Woman's Hour - Israel-Gaza conflict: Bereaved parents across the divide, musician Esther Abrami, Emily Hunt, Is the future of the Labour Party

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

After the Hamas attacks at the weekend and Israel’s order of a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip in response, we talk to two people from the different communities involved. A few years ago, Bassam Aramin lost his 10-year-old daughter, Abir, who was killed by an Israeli soldier, and Robi Damelin lost her 28 year old son, David, after he was killed by a Palestinian sniper. Neither were killed in this latest stage of the Israel-Gaza conflict but as members of a cross-community group called the Parents Circle-Families Forum, they’re uniquely placed to comment on the situation.Esther Abrami was handpicked by Julian Lloyd Webber as one of 30 under 30 to watch, and she is the first classical musician to win the ‘Social Media Superstar’ category at the Global Awards. With more than 400,000 followers on TikTok, Esther joins Emma Barnett to discuss her new album, Cinema, and to perform live in the studio.Women dominated headlines at the Conservative Party conference last week. But is the future of the Labour Party female? Rachel Cunliffe, Associate Political Editor at the New Statesman, and Alice Thomson, columnist and interview at The Times, bring us the latest news from Liverpool.The Government’s official independent rape advisor Emily Hunt has decided to walk away from her role. She advised the government in the run-up to the landmark 2021 End-to-End Rape Review - which has successfully increased the number of rape cases getting to court to pre-2016 levels. But she has said that her own experiences within the justice system as an abuse victim have left her feeling unsafe. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Tim Heffer and Gayl Gordon

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to today's programme. Shortly you will hear from our woman in the field, the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, who's in Jerusalem covering the Israel-Gaza conflict, as we hear a female hostage swap could be in the offing. More on that in a moment. To Liverpool for the Labour Party conference. We'll bring you

the latest on His Majesty's opposition ahead of Sakhir Starmer's speech this afternoon. A government in waiting? Last week, we reported on a new poll showing more female support for Labour than the Conservatives. But what does the Labour leader have to say today? And what do those around him have to say at this conference to get your vote? Do you trust him and his party to be the party of government? That's really the big question under the surface, not far from the surface and very much on the top of mind of Keir Starmer and his team around him as he gets ready to take to that podium this afternoon.

We talked about last week that the poll showing more female support, certainly at this stage and what are people actually happy to say publicly. There's always a difference sometimes between when pollsters ask the question and what people do in the ballot box. I'm well aware of that. But with a gap opening up between female and male support for the conservatives and labor i'd love to take the opportunity this morning like we did last week with the conservatives at the particular conference ahead of rishi sunak's speech to get your view ahead

of kirsten as text me here 84844 what does kirsten have to say today what does the party have to say today? What does the party have to do to win your support? On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour, or send a WhatsApp message on 03700 100 444. Perhaps you've always been a voter and you've gone away recently, or perhaps you're coming back, or perhaps you will never, ever go over that way. Why not? Is there anything that could be said? Let me know. I should also say, we will have some music on today's programme from the violinist Esther Abrami. So do listen out for that as well. And it'd be some beautiful music to take your mind to a different place, perhaps, and hear some of the stories behind those songs. But first to the story still dominating the headlines, the conflict in Israel and Gaza. This morning, we hear a female hostage swap could be in the offing.

Do that in just a moment. But for now, Israel says it has secured its border with Gaza. This follows Hamas militants breaking through the barrier on Saturday and launching an assault which we now know has left more than 900 people dead, with more than 260 people massacred at a music festival attended by mainly young people. There's a particularly harrowing video on the BBC which shows a female festival goer

named as Noah Agamani being kidnapped on a motorbike while attempting to flee. In response, Israel has launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian authorities say over 700 people have been killed. The UN's children agency, UNICEF, is calling for a humanitarian corridor in and out of Gaza, as Israel has cut supplies of fuel, electricity and water. In a moment, you'll hear from two parents who have both lost children in the ongoing dispute between the two sides. Yesterday, you may recall, if you were with me then, I spoke to Noam Saggi, the son of a 74-year-old Israeli grandmother who is believed by her family to have been kidnapped from her home.

I should say, as soon as we have an update on that story, many of you have been in touch to express your concern. We will bring it to you. For now, though, I can speak to the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lise Doucette, who's in Jerusalem. Lise, first of all, good morning. How are you, where are you and what is the atmosphere like? Good morning Emma, good morning to all your loyal Women's Hour listeners. You mentioned in your introductory remarks how you're going to take

them to places and how we wish, how we all wish that we didn't have to take anyone to a place, this place, Israel and the Gaza Strip. Israel now saying that it is the darkest day in its history, the biggest loss of life in a single day. It's gone past the terrible record of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. And as you mentioned, the hostages, never has Israel seen so many hostages taken, more than 100, possibly as many as 150. And as you said, anywhere from 18-month-olds to grandmothers. And for the people in the Gaza Strip, we heard from our correspondent there, Rushdi Abu Alouf,

who is there with his family and saying the children were screaming all night and in his 20 years of reporting on the Gaza Strip, and that means reporting many wars, he's never been through the toughest of nights. And as tough as it is now, as dark as it is, Israelis and Palestinians know, they know in their heart of hearts, that it's going to get darker still. The role that women are playing in this and in terms of the involvement, if I can put it like that, in the conflict, what can you say of that? Well, there are women everywhere. This is a measure of the time in which we live. Take Israel, which says its armed forces are a people's army. Everyone serves with men and women. It is a rite of passage among the now approaching 350,000

reservists who've been called up. There are women amongst them. When I came back to Jerusalem, I lived in Jerusalem from Jerusalem and Jordan between 94 and 99, as a Middle East correspondent here, and then kept coming back. And I saw, you know, the person who's our administrative assistant, and I remember her getting married, and then her daughters were born. And now I see her daughters, and they've gone to university, they've been through their military service. And I said, you know, every generation of Israelis dares to hope that their children will not have to do their military service during a war. And I said, my goodness, your two daughters finished their military service and they're safe. And both of them said, but our boyfriends have just been called up.

And then an hour later, one of them was called up to do night duty. So everyone feels very much involved. Of course, it's a different situation in the Gaza Strip, but in a place where the bombardment is so intense night and day, the bombs don't discriminate between men, women and children. Everyone is on the run. And Israel says it's hitting, last night it said, 2,400 Hamas targets. But in what's described as one of the most densely populated areas on earth, every target is right next to a residential building, a home, a street where families live,

where families are now living in fear. I mentioned the potential of a hostage swap. You talked about numbers are still being confirmed, but more than 100 is where it seems to be at the moment, from what you've just said, at the number of hostages. And the news agency Reuters is reporting that the country of Qatar is hoping to facilitate a female hostage swap. What do we know about that? Well, everyone wants to be seen to be doing something now, even though there's more of a collective wringing of hands, knowing that the intensity of this conflict, unprecedented as everyone is saying, that it's going to be very, very hard to get either side to pull back from the brink. Most of all, Israel, who has formally declared war, for the first time since 1973, and is vowing to make Hamas pay, given the shock, the enormity of what has happened in Israel. Qatar is one of the countries watching this closely.

It has long played a pivotal role in this region. It's where many of the Hamas political leaders are based, including the main leader, Ismail Haniyeh. And it also wants to cultivate strong ties with the United States. It played a role in negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan. I was recently in Doha, where Doha played a role in releasing American prisoners held in Iran. And now it seems they are trying to help on this front. We see in wars, Emma, when the lines are so starkly drawn and drawn in blood, that mediators look for, let us say, the soft underbelly to build confidence. That could be through humanitarian corridors, that's being called for, to help the innocent, to help those who are most vulnerable,

and of course to help the women and children. You remember back to the First and Second World War, women and children first, get them to safety. And so Qatar and others are focusing on the women and children. We don't know how many, but there are women and children. And as I mentioned, children as young as 18 months old. Among the hostages who have been taken, you can't bear to imagine what their conditions are like for them, and a possible release for 36 Palestinian women and children who are held in Israeli prisons

and no doubt experiencing desperate circumstances there. We don't have a lot of details on that. But, of course, it is early days, and there was a report on the Reuters news agency saying that there's been no confirmation from Israel, but I think it is early days, and there was a report on the Reuters news agency saying that there's been no confirmation from Israel. But I think it is looking everywhere to find a way to start rescuing the hostages who we understand are scattered across the Gaza Strip, some held by Hamas, some held by the even more militant group Islamic Jihad, and doing that because they want to use them as bargaining chips. But let us hope against hope that this could be a small crack

in trying to ease the suffering of yet again women and children caught up in war. I mean, during the Syrian war, I started saying that women and children are not just close to the front line. They are the front line, targeted, tortured, and traumatized in wars of our time, which aren't fought in the trenches, they are fought and we're seeing again street to street and town to town, house to house, bedroom to bedroom.

You mentioned there the humanitarian corridor, the call for that and it is the UN's children agency, UNICEF, who's calling for a corridor in and out of Gaza as Israel has cut supplies of fuel, electricity and water. Thinking about the displacement of women in Gaza in particular and the women and children you just

talked about, how likely is that? Is there any update on that? And again in wars, some of our listeners may remember in the Ukraine war, in the first days of the war there, another punishing war, that there were calls for a humanitarian corridor. But what happens is that it's even hard to have a window open for humanitarian aid, much less a corridor, because the aid agencies there, people based in Gaza, are under attack themselves. I'm sure our listeners have heard on other BBC programs, they even have heard on Women's Hour, some of the representatives of aid agencies, including the United Nations,

saying that their officers have come under attack, that they're sheltering with their children. And also there's a complete siege that's been ordered by Israel on Gaza. Everything is closed. You can, the electricity is cut off, the water supply, the fuel, the food. And for people even to get out to get food, it's they're running the gauntlets because of the bombardment, because the roads are not safe. The roads are scattered with glass and shrapnel.

Buildings have collapsed and they're very unstable. So I think it is important for these calls to be made and to remind everyone, and that's what the UN is doing, right from the UN Secretary General to the heads of the agencies, that even in war, as messy and ugly and brutal as it is, even there, there are rules. But so many rules, Emma, have already been breaking and what is now, now we're in the fourth day of this war

and the fighters are not thinking about the rules of war and humanitarian principles. This is an all out war. Lise Doucette, the BBC's chief international correspondent in Jerusalem there. Thank you very much for talking to us and putting us in the picture. Well, listening to that are two people who have personally experienced loss in this part of the world. Robbie Damelin lost her 28-year-old son David after he was killed by a Palestinian sniper in 2002. Bassam Aramin lost his 10-year-old daughter Abir, who was killed by an Israeli soldier in 2007. As members of a cross-community group called the Parents Circle Families Forum, they're uniquely placed to comment on the current situation and have grown close to each other over the Forum. They're uniquely placed to comment on the current situation

and have grown close to each other over the years. They join me now on the line. I should say, Bassem, you're no longer in Gaza. You're in the West Bank. Robbie, you're in Jaffa. And as I say, you've known each other for many years. And despite your histories, you count each other, I understand, as family. Thank you very much for being with us today on Woman's Hour.

Robbie, if I may start with you, I just wanted to get your response to how things are today. Good morning. I think good morning and thank you for inviting us. It's not so often that the media listen to voices like Basam and I. This is probably the saddest period that I have experienced in Israel and in Palestine. And when we talk about women, consider what it's like for a Palestinian woman now to run away with no shelter, with her children. Consider what it's like for a mother who lives in Sderot who might have

one child that's in a wheelchair and two others and has 15 seconds to get to the shelter. I'm thinking of my friend Vivian Silver, who's one of the hostages. She's my age. Both of us have been working for peace for 20 years. She lived in Kibbutz Be'eri. I just hope that she will come back because I cannot imagine somebody who has done so much work for peace being held hostage. So what can we do? We have to go on with the work that we do. The Parents Circle condemns all violence.

We also have to remember why people become violent and how traumatic is it for these generations of kids that attack the kibbutzim and for their children and for their children, and for the children of settlers who are, in my opinion, abused as well, and therefore they abuse others. So we cannot look at this situation. I can't remember the pain that I feel now by watching what is happening and by listening to the stories. And I know what the families of all those 260 kids who were at the music festival are going to feel like now. How can we support them? How can we get them to understand that there is of emotion and experience as well i want to come back to a couple of things you raised but let me welcome basam basam good morning i wanted to give

you the same opportunity to to say how how you are this morning in light of what's happened oh i'm so sorry basam i think we've got a slight issue with perhaps your line being muted i'm just making sure i can hear you. Bassem, good morning. Sorry, I think we aren't hearing you, Bassem. Are you able to push unmute on your screen? Perhaps that's the issue or maybe it's our side. Yes, you're unmuted now. But the line, Bassem, good morning. I don't know why that's not coming through. We will come back to you. Can you hear me now? Yes, Bassem, I'm so sorry. Hello.

Good morning. What were you just going to say? Good morning. Yeah, I said, you know, we are not both sides, me and Roby are on the same side. We are not here to compare who's been bigger. If you talk about one Israeli child, I will talk about 100 Palestinian child. But the result, we are dying.

We didn't talk about the big elephant in the room. We need to treat the roots of this conflict. Unfortunately, we will wait for another wave and another wave. We know in advance people will die. You cannot expect, as always my dear Roby said, to occupy another people for many years and don't expect this will come back to you. The question was when will this come back?

So I believe, as Roby said, we cannot keep silent. We need to raise up our voice to stop this madness. No one will win. The only winners are the graves and the weapons sellers. We need to understand that both of us have the right to exist and have the right to live in peace and security and prosperity and social justice. But we cannot live like this. We have many dark days in our history, and this must be stopped.

Robert, do you have, with the work that you've done together, you and Bassam, do you have faith that this could change in your lifetime? Where are you now in light of what's happened in the last four days? Oh, this is a tremendous blow because I think so many people will have to go through this mourning period. And, you know, it never goes away. So either you can use this terrible pain to try to prevent other families from experiencing it, or maybe you will look for revenge. But I, you know, the other night we had a meeting on Zoom of the Palestinian and Israeli

members of our staff. It was unbelievably painful because each person sees mainly what is happening through the mirror of their media. And so it's like a parallel world. But I do know from experience and from even the hardest of hearts, when they hear a story, a usual personal story of loss, they cannot not be moved. And this is our weapon. That's how you have moved forward yourself.

And Bassem, that was very important to you, wasn't it? Dialogue with people. Of course, dialogue is not the target. Dialogue is a tool to know each other and to discover the humanity in each other. But basically, we need to respect each other to understand that we have the right to exist you need to understand is your enemy is exactly like you we have the right to live without oppression without discrimination without uh humiliation so this is exactly why we start with dialogue as a tool to work with each other.

This is what Nelson Mandela says. If you want to make peace with your enemy, you need to work with your enemy, not only to talk. And then your enemy become your partner. So we need to move beyond dialogue to act against our common enemy. This is the occupation which creates hatred and revenge and brutality. We need to stop it so we can talk. We can talk about reconciliation, we can talk about coexistence together, but there is no reconciliation under the occupation, unfortunately. It will end one day very soon, but how how much blood we need to sign the same agreement the world need to raise up their voice for us for both of us robbie do you in terms of where you think this this will go now and and how you say there'll

need to be time to heal i mean mean, how do you see this playing out and how are the conversations around you? You know, it's very difficult to know what is going to happen. I'm supposed to be going on a speaking tour to America next week. I don't even know if there will be a plane to take me there and if my Palestinian partner, who actually is a Palestinian wonderful woman who lost her baby, who lives in a village near Bethlehem,

actually rockets fell near her house. I just wanted to mention, as this is Women's Hour, in the parent circle we have a very, very powerful women's group because it's time for women to come to the table. We cannot allow decisions. Look at who is making decisions and the fate that we face because of that. Who are the people that suffer the most, women and children? Do you know that in the last war, 68 Palestinian children were killed? And does anybody remember their name?

I doubt it. Bassem, with the conversations that you're having and also the experiences that you know of the people around you, you know, how are those conversations now? And, you know, even looking just a few days ahead with Robbie saying what she's saying there about she doesn't know what next week will be like. We know in advance it will end with thousands of more bereaved families from both sides.

You know, the people say that we live under these conditions for decades. It doesn't say that anyone will win. And really, we don't know how it will end. But we know that as long as we didn't talk about the elephant in the room, the Israeli occupation, it will continue again and again and again. Israel now said they secure their borders. It's temporary. They tried to secure it 75 years. And Einstein said to do the same thing again and again and to expect another result. It's a stupidity because you try it again for decades.

Mr. Netanyahu asked the Palestinians, the civilians, to run away from Gaza. And he knows it's the biggest jail on earth. They have no place to run. They cut the water supplies, food, 2 million people. It's a war crime. And the Minister of Defense describes them as human animals. It's a call to commit it for a crime.

Unfortunately, they need to understand that it will not, the Israelis will never feel safe as long as the people of the Palestinians never feel free and safe. Bassem Aramon, thank you to you. Just to give you a

chance to respond to that, Robbie, there's, of course, in this particular incident, there's the actions of Hamas and what happened in terms of over the weekend, the massacre at the concert and also the assault and the hostage taking.

What would you say to what Bassam just had to say? Look, I think about the children who grew up in Gaza. This is hard for me to say because I am so in pain from what's happened in Israel. But I think about the people that came into the Kibbutzim. They have grown up in a country, in a place, not a country, in a place where they have no freedom of movement, where they have been exposed to bombs, where they have been exposed to bombs,

where they grew up with hatred. What did we expect? I know that it's difficult for people to hear and it's difficult for me to say, but we have to look at what is causing this. We have to look at the settlers that went and burnt a village in Khuwara in the West Bank and there are no consequences for that. We have to understand that the violence must stop. Otherwise, what Bassam always says is we will share this place with graves. Robbie Damelin, thank you to you.

To remind you, Robbie and Bassam are members of something called a cross-community group called the Parents Circle at the Families Forum. Robbie lost her 28-year-old son, David, after he was killed by a Palestinian sniper in 2002. And Bassam Aramin lost his 10-year-old daughter, Abir, who was killed by an Israeli soldier in 2007. Now, I asked you last week on the programme on Woman's Hour about the politics of this country in terms of women dominating the headlines at the Conservative Party conference. The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, the Business Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, and the former Prime Minister, Liz Truss, each had the party activists excited in different ways and perhaps different levels of excitement in different parts of the party. Well, this week it is the turn of the Labour Party to host its conference and Sakhir Starmer is giving his speech this afternoon. But the main speech yesterday came from Rachel Reeves, who, if Labour were successful, the woman who may become Britain's first female Chancellor.

Joining me from the conference in Liverpool, Rachel Cunliffe, Associate Political Editor at The New Statesman, and Alice Thompson, columnist and interviewer at The Times. And I should say, while we've been on air, you've already been in touch to say what you want to hear from Keir Starmer, what you would say to Keir Starmer ahead of that speech, and what he would have to do to get your vote. So let me come to those messages shortly. But if you'd like to get involved and say what you want to hear, what you need to hear, maybe there's nothing that can be said. The number is 84844. That's the number you need to text to get in touch. But Alice, I'll start with you. I believe you were in Liverpool yesterday and you heard Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor. How was that? And give us a sense of the conference from your perspective. Well, Rachel had a huge audience, which is probably the first time she's had something like that

and a massive applause. But all she had to do is sound confident. What was interesting is she was definitely channeling Margaret Thatcher. So there was quite a lot of the Iron Lady and being strong and being tough. And I think that's what she sees she has to be. What she's trying to say is we're not going to spend too much. You can trust me. I'm confident and I'm efficient. And I think she very much got that across. She did have some women's issues. She did.

She talked about equal pay, which is very important to the Red Wall voters. So she did address that. But I think what she realised is that women are worried about things like the cost of living, education, health. And so she was very much trying to reassure them that Labour were going to be much better on that than the Tories. And the big deal about being a first female chancellor, does that matter? Does it matter the sex of leadership, do you think, in the Labour Party, Alice? I increasingly am not sure it does, actually, because the Tories have had two prime ministers who are female and they've got a lot of women at the top. But actually, when you look at the polling, they've had three. You've forgotten the top. But actually, when you look at the polling, the women are voting for it. They've had three.

You've forgotten one. Liz Truss, Theresa May. Yes. But yes, carry on. They've done so much better than Labour, but women voters aren't actually voting for them, which is rather, I mean, it's surprising in some ways, but it shows that women don't really care that much

about the gender at the top. What they care about is the policies. Yes. And Rachel, good morning. Welcome to the programme. Good morning. I know you've been there and you're still there. Angela Rayner, we should also say, had her moment in the spotlight on Sunday. Remind us about Angela, the role. She's had many roles and actually quite long titles at times, I believe, in some of those job titles.

But what's she talking about and how was the response there? They keep adding things to her job description don't they? Angela Rayner I think has had a really interesting journey as deputy leader to Keir Starmer. At the beginning she was considered perhaps too close to the unions a little bit of a liability if Starmer wanted to win from the centre ground and she sort of had this transformation she is still very much Angela Rayner, very, very straight talking, but she's kind of learnt how to channel that

in a really effective, emotional way. She obviously got to open the conference and it was packed out as well for her speech. And she was very, very funny. It was one of the speeches of all of them that just had the most laughs in it. Very, very good at kind of cutting through and taking the Tories to task,

not in a way that would get her criticised for the language that she's using, which would have been the case a couple of years ago, but in a way that kind of cuts through the political waffle. And I think she's become a very effective balancing act for Keir Starmer, who is still considered a bit cautious, a bit safe, possibly even a bit bland. What do you make of that, Alice, in terms of Keir Starmer, as we look ahead now to what he has to do to get people on side? I think angela's very good at that because if you look at what people say about care nothing is the main word they say so they don't know him that well

whereas angela is a personality i saw with two espresso martinis on sunday night which i thought was quite impressive one in each hand i mean she knows how to party and she also knows how to go for it and she's not afraid which is very important and i think as a woman that's really useful particularly in parliament so um i think she is a massive asset, actually. And Rachel's very dissimilar from her in many ways. I mean, you know, she's a chess champion. She's a strategist. She thinks very hard first. But they're interesting and they are very much at the top of their game. So I think they're going to do very well. And I think it's not a women's issue as much as how good are they now. Yes. Well, just on that point, Alison, I'll come back to you, Rachel. Some of the messages, if I was to summarise what's being asked to be heard today from Keir Starmer and more generally from the Labour Party.

For instance, there's one here from Alison. Good morning to you, Alison. He says, please support single mothers with preschool children. The realistic option to work is very limited. The combination of poor quality nursery places, high fees for nursery care and the limitations placed on women in terms of limited part-time availability to work relegates them to staying at home and putting their careers and futures on hold. Alison says, I will

vote Labour at the next election. I just hope Mr Starmer will move things up for women, mothers and children. And then there's other messages around green issues, around our future, around the economy, which is what we've just talked about, potentially with Rachel Reeves. But what do you make of that, Alice?

So, I mean, what I find fascinating with women is that you can see that sort of education and health are at the top, as is cost of living. Whereas with men, it still is issues like defence, immigration, they're much more pro the culture wars. And so I think actually Labour are probably quite sensible what they've gone for. It still is issues like defence, immigration. They're much more pro the culture wars. And so I think actually Labour are probably quite sensible what they've gone for. What I do think we do need to do more of is childcare.

And I think also getting houses. And I think Keir Starmer is going to address the housing issue, which is huge. But that sense that women aren't even starting to have a family. And that's not just a female issue. It's a male-female issue too. I mean, I think it's that younger generation that feel they've been left behind and left out. And I think both parties need to address them and childcare and housing should be their main issues. Rachel, what do you make of that? I think childcare is a really important subject for both of the parties. And it's definitely something that Labour were hoping to lead on a year ago. Bridget Philipson, the Shadow Education Secretary,

had this plan for universal childcare provision. And essentially it got nicked by Jeremy Hunt and the Conservatives in the spring budget. And I know that some in Labour were a bit thrown by that because that was going to be a key part of their offering to women and to families. So I think that they're still working on what they're going to do to differentiate themselves from the Tories on that front. But yeah, housing is a really, really key one and will be the centrepiece of, one of the centrepieces of Keir Starmer's speech today. And I was speaking on a panel on housing yesterday, there's been lots of talk on housing,

on lots of fringe events. And there is real enthusiasm and interest from the business community, from stakeholders in the housing sector, from house builders to charities to NGOs to policy wonks. All of them are looking very carefully at Labour's plans and they are interested in them in contrast to last week in Manchester where there were lots of people who were very interested in housing and they were very disappointed that they didn't hear anything about it really from either the Chancellor or the Prime Minister. It was meant to be, the Conservative Party conference was meant to be looking ahead

long-term decisions for a brighter future and from the top at least housing barely got mentioned and housing is a is an issue that impacts everyone whether you're talking about labour markets or people starting a family or social mobility it is absolutely core to rebuilding this country so you're hearing a lot about it here at the Labour Party conference that you didn't hear last week at the Conservative Party conference. It's also key isn't it Rachel thank you for that Alice it's key because of which party makes the younger generations feel like they've got a future and they can have a stake in it. So we hear about that phrase, which is terribly unsexy, but intergenerational fairness. But the idea of what it will be like to be older in this country, a bit older and what you could do or can't do with your salary and how to work hard? And who's going to capture that, Labour or Conservative? I think if you look at the polls at the moment, that women are definitely veering towards Labour. But when you look at the young, I mean, either they're not going to vote, or they are Labour, but they I think they've been completely ignored, actually. So what they do is,

if anything, there's a sort of nanny kind of status and where it's all about, you've got to stop smoking, that, you know, there's a whole sort of issue around, you know, you have to do maths A level, that, you know, you need to brush your teeth at school. And they are actually good issues for mothers, I think, and fathers and sort of parental issues. But for the young, they don't feel they're invested in this in any way at all, I think. I think they've been left out of the political conversation. And I think that is deeply unfair for them. I think there is this intergenerational strife now, and we need to bring it more together. If I were the politicians, I would be talking to the young as well as to women. Alice Thompson, columnist and interviewer at The Times. Thank you. Rachel Cunliffe,

associate political editor at The New Statesman in Liverpool still for that Labour Party conference. More messages coming in. There's one here saying, I cannot vote for Labour. I do not want to see the countryside built on with so little consideration of planning restrictions, reads one messenger, no name on it. Also, I don't want the long term plan for the NHS to be offering overtime to already overworked staff. And more messages coming in what you want to hear from Sakhir Starmer in the speech that is coming later this afternoon. Now, I did promise you some music and I like to keep my word if I can. The violinist Esther Abramis just joined me in the studio. She moved to England from France at the age of 14 to

study music and was picked by Julian Lloyd Webber as one of his 30 under 30 to watch. She's the first classical musician to win the social media superstar category at the Global Awards and with more than 400,000 followers on TikTok you may already be following her and aware of her work. But if you're not, let me introduce you to her because she's also got a new album out called Cinema. Good morning, Esther. Good morning. Thank you for being here.

And Cinema, just tell us about that first of all. It's a great title for an album. Thank you. Yeah, I've always been quite keen about making classical music as accessible and as kind of open to every generation and I felt like with the cinema album my goal was to bring kind of everyone in so to break down any barriers that might be because when you go to the cinema and you go watch a movie you're not sat there thinking oh I'm not going to like

this song because it might be classical or it might be jazz or it might be rock you're kind of completely free of any preconception or judgment so you go in there and you could fall in love with any soundtrack let it be a violin solo a flute solo or I don't know a group of trumpets literally anything and that's why I wanted to bring the cinema album to show that um really you can yeah you can really like anything and in this album I'm bringing so solo violin in a full orchestra um with soundtracks from some of my favorite movies and it goes from animes to old movies um to is there's like a real big range yes I'm we're going to hear a little bit of music today aren't we which I'll come to in a moment but it's interesting I I'm a bit like a real big range yes i'm we're going to hear a little bit of music today aren't we which i'll come to in a moment but it's interesting i i'm a bit like a magpie i collect

uh pieces of music wherever i am and i have that app on my phone which tells me what something's playing so i can put it in and then i save it on a bit of a playlist and then i refine that later and it's funny we used to say that about films because after the film i look up the the soundtrack and i pick the things i like and that means why in the middle of, I don't know, playing some music at home where I could have some rap or some hip hop, there'll suddenly be a classical piece because I will have loved it. And as you say, it doesn't have to be on a classical playlist. Yeah, exactly. It can be amongst everything else.

And that's kind of where I want classical music to be. Like I'd like people to be able to listen as much to this genre as they are listening to any other genres and I think for that you do need to, there's a little bit of work to be done in terms of maybe the image that some people might have about around classical music. Why the violin for you? What made you come to the violin? Because there's quite a personal connection as well isn't there? Yeah it's from my grandmother, she was a violinist herself and she quit when she got married

but she always kept her violin with her and when I was three years old she showed me what a violin was it was my very first introduction to music and to the instrument and I remember that moment quite well and then actually it's not until I was 10 years old that I then really started violin lessons because my parents not being musicians really, really wanted for me, for the interest to come from me. So I think it was the first introduction at three years old. And then when I was old enough to really know what I wanted, I expressed interest in violin lessons and I fell in love with the instrument. And you came here at quite a young age. That must have been quite a journey.

It was. I didn't speak a single word of English when I came. Just violin. Fluent violin. Exactly. that must have been quite a journey it was I didn't speak a single word of English when I came right just violin exactly and I came from the south of France to Manchester so it was kind of yeah a journey in every sense of the terms yeah but I loved it I really really did and I fell in love with England and I kind of stayed there you know for the last 10 years so and and for you though now you know doing this you you also are very passionate about talking to women in particular on social media. Yes, I've, through my studies, and I studied music for now 15 years,

I've kind of got recently out of university. And when I was out of university, that's the moment I realised in 15 years, I'd never studied a single piece written by a woman and it was like a very shocking realization and something that didn't even cross my mind until then like I never played in an orchestra conducted by a woman for example and I really really want things to be different for the younger generation. So I'm really passionate about making things change. And it's also interesting looking at these things as well,

just provoking that conversation about who's playing what and how we're listening to it. I think that does bring us quite nicely onto some music, if we can. You're going to play an excerpt of a couple of pieces. Tell us what we're going to listen to. I'm going to be playing one excerpt. So it's two pieces from the album Cinema. The first one is called Chasing Rainbows. And it was specially written for me by composer Anne Dudley, who is a composer in movies and who's doing incredibly well. And it was an honour to work with her and to have a piece really written

by her from me. And the second piece excerpt I will be playing, is from The Hunger Games. The Hanging Tree is one of my favourite books first and then movies. Yes, and I was listening to the album yesterday and this morning and I particularly love The Hanging Tree. Amazing. You've introduced me because I don't know The Hunger Games. Sorry to admit that. I mean, I live with someone who very much does, but I'm not yet there. So why don't you make your way over? Because it's always a joy. admit that I mean I live with someone who very much does but I I'm not yet yet there so um why

don't you make your way over um because it's always a joy we always hear from you at home that you uh enjoy hearing some music if you can especially when you've heard a little bit from the person who's behind the the music or the song uh this is Esther Abrami so she has a new album out called Cinema and as she just explained, she's going to play a couple of excerpts for us. Esther, I'll let you take it away. Many more will be applauding in their kitchens, their cars, wherever they're listening

or on a walk, I can imagine. Esther Abrami, thank you so much for that. New album is called Cinema. A couple of excerpts there, The Hanging Tree from the Hunger Games and Chasing Rainbows by Anne Dudley there. And we wanted to give you a flavour of a couple of the tracks on that new album.

And what a departure that was, taking us to a different place. Thank you. Messages, I have to say, still coming in, thinking ahead to the Labour Party conference, if you're thinking politically today. And Sir Keir Starmer will be on his feet early afternoon with that speech,

hoping to convince those in the hall as well as outside of the hall, you, that is, that he could be the next prime minister. Messages of what you want to hear. It seems to be around climate change on some of these messages here and around house building also coming up. A message here, I will be voting Labour.

It has not rejected green policy and acknowledged climate change. I worry about my four-year-old granddaughter's future. Conservative Party, I think, are for the rich. And those in the southeast of England, the NHS has not been helped by Brexit and that claim on that campaign bus. No name on that message, but you get the sense very strongly of what's being thought there. Keep your messages coming in on what you would like to hear from the Labour leader today

on 84844. Very interested to hear that after you told us last week whether you would be voting for the Conservatives or not. Now, I've just been joined in the studio by Emily Hunt, who was the government's official

independent rape advisor. You may not know that role existed, but it did. And it was Emily. And she's decided to walk away from that role. And she's been advising the government in the run up to the 2021 end to end rape review. And in July, a progress update said the review had successfully increased the number of rape cases getting to court to pre-2016 levels. Emily has also helped implement a 24-hour sexual abuse helpline and championed Operation Satira Bluestone, which exposed criminal justice system failures,

of which she knows quite a bit, and pushed a suspect-focused approach to catching rapists. Emily, good morning. Good morning. We have spoken before because you yourself have survived a horrific ordeal and you've also had to navigate on several levels, if I can put it like this, the criminal justice system. Absolutely. Which is why, and it's important to say this is some to talk with them about how we need to do better on prosecuting rape and supporting victims. And how has the role gone and why are you walking away from it? been on many levels absolutely amazing to be a part of. When I first came into government,

I had somebody tell me to pick one thing and expect it to take longer than a year to get done. And with the rape review, we actually managed to change far more than one thing. And you mentioned a number of them in the intro. But really, the biggest thing is rape prosecution in this country had fallen by 70% over five years. 70%. We were not prosecuting enough rapes in 2016. So five years later, 70% down. And the Rape Review committed to getting back to those pre-2016 volumes of prosecution, which everybody said was impossible. And yet, with the actions of the Rape Review, we actually managed to do it.

And 18 months early. I think it shows that when the government puts its mind to something, there really can be phenomenal change. One of our guests a few days ago, a KC, was on the programme Eleanor Laws, and she talked about there's a 75% conviction rate for rape cases in Crown Court. She didn't think people knew about that. Your issue is about whether it got to court in the first place. Right. This is probably a bit controversial, but I think that that is far too high. Under the law here, the CPS are supposed to take forward cases that are 51% winnable. If you have a 75% conviction rate, you're kind of proving by the numbers that you're being far too conservative in the cases that you're taking to court. You actually shouldn't win that many of them. That's interesting and well explained for those who aren't across

the things that you are across, but you're not going to continue with this role. I am not. I think one of the things that's really difficult about coming into an advising role from a place of lived experience is that I had to keep living my experience. So when I walked into government, I thought I was done having to experience the criminal justice system as a victim. And unfortunately, that wasn't the case because my attacker continued to harass me online and made me very, very afraid. And he violated the restraining order that I had against him. And it took, you know, far too long for it to get to court. It took far too many hurdles. And it took me having to project manage the criminal justice system, organizing everything, talking with the police, providing them with the evidence that he was victim's advocate in order to organize actually remote viewing the hearing. It just went on and on and on. And at the end of all of that, what was the result? At the end of all that, he pleaded guilty to violating the restraining order,

but was only given a suspended sentence. So the courts basically said, all right, you are guilty of violating what we told you not to do. So we're going to give you some more things and tell you not to do them and expect that you will now behave, which basically just leaves me and my friends still project managing the entire situation. Somebody has to look at his Twitter

to make sure that he is not actually breaching the restraining order and talking about me. And do you have some support around? I do. I have amazing friends and family and a new husband. Well, congratulations on that, if I'm allowed to say in the middle of a very serious discussion, but a nice smile just came across your face. And it's nice to see you with that. Yeah, it's definitely been see you with that. completely let down by the system. I felt completely unsafe. I felt that the harm that had been done to me had been ignored. I felt that, you know, this person who'd admitted that he was

fixated on me had nothing standing between him turning up on my front door. And I was just terrified. And more so, I felt like I couldn't trust the criminal justice system to keep me safe. And it just sort of put this idea in my head, I don't think I can live here anymore if I don't feel safe, if I don't feel like I could ever call the police for anything. And that's a really hard one, because I spend a lot of time trying to help people feel okay with reporting rape to the police. And here I am saying, look, I don't actually know that I trust the police or the CPS or the courts to protect me. So on one hand, your experience has been, you know, and I'm very sorry to hear all of this, I should say, because you've

been trying to help other people at the same time, as you say, project managing your own case again, or a different part of it. On one hand, you're saying when the government, you know, puts its shoulder to the wheel, change can happen. But on the other hand, you're saying when the government, you know, puts its shoulder to the wheel, change can happen. Yeah. But on the other hand, you're also saying it's still not good enough for you to want to A, stay in this position and B, I mean, I know it sounds like stay in this country. Yeah. So it's the first 18 months of advising the government were phenomenal. Things changed. And then after that, the foot came off the pedal. We were on track to meet things. So it stopped being, I don't know, a priority in the same way. It's really hard to go into meetings and have people say, no, no, everything's better for victims now, while experiencing dilapidated looking victim rooms that are supposed to have been repainted so that victims feel safer in a court. It's step after step after step of running headlong into, no, we are not treating victims okay

at the center of the criminal justice system. And that doesn't work because we're not going to be able to put criminals in prison unless victims are willing to come forward, stay engaged with the criminal justice system and see things through. And right now, for me, I feel so unsafe and so unprotected that I do feel that I have to leave. And so I am leaving the UK at the end of the year. And that's it?

I hope to be coming back. Where do you feel safer then? So right now I'm going back to the States, which is where I was born. I've never really an envelope estimate for me. And it was about 9% of rape cases reported to the police result in a conviction. And he was saying, oh, Emily, this is such a low number. This is so bad. I'm so sorry. We're failing as a country. I had to tell him ours was 1%. I mean, you're looking at this having tried to help, having done all of this, and I'm thinking about those who are listening, who maybe took some heart from what you said, and now will have heard what else you've said. I mean, how do you straddle that? And not that it's necessarily your responsibility anymore, you're coming away

from this role. But I suppose, how do you explain your experience without stopping people from coming forward with their own attempt to get justice? That's the tightrope that I'm on at the moment and why it was really hard for me to decide whether or not to talk about my decision to leave. Because it's very, very personal. I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't sit in meetings and feel like I wasn't adding value because victims weren't getting a better deal because I was there. And because personally, I was experiencing my case at the same time. Now, I don't know how much of what happened with me personally with the criminal justice system is because I'm me or the aspects that I interacted

with. But it was just too much for me. And the thing is, I've always said, we need people to report crimes to the police, but only if you feel like you can, because it is really difficult. And we don't do enough for victims. You know, victims don't have rights for compassionate leave when they have to report something to the police,

which is something that I've been saying we need for a long time. And we make it very difficult for victims and we can do better. And it's for me, one of the things that's very disappointing about the Victims and Prisoner Bill is that it, to my mind, just doesn't do enough for real life victims of crime. And just to be clear, I mean, I'm looking at a statement from the Ministry of Justice, the role of independent advisor, it says, this statement, has been integral to the successful implementation of the rate review. We thank Emily Hunt for her valuable contributions over the last two years, supporting the government in exceeding all three ambitions ahead of schedule. And it seems like you agree with what's been said there about where you've got to, to an extent. I mean, we've explored that. The role is continuing?

So I was told about three months ago that they were going to have a competition for it. It also hasn't been launched yet. So I don't know if we're going to be a bit like the Victims Commissioner role of going unfilled for a long time or not, but I'm not involved in that. No, no, I recognise that. It's just when people hear that someone's walking away, they wonder what's next and what the program is there. Because as you mentioned, the Victims Commissioner position is still vacant. And that has been something when you're talking about the role of victims and how we treat victims, some feel would be important to fill. Others think, you know, there's things you can be doing anyway at the same time. I mean, I think the Victims Commissioner role being left open whilst the Victims and Prisoners Bill was being worked on was a letdown for victims.

There wasn't somebody there to advocate for them. And then I was sitting there in policymaking trying to advocate as well and just not feeling very heard in the last year. Well, I hope you feel you've been heard this morning. Absolutely. Emily Hunt, thank you very much for being on the programme. Thank you to all of you for your contributions as ever and for your company this morning.

I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, it's Amol. And I'm Nick and we're launching the Today podcast from Radio 4. Come on then, what is it, Nick? Well, every week we're going to take a big subject we want to spend more time on,

because I don't know about you, when I present the Today programme, I'm always thinking of things I wish I'd asked, I wish I'd heard. And this is going to give us the time to do that, to get more analysis, more insight, sometimes more gossip. Same goes for me. I'm looking forward to this. Episodes will drop every Thursday. It's called the Today Podcast, and you can listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.