than 100 days ago that all boys across the country could go to school and girls under the age of 12 could go to school. Why then this ban on teenage girls? And this really has been the concern of so many young girls, young women who are not just banned from school, but also public universities. Kabul University, for example, remains closed.

Girls and mostly women cannot go to work. So there are huge concerns. I was in Afghanistan about two weeks ago, and I traveled from Kabul down to Kandahar to Helmand, right across the board. There continues to be concern from women's groups, from civil society about the future of girls' education as well as women. This feels like such a regression. You know, we were told that this was a new, modern Taliban, and there is a real concern, as you say, that we're heading back to the dark days of the 90s when women and girls were basically moved to the fringes of society.

Are the Taliban actually saying anything about this? I mean, are they giving you any explanations? Well, I interviewed everyone from one of the leaders of the Haqqani Network. And you'll remember the infamous Haqqani Network were accused of being behind some of the huge, large scale attacks on civilians over the last 20 years. I also interviewed the spokesperson of the foreign ministry and also the international spokesperson of the Taliban. They continue to say that women have the right to work, girls have the right to education, and that this isn't a ban, but they just need to create the right conditions. Now, when you speak to women and girls, they say, what sort of conditions are they talking about? This was a country that remained the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Women and girls

were dressed appropriately with headscarves and conservatively in many parts of the country. So what is it that they talk about when they say that they want the conditions to be right? Now, having said that, in the last 100 days, we've also seen incredibly brave women create online learning facilities. They created schools within their homes so that girls wouldn't be denied. This is now a nation that's very, very different from the 90s. And we also continue to see demonstrations in the streets where women, young girls are staring down the barrel of a gun, demanding their rights from the Taliban authorities and the Taliban rulers. We also saw just two days ago the Ministry of Vice and Virtue put out a new edict saying that women cannot travel solo, alone, beyond 72 kilometers or two hours travel.

They need a male chaperone. So when you talk about the regression, these are the sorts of freedoms that we've seen in the last two decades. It hasn't been perfect. This still remains an incredibly conservative society where the women and girls have been pushed on the fringes, but they haven't vanished. And now there seems to be an attempt to completely lock away women and girls and make them disappear from actual society. I think the very fact that there is a ministry of vice and virtue will send a shiver down the spine of many of our listeners. It certainly does to me.

Gordon Brown talked yesterday about the scale of the humanitarian disaster that's unfolding in Afghanistan. Last night, I was talking to humanitarian disaster that's unfolding in Afghanistan. Last night, I was talking to an interpreter that I know in Kabul. He used to teach English to women and girls. He lost his job. He's also been targeted by the Taliban because he used to work for the Western military. So he's in hiding. I know his story is similar to many. But he messaged me last night and he wrote, I am embarrassed to say this, but it is true that I am nearly starving. How typical is this? I mean, this is this is an educated middle class man who was in Kabul. This isn't a farmer in a drought stricken province. What are you hearing from friends and contacts in Kabul?

Yeah, and I think this is what's been most devastating. When I was in Kabul just a few weeks ago, I mean, you see very educated middle class families. And we mustn't forget that in the last 20 years, 60% of the population have moved into urban areas. Most people rely on bank accounts and salaries to survive. This is no longer a society that's relying on food security from farmland. The salaries don't exist. I mean, I spoke to health workers, female health workers, and the one thing that the Taliban has done is allowed female health workers to continue to operate and function in the hospitals and the health facilities. I spoke to one woman in a Kabul hospital who told me, I live on top of a mountain. It's now winter and it's cold. It's freezing cold. So I slide down the bottom or

to the bottom of the mountain because of the snow. When I get down to the bottom, injured because she tumbles over several times, she cannot afford 11 cents to get the bus to work. When she gets to work, she says to me that she used to be fed at work, but she says now they can't even feed us our lunch. And I said to her, why do you continue to come? It's been three and a half months, four months that you continue to come to the workplace. And she said, if I don't come, these children that are suffering from malnutrition will die. The ventilators will stop. The hospital will be dirty.

And if we don't continue to clean it, the children will die. And just to give you a sense, the hospital beds, there were about 35 hospital beds in some of these hospitals in Kabul, in Kandahar, in Helmand. Children as many as 75 or 80 are in those hospitals. I saw mothers sleeping on the beds of the hospitals and on the floors because they're at capacity. So this idea that 97% of the population now are below the poverty line

or 23, 24 million people are suffering from famine, it is evident right across the board. You see hungry people not just suffering from malnutrition in hospitals, but on the streets. I mean, I was shocked. I've been reporting from that country for 15 years and I haven't seen the scale of hunger and poverty, which was so evident right from the youngest of victims, right through to the oldest of people, the most vulnerable of people everywhere, right across the board. People were suffering. Yalda Hakim, it's a grim picture. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us about it today. Well, still to come, we're going to be meeting a Pakistani disability activist who's

championing women and girls and working to change attitudes and lives. Abia Akram has been named one of the BBC's Women in 2021. Now, we've been talking to women about their scars. Ina Miller went to meet Laura, who's 29. She's a care worker from Caerphilly in South Wales and she's a burn survivor. She describes her scars. From my belly button down to my toes, I've always said that my scars look like scrumpled up tights.

They feel smooth and normal but not normal to look at. They've got lumps and bumps but it looks like you're wearing a corset and then your fatty bits then coming over the other side so when you say wearing a corset it just goes tight skin in yeah it's really tight on my hips because I've got the scars going around my hips as well though nobody's questioned it when I was wearing jeans but you can definitely notice it from the

outline of the jeans it does make me feel uncomfortable sometimes because you think people are going to notice because you are oddly shaped but yeah it does play on my mind sometimes if I'm going down to Cardiff shopping people will stare at you how did did it happen? When I was about one a non-member of my birth family put me in the bath and my birth mum came in and saw what happened she dialed nine and nine. So the bath was too hot? Yeah it was scalded in water it was really hot definitely for the baby skin. It happened at 9am and I got seen at two o'clock, which led into dehydration and also a bit of effect in the brain as well and the learning difficulties sometimes.

So it's not just, like, your physical appearance. How has it been dealt with? Well, I got removed from the situation from a birth family because that's another story for another day. So now I'm adopted with amazing parents. They've taught me from the start what's happened. Would you call it a scar? Would you call it a skin difference? What would you like to be labelled as?

Because people do like to label. I'd like to be labelled as a burn survivor because you're not a victim but you are a survivor of what happened in the accident and that you've come out stronger. And so what's it been like growing up with him? As a child, it's been hard because you get children who have been nasty and bullying. I remember this one lad and he said that I had zombie legs

and that basically I shoulddigwydd yn y bath. Rwy'n cofio ar ddiwrnod cyntaf o'r ysgol, roeddwn i'n gwneud yn ysgwrt. Roeddwn i'n gwneud ysgwrt gyda chyffyrdd uchel ac ychydig o'r llwythoedd anodd, fel y byddwch chi'n ei alw. little like club hoppers as you call them 15 16 i started wearing trousers so i just hide it all up and then you get you to your teenage stage and i went really quiet i didn't have the confidence to talk to people i had very close friends and that's the way i dealt with it i hid myself as well from the world and then about 18 21 i decided I'm me and this is what I should do. And what made you decide that? Because it just doesn't happen overnight, does it?

No. I had a lot of talks with people that I'm friends with, with this adult boons club and the children's boons club as well. And I heard a story from somebody else I thought my life's not that bad everybody accepted you for who you are and that was really nice because then you could show off your burns you can tell your stories you can encourage each other yeah because you mentioned that um the first time I think on Instagram you're one of your first posts were you all on a beach in swimsuits and you're like, this is my burns.

It was about eight of us in a row and with all different burns and all walks of life. And we thought, you know, we're going to post this because we're going to show people that we are brave and that it's all right to talk about your boons as well and open up to draw more people in and just try and live a normal life when you use the word normal life what do you mean by that like stop people asking you questions stop people staring at you stop like name calling as well and just stop people bringing up the past basically just just move forward and just get on with it now i'm getting older you just get the aches and the pains where you're on your feet all the time and the pressure on them your feet because my toes i've got amputation of toes so they sometimes get cold i get that cold feeling in them so we've got 10

toes how many are amputated and where um so I'm counting as I go along one two three four five six seven eight eight amputated and my two big toes are just burnt down. There's no nails on them whatsoever. They're like webbed, like a duck's webbed feet. I remember having an operation on them because I remember the doctor saying, well, my mum told me that the doctor said I wouldn't be able to walk again. And what they did was the first time they've ever done it on a human being in the UK was cut a little insurgent in my foot and put my own skin inside it from my top half to make my feet grow. Wow.

I know. It was pretty amazing. And then they put pins then on the top so it would straighten my feet out and my toes out a bit more as well so they're not curled or crumpled. I was reading forums about burn survivors and a lot of them say it wasn't the actual pain of what happened. They said the real pain is the recovery and therapy. Yeah, the recovery is the hardest.

If you had an operation on my knee, that was hard because then you had to get back into the physio of things, you had to get back to moving it. Sorry, that's my dog again. You decided that you wanted to help other people? Yeah, other people like family members because not just us go through the depression stage

or the mental health it's them as well my mum stayed with me all through my operations and she stayed by my side and that's hard as well I didn't blame my mum I took it out on my adoptive parents because I know it's not their fault and I think it was pretty hard for them as well because they couldn't do anything for me they couldn't understand it as well like the frustration they could see it in their eyes how did you take it out on them I don't want to sound like a nasty person I used to rebel like if I had an operation due up I would play up for like weeks and weeks I would try and have a paddy or try and be hyper and like trying to embarrass them or something and when I used to like change the dressings as well I would shout at them and taking out like my frustration out on them

and it wasn't fair if I was doing that to my parents what are other people going through as well with their children all you can do is be there for your child when they're going through so much stand by them support them and just make them feel like they're loved and don't maybe show like you're sad go for a coffee maybe talk to a friend talk to another family member or talk to another burn survivors parents because you're not the only one that's going through it so when we first met you sent me an email saying hello my name's laura and basically um told me a little bit about yourself and then with that email was attached a picture of you, you in a bathing suit.

I was in a beauty pageant. It was the first ever beauty pageant for people who've got differences and uniqueness. So we've had a few people who have the burns and the scars and then we've also had people who've got cleft palates, people in the wheelchairs, someone who had a feeding tube. So it's all walks of life. What I love about the picture is that you're in your bikini

with your sash, your hands on your hips, doing the sort of stand everyone likes to do with one leg on the front. Why was it so important for you to do that? I wanted young people to look up to me as a role model and think, she can do it, I can do it, I can get it out of my shell. The other thing I wanted to ask you, and it's actually quite a personal question,

but it was something I wanted to put to you, was that with all of this and you have a partner and growing up and, you know, you get to the age where you think, boys. Yeah. What happens when you get to the age where you think boys yeah what what happens when you get to that age of boys and um you have burn scars from the waist down how does that all work my first boyfriend was tricky because I'm oh tricky yeah tricky I thought I thought he said he's called Ricky okay that's fine tricky yeah it was hard trying to explain to him what it was like.

And he adapted to it. I was about 18 and we were talking on Facebook. And I was explaining it to him that I had burns. And he's like, what do you mean? So I took a photo and I sent it to him. And he was absolutely fine with it, to be honest with you. Were you nervous? I was nervous, but I wasn't because I was thinking, if he likes me honest with you were you nervous I was nervous but I

wasn't because I'm thinking if he likes me for me that's all I care about my partner that I'm with now explaining that to him was hard I was nervous when he first saw my scars as well he was a bit shocked and he thought how can somebody do this to a person? Do you ever forget about it? We do. He hasn't asked any questions since we met, and that was like three years ago. So it is all normal. Because my belly is so skin tight, I'm afraid to have kids because of it. That was more important for him as well, because he wants kids in the future.

And I was scared that I couldn't give it to him. And is that possible? It can be, but we'll have to wait and see. One day I'm hoping to have kids. One day, but at the moment I've got my dogs. I know, I've spent a lot of time with them. I can deal with my dogs. That was Laura talking to Anna Miller.

Well, sources of information and support are available on the Women's Hour website. Tomorrow, Emily explains what her self-harm scars mean to her. Now, you probably won't be surprised to know that we've had quite a reaction from the Ghislaine Maxwell verdict from you, really bringing up the wider issues that are involved. For example, Julia has texted in to say, I'm over 70 and we've come a long way in my lifetime. Years ago, the abuse of these teenage girls, as they were then, probably wouldn't have been considered a crime. Most people would have said it was consensual. Now we understand grooming. It's so easy for predatory adults to target young

girls who feel unwanted in their own families and offer them the love that's missing from their lives. Thank goodness this is now recognised. And another listener on Twitter has wrote to say, I think that we need to talk to women who don't speak out in these relationships. There's a hidden layer of female society that's codependent and abusive and hyper-sexual relationships, living in fear and self-loathing because men train them to behave in a sexually disoriented way. Thank you very much indeed for those views. You can, of course, get in touch with us by texting WOMEN'S HOUR on 84844

and it's at BBC WOMEN'S HOUR on social media. Now many of us will have had empty chairs at the Christmas table this year for lots of reasons. In Susie Boyt's seventh novel, Loved and Missed, which came out in the summer, there is a particularly memorable Christmas dinner scene. In order to see her daughter on Christmas Day, Ruth has to improvise.

Well, Susie Boyd joins me now. Susie, just explain how Ruth comes to be setting up her dinner on a park bench on Christmas Day. Well, I suppose she wants to make a lovely Christmas and is aware that a lovely Christmas isn't really wanted. And she gets her daughter to agree to go for a walk. And Ruth wants to go somewhere with a swans and a bandstand. But her daughter suggests just a little bit of almost a sort of glor a swans and a bandstand but her daughter suggests just a little bit of almost a sort of glorified traffic island by a side of a main road and they go there and Ruth lays a Christmas dinner out on a bench and she's made turkey

sandwiches that are still warm and cranberry sauce and and she brings a little stocking for her daughter and and um at this point it's set it's set in the 1970s, so there's also Turkish Delight, which I thought was a lovely touch. Yes, and so she sort of performs the idea of this lovely Christmas that means something to her but isn't really wanted. And so it's delivered and received with pain

and yet it still stands for something. It's a bit unclear exactly what, but that feeling of wanting to give something to someone who doesn't really want it and how sort of painful that can be at times. Let's just hear a reading from the end of the picnic. Of course, memories always changed a little each time you retrieved them.

Small and big adjustments to the proportions were necessary as they served your purpose or you served theirs. But it was such a hard day. We said our goodbyes. They were glazed with boredom now. Eleanor's head swivelled round when I made to kiss her, so all I got was a mouthful of hair. If people asked with not enough or too much tact,

did you get a chance to cross over with Eleanor during the break at all? At least I would be able to answer truthfully that, Mum, yes, tell you something, please. Gonna have a child, she said, a little girl. I saw a sudden brightness in her eyes and then I flung my arms around her. What do you need? What do you need? Susie, that's very poignant because Ruth does spring into action then, doesn't she? Tell me a little bit about the christening scene because that was really the starting point of this book, wasn't it? Yes.

The year my mother died, the of having christmas without her was completely intolerable so i decided to go to america to swerve the whole thing and on christmas eve we went to see la la land and when we came out we passed this big white building that had huge presents outside it and two banners one of which said um one of which said extreme empathy and the other said radical compassion. And I thought, gosh, and we walked in and it turned out it was a church and it was a church that specialised in welcoming people with mental health problems and particularly addiction. And a lot of the congregation were suffering from the effects of drugs and alcohol.

And a woman standing next to me was nodding in and out of consciousness. And there were three tiny girls in flamenco dresses with a lot of red frills of drugs and alcohol and a woman standing next to me was nodding in and out of consciousness and there were three tiny girls in flamenco dresses with a lot of red frills right next to a big bank of candles and so my inner fireman sam was really activated and then the when the priest gave the sermon it was all about grief which was very very powerful so there was a sense of this occasion that was filled with threat and peril, but also tremendous consolation. And when I got back to London, I wrote the christening scene in the novel as a short story. And then that sort of all grew from there. It ends up that Ruth actually brings up the granddaughter, her granddaughter. We've talked a lot on Woman's Hour about kinship care,

when family members bring up a child that, for whatever reasons, can't be with their parents. What does the arrival of her granddaughter, Lily, mean to Ruth? Well, I suppose I've always been interested in all the different ways of being a family and that two sisters with no other relatives can be a family and that a grandmother and a baby might be almost a couple and I wanted to create a baby that was really really spectacular a lot of there's a lot of talk about babies being the last straw and ruining your sleep and hemming in your plans but but life with babies when it's at its best when

you're sort of almost in a swoon at their hot little limbs or the feel of their curls on the side of your arm. I wanted to bring some of that in and the side of babies that can be almost ecstatic at the sight of a cotton reel or a mushroom and that kind of thing, that that's a very powerful thing to be around and it's very powerful for the Ruth character

who doesn't find life the easiest but really gets a lot, receives a lot from the child who does seem to know how to live life. There's an interesting thing isn't there about children being brought up by grandparents. Billy Connolly writes about it. He calls them granny's boys. He's very funny about it as obviously he naturally is and in fact he was a granny's boy himself it's that idea that children who are brought up by their grandparents are slightly set apart they have a slightly different upbringing definitely and about granny's boys they always say that they have the neatest hair and the whitest shirts but I think if even if you meet a seven-year-old now who knows

tons about flowers and birds there's a big chance they'll spend a lot of time with their grandparents. And I like that thing of the sort of generational mix-up, that a child might know the songs, instead of knowing the songs from the 90s and the 70s, might know songs from the 50s and the 30s, and that suddenly they're a little bit out of step. And often they'll hold on to sort of values of kindness and courtesy that might not be so in fashion nowadays. Ruth's daughter, Eleanor, is an addict. That's the reason that she can't bring up her own child,

really. You don't write much about her journey from being a bright, loving child, we know she was one, into the desperate woman that she now becomes. Why did you not write about that? Well, I wanted to keep all that at the edge of the story, really, because it's about it's about the the grandmother and the baby living with this chronic condition going on in the background and finding all the creative solutions they can to it. And all my books are a bit about how we bear the things we can't bear. I think addiction as a subject is surprisingly oddly undramatic. If you think of the people you know who've really struggled with drugs and alcohol, often it's the least interesting things about them. It's the bits of who they really are that are peeping through that catch your imagination and that you want to make the most of.

And the other side does seem less interesting. It was funny, about 12 years ago, I wrote a memoir that was partly about me and partly about Judy Garland. And it was completely clear that the drug taking side of Judy Garland was way less interesting than anything else about her at all. The other thing that comes through in this book is that it's really about love, all different types of love, unconditional love, that kind of knotty love that's difficult and people who are hard to love. It is clearly something you're very interested in. Yes, and the idea that people may not seem to have earned our love, but they still deserve it. And I wanted to be very respectful to all the characters in the book. And obviously, any book that's written in the first person, you're very aware of all the other books that might be hovering in the air.

Eleanor's story, for example, we never hear and her version of events would be completely different. There's quite a lot in the book about how feelings of shame stop us from full disclosure and prevent us from being completely honest. And that's the sort of theme in the book. The other theme is friendship, old friendships between women. And what happens as well when trouble comes to those friendships? Ruth's friends want very badly to help her, which I'm sure we've all been there, but they don't always do the right thing.

No, I'm very interested in the sort of cadence of friendship, what it can run to, how elastic it can be, how sometimes our friends can seem to do almost more than our family would be able to and how they can utterly save the day on a Monday and on Tuesday drive us completely mad. So I wanted to have that in. There is one friendship in the book that grows throughout the book

and by the end of it sort of takes on enormous levels of responsibility and yet still isn't immune to petty jealousies and things that shouldn't quite happen and things that have to be ignored and that cause eyes to roll when maybe there should have been more courtesy. And so I'm very interested in the rhythm of friendship. You said in an interview that you're very Freudian in your approach to writing. And I know that's appropriate enough as you're the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud. But what did you mean by that?

Well, I suppose whenever I create a character, I'm very aware of how that character would have been brought up, how their parents would have been brought up, sort of going back and back and back and how the children sort of build the adults in the book. And so I suppose I'm always, there'll be a lot of history of the family that will be in the back of my mind that won't actually make it onto the page. You could be forgiven for thinking that this book is bleak and at times when I was reading it over Christmas it did seem quite harrowing. But there's a lot of humour in it too,

in the way that Ruth views the world. I mean, she's constantly giving it the side eye, if you like, isn't she? Yes, she is. She's both deeply impressed and rather unimpressed with life and her best friend Jean is extremely sardonic, to put it mildly. There's quite a nice bit where Ruth has to go to a lot of funerals in a row, which is pretty overwhelming. And Jean, her friend, says, well, at least they're not as bad as weddings because the damage is already done.

I remember that. Susie, thank you very much. Susie Boyd's book, Loved and Missed, was out in the summer and the paperback will be available in the new year. Now, Abiyah Akram is a Pakistani disability rights activist. She's the founder of the National Forum of Women with Disabilities in Pakistan and a leading figure within the disability rights movement in the country,

as well as in Asia and the Pacific. And she's now been named one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2021. She joins me now. Abiy, you're welcome. Can you tell me a little bit about your upbringing and what it was that made you want to become a disabilities rights campaigner? Thank you so much thank you i think like from our perspective disability is just a different lifestyle and how we are bringing that like obviously it was

difficult and challenging when i started the work because most of the women like i would say we were focusing on the clarity or the medical-based approach that people will not recognize as the human being. So for that, like I just started the work in the disability sector since 1997. And I thought like, I'm not the only one in this world who are facing the discrimination and the challenges because of my disability, because of the background and all. But it's really important to see like there are 1 billion people with disabilities around the world.

And 50% of them are women and girls with disability. And more than 80% they were living in the global south who were facing all the challenges and the discrimination in their lives. And they were like struggling for the basic health, education, employment opportunities. And during the disaster response, like recently in the COVID response, we have witnessed like women with disabilities are the first one who are facing the gender-based violence, sexual harassment. And they were like completely ignored by the family members. And people were praying that our daughters die before we die because nobody is going to take care of them.

And they don't have the support mechanism by the state, by the government or the locally organizations are not supporting them so how we can protect the rights of women and girls with disabilities i just like your question like i would say it's uh support and also the acknowledgement and i owe a lot from other women with disabilities from their everyday experiences has given me that power to work on the rights of women with disability. And collectively with Sightsavers, we are working to make that more visible, visibility of the persons with disability in the overall development and how we can make their voices more visible and they can be included in the overall development. Abiy, your background, you were actually able to get a mainstream education, which I gather

is something that is very often not available to disabled women or disabled anyone who's got disabilities in Pakistan. Well, it was your family who were very keen for you to have a mainstream education. Yeah, I was really lucky because my parents were really like thinking the only thing I can achieve if I am educated, then I can face this world and then I can fight for my rights. Because this, like people are not going to give you the opportunity to talk or be engaged because they have the mindset like disability on one hand is a punishment from God so you are not able to talk to the people and on the other extreme people

thought like I'm very close to the world so in both extremes they exclude you from the society but my parents were saying like you have to go for the studies and they have given me the opportunities and all the support and very luckily I'm the first woman with disability from Pakistan who got the Shifting Scholarship to study in the University of Warwick and that given me the real vision of bringing the change in the practical lives of women and girls with disability and how we can you know educate them about their rights and they can be more like engaged in the mainstream and we also thought like this is really important on the eye health on their dignified life and overall development they can contribute that was the collective efforts of the decades we work very closely with the

government of pakistan and we like made the the first ever disability rights legislation in pakistan because we thought that's the only way if you have the legislation with the teeth so we can bite in with the service providers and we can ask them like although only these rights but the implementation part is really important we have the UN convention on the rights of person with disability the sustainableals. And in all these references, it's important that we can turn that into the practical knowledge and how people with disabilities themselves can get the meaningful participation and they can talk about their voice and be engaged in all the platforms.

Abhi, you mentioned that you went to university on a scholarship into the UK. Did you notice a big difference in the way that you were treated in the UK as compared to Pakistan? Yeah, that was like a huge difference because they have the infrastructural accessibility for persons with disability. I can go anywhere with my dignity.

When I landed in the airport, then four people have to carry me down from the plane because then there is no accessibility over there. So that's the main thing, like how you're enabling the environment for persons with disabilities. Now we are talking with the government, like very luckily with the sitesavers,

with different government, like very luckily with the side savers, with different stakeholders, we will manage to get the first ever like accessibility audit of the Parliament House. We translated the constitution of Pakistan in the Braille so people can get that understanding. You've made real achievements, you know, you've really made concrete achievements both with translating the packet the the constitution into braille also you're working to get the uh a census to actually count people with disabilities what difference will that make yes that will make a huge huge difference because now we are not the counted population of the country people don't know during the disasters any like situation they are not making of a plan because they don't know during the disasters, any like situation they are not making of a plan because they thought we are not the counted people. It's only 10 to 15%, but in Pakistan, it's only 0.1. So it's very important to do a complete like census and

include the persons with disabilities there. Abiy Akram, thank you very much indeed for sharing that with us. And that's all we've got time for today. Thank you very much for your company. Hope you can join us the same time tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.