Woman's Hour - Jing Lusi, Fatal stabbings in Sydney, Australia, Declaration of the Rights of the Child

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Australian police investigating the fatal stabbing of six people at the crowded shopping centre in Bondi Junction, Sydney say they're looking into whether the attacker deliberately targeted women. Joel Cauchi killed five women - and a male security guard who tried to intervene - before he was shot dead by police. Eight of the twelve injured who went to hospital, including a baby, are also female. To find out more Jessica Creighton is joined by BBC Australia correspondent Katy Watson based in Sydney.Jing Lusi stars as DC Hana Li in ITV’s new thriller Red Eye, set on a plane flying between London and Beijing. She joins Jessica Creighton to talk about what it’s like to play a lead role for the first time, and how important it is to see British East Asian women as the main progatonist.Ten years ago 276 Nigerian school girls were abducted by the Islamist group Boko Haram from their school in Chibok, a town in the north-east of Nigeria. A decade later, dozens of the girls are still missing and kidnappings are once again on the rise in Nigeria. Jessica is joined from Lagos by BBC Africa Senior reporter Yemisi Adegoke.2024 marks the centenary of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. First written by British feminists, it was adopted by the League of Nations in 1924. Today we know it as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Dr Emily Baughan, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Sheffield explains the role women played in its creation. Plus, Danielle Scott, Assistant Vice Principal at Green Gates Academy, explains how the rights are still being used in schools today.A real life experience of a mugging in New York inspired Imogen Wade to write a poem which has just won the National Poetry Competition, coming first out of 19000 entries. She joins Jessica to share her poem and, as a counsellor, to explain how the act of writing helped her to process the experience.Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Louise Corley Studio Engineer: Donald MacDonald

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 Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Great to be back with you this week. Now, over the weekend, you would have seen the tragic events in Australia where a man stabbed and killed six people in a Sydney shopping centre. Five of the victims were female. Well, in the last few hours, Australian police have said one line of inquiry that they are looking into is that the killer was targeting women. We'll be live on the ground in Australia shortly for reaction to how this has impacted women in the area and also impacted the country as a whole.

Also this morning, 10 years on from the kidnappings that shocked the world. We find out more about the 276 Chibok schoolgirls who were abducted from their school in northeastern Nigeria by Islamic militant group Boko Haram. Our reporter has spoken to some of the girls who managed to escape and to the parents of school girls who are still missing. Plus, 2024 marks 100 years since the Declaration of the Rights of the Child were introduced, protecting the human rights of children. We now know it as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. But did you know that it was first established by British feminists? Well, we'll be diving into its history and finding about how it impacts school children today. And we'll have some fantastic guests in the studio for you this morning. Actor Jing Lucy on her first lead role

playing a police officer in a thrilling new action-packed drama series which is set on a plane and also speaking to us about breaking new ground as a British East Asian actor. And poet Imogen Wade joins us to discuss winning the prestigious National Poetry Competition for a poem that actually helped her process the traumatic event of being mugged when she was a teenager. Now, if you've already had a scroll through social media this morning, you would have seen many pictures of a whole host of theatre stars lining the red carpet at London's Royal Albert Hall. That's because yesterday was the Olivier Awards. Sunset Boulevard was one of the big winners, with the award for Best Actress in a Musical going to Nicole Scherzinger for her role as Norma Desmond. Nicole was on Woman's Hour, actually, when the musical first opened, and she

told Anita Rani about the moment that theatre director Jamie Lloyd first approached her for the role. I obviously grew up doing musical theatre, love musical theatre. And I thought, OK, well, there's many roles that I would love to play. And this is not one of them, Jamie. Why? Did you not know the did you not the story did you not see the had you not i think i kind of knew the film the gloria swanson version what it's just like this kind of you know bewildered kind of out there older star just longing um to be seen again longing for fame again and i was like yo this chick is crazy jamie like and how old is she come on dude i still look good under bright light and he was like no no no don't pay attention to any of that he said strip it all back as he said just read the script we read the

words the story on the page and listen to the music. And when I listened to the music, I fell madly in love with her. I felt like I had written those songs myself. And so the rest was history. We had talked for a long time about it because I was still scared. I still had my reservations of how people would perceive it. And he just kept going back to telling a truthful human story. So what were your reservations? Well, just what they would think.

It's like, oh, my gosh, like, is my career over? Am I just, you know, I always wanted to be like, growing up, I wanted to be Lea Salonga in Miss Saigon, not seeing this. So you think people would think, oh, that's Nicole playing a role that people would have judged you playing that character? I think, to be honest, initially I thought the role was a lot older because Norma Desmond's character is set to be in the 50s. But how old is she? But really, when Patti LuPone and Glenn Close played it, they were about my age. It's crazy, isn't it? So, 40s.

And it's crazy how we've progressed, because back then when they played it, it's like, that's ancient! But now it's like 40s are the new 30s, you know what I'm saying? You're looking, man. My skin is glowing. Brilliant.

That's Nicole Scherzinger speaking to Anita there. And as she said in the interview, she also reiterated it when she accepted her award last night, joking that she had dreamed of many musical roles, but Norma Desmond actually was not one of them. So today we're asking you, is there anything that you've, I suppose, never really dreamt of doing, but it actually led to a big success in your life?

It could be anything from work, from life or relationships or friendships, anything at all. You can text the program on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. You can get in touch via social media as well using the at BBC Women's Hour handle. You can email us through our website. You can also send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note. Use the number 03700 100 444. Get in touch about that or indeed anything else that you hear on the programme this morning. Now, as you've just heard in the news,

Australian police investigating the fatal stabbing of six people at a crowded shopping centre in Bondi Junction in Sydney say they're now looking into whether the attacker deliberately targeted women. Joel Couchy killed five women and a male security guard who tried to intervene before he was shot dead by police. A number of those taken to hospital, including a baby, were also female. The police commissioner for New South Wales, Karen Webb, told a news conference about the CCTV footage. The videos speak for themselves, don't they?

And that's certainly a line of inquiry for us. It's obvious to me, it's obvious to detectives, that seems to be an area of interest that the offender had focused on women and avoided the men. So to find out more about how women have responded in the area and whether violence against women is actually an issue in the country, I'm joined by BBC Australia correspondent Katie Watson, who's based in Sydney. Good morning, Katie. Good evening, my end. Good evening, your end. Now, of course, you're there, you're in Sydney. You've been covering what has happened since it first happened on Saturday at the shopping centre. So give us a sense of how people have reacted. Well, I'm actually at the site where people

have been laying flowers behind me for the last two days. People have been coming and paying their respects to the victims. And, you know, repeatedly I've heard the phrase, this doesn't happen in Australia. This is a safe country. And the shock and disbelief that something like this can happen and of course the stories of who these victims are and and their families and their stories has just made it all the more difficult of course and the focus is still very much on remembering those who died and looking out for those who are still in hospital. So the response being that people feel this is a rare event, that this isn't usual in the country. Yeah, so in terms of a violent attack, this is something that is very unusual.

I think that this new conversation, this new narrative, which the police commissioner has brought up, saying that the line of inquiry is that he targeted women is very focused here in Australia. It's obviously clearly five women, one man was killed. The man who was killed was a security guard who intervened in trying to save lives. Of the 12 people who were hospitalized, eight were women. Four have since been released from hospital. So we don't know what the statistics are, but we heard it from the police commissioner.

These are numbers that they are definitely going to investigate. Of course, it is a line of inquiry. It's an early stage of the investigation. But I mean, I spoke to Full Stop Australia, which is a group trying to put an end to sexual, domestic and family violence here. And they said that men's violence is an ongoing, devastating crisis in Australia, impacts of which are experienced by the whole community. And although Australia has committed to ending gender based violence in a generation, they said that the country still has a long way to go. So, you know, the fact that this is even being looked at is something that perhaps doesn't come as a surprise to people here in Australia. Of course, there's also a devastating line of inquiry if indeed anything comes on it.

Yeah, like you said there, it's rare for mass violence of this nature. And of course, interesting that the police commissioner decided to go down this line of gender based violence. According to research group Counting Dead Women Australia, 64 women were killed in incidents of violence last year in 2023. People on the ground, do they feel that violence against women is a big problem, a specific problem in Australia? It's a conversation that is talked about continually. I mean, in fact, today has been, there's been a massive story beyond, of course, this terrible stabbing. There was a massive story three years after a claim that a young woman was raped inside Australia's Parliament House. A civil court has found it's true. Now, it's in connection with a political staffer

called Bruce Lehman. He has always denied having sex with Brittany Higgins. He sued a network for defamation over a TV interview with her. I mean, but it really, the case triggered a lot of reflection here in Australia. There were protests. More recently, there were three women who were killed by men in the town of the city of Ballarat near Melbourne. You know, three women in one city, you know, all very close together. These are they're not just statistics. These are real stories that are very, very current. So hearing this line from the police that they are looking at the issue of whether he targeted women is obviously a shocking line of inquiry. But I think a lot of people here feel that it's a line of inquiry that's very worth going down, given the scenario and the conversations

that go on here in Australia. And leading on from this, Katie, a report from Homelessness Australia last year, you know, as you mentioned, found domestic and family violence was the leading cause of homelessness for women, with nearly half of those seeking homelessness assistance, citing it as a reason. Do you feel as though, you know, those two things are quite intricately intricately linked is that is that the case on the ground so clearly there is you know there is a there's a problem in fact the government has committed three two point three billion australian dollars it's about uh one billion uh pounds um from from the budget to look at plans of women's safety initiatives um but you know it's money um and whether on the ground that's actually can can change the reality um you know when you've got high um high numbers of domestic violence and

if you look at the australian bureau of statistics one in six women since the age of 15 experienced physical or sexual violence by a current or previous cohabiting partner one in four had experienced emotional abuse one in six had experienced economic abuse you know these are statistics that drive um women to try and seek refuge or in failing that um you know there are fewer options for them and i think it's looking at that that whole of how to help and support women um within whether you at home, but also if they've had to leave a dangerous space to be able to seek refuge. This is a huge issue that Australia's committed to tackling, but is very far from doing so. And bringing it back to the case in question and speaking about the perpetrator, Joel Couchy, he was known to police. So I suppose people will ask the question, well, could this have been prevented? His dad has spoken to reporters, Andrew Couchy, and said he was a very sick boy. He also said he wanted a girlfriend and he's got no social skills and he was frustrated out of his brain. That was a direct response when he was asked about why he may, Joel, have targeted women.

What did the police know about him and what was their interaction with him before this happened? Yeah, I mean, the interview site was a very powerful, difficult interview to watch because he talked about the love he had for his son, but also said he loved a monster. And it was a really difficult interview to even watch. So what we know, I mean, it's very early days. And in fact, the investigation could go on for months.

There's also the state premier here in New South Wales who said that they are going to launch an inquiry. The coroner's office is going to launch an inquiry looking into the events around the Bondi Junction stabbing.

And that includes looking at the interaction that Joel Couchy had with authorities. Now he was originally from Queensland, he moved down to New South Wales just a month ago but he didn't always have a fixed abode. I believe he struggled to live in one place, he lived rough at some parts of his life. It's a difficult one to piece together, but that's exactly what they're doing, finding out how much interaction,

what that interaction was. And of course, why perhaps there were no alarm bells that sounded and whether they could have done more. Those are all things that are going to be answered or they'll try to answer in the coming months. And has there been any update

on those that are still in hospital and their condition? So 12 were admitted to hospital overnight and Monday morning, four were released. So eight remain in hospital, including the little baby girl. She was just nine months old. Nine months old, exactly. And I think a lot of people are really hoping, you know, that's a story that's just so so difficult she but but the good news is that she is out of um a critical condition and she's in a serious condition and and um there are as a feeling that she could be moved to a uh a lower risk ward in hospital um in the coming days so that's a small glimmer of hope if you like in what's been a devastating few days. It really has.

But Katie, thank you very much for bringing us up to date and giving us the thoughts and feelings of those on the ground. That was BBC Australia correspondent Katie Watson, who is based out in Sydney. Now, this next discussion might not be for you if you're not a fan of flying. New ITV drama Red Eye has been billed as a nerve-jangling thriller and takes place entirely on a plane, pretty most. The Red Eye from London to Beijing. Jing Lucy plays DC Hannah Lee, a London police

officer who has to escort a man accused of murder back to China. You might remember Jing from Holby City, Hollywood rom-com Crazy Rich Asians, or even the spy thriller Heart of Stone. Well, in this latest series, Jing has broken new ground as one of the first, if not the first, British East Asian woman to play this type of role. Jing, sitting across from me in the Women's Hour studio, welcome. Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure. We have to start with Red Eye. We don't want to give too much away, of course, but just give us a sense of the plot and your character in particular. Yeah, so the series starts with Richard Armitage's character, Matthew Nolan. He's a doctor and he's in Beijing and he's a little

bit weary and he crashes his car. He is bleeding and then he comes back to a doctor and he's in Beijing and he's a little bit weary and he crashes his car. He is bleeding and then he comes back to Heathrow and he's immediately detained and sent back to China, basically, because he's been accused of murdering a young woman who they found in his car. He's protesting his innocence. I'm then tasked, I play a London police officer who's tasked with accompanying him, basically babysitting him because I'm Asian. So that is actually one of the really cool moments. Which we'll get into. Yeah, yeah. And we address that. And so I'm basically sent on a long haul flight to drop him off. I think it's going to be quite an easy gig.

I don't like him because the woman that he's accused of murdering is quite similar to me. And things start to happen on the plane, slightly unexpected. So what was it that drew you to this role? There's so much suspense and intrigue, but what was it specifically about Hannah Lee? Well, when I first read the scripts, I only had three. And as soon as I started turning the pages, I couldn't stop. And usually I'm such a procrastinator. I'm making tea every few pages. I'm taking toilet breaks at this one. I just couldn't put it down. But firstly, what struck me was this is an amazing premise first off. But then I thought, wow, the character

of Hannah usually is reserved for a man in that kind of role. And then I was like, oh, she's a woman. And then I was like, she's an East and then I was like she's an East Asian woman this is just unheard of particularly in this country maybe even in America we see much more Asian East Asian visibility in America but not of this particular role I couldn't believe it I actually couldn't believe what I was reading I was like is this actually gonna be happening is this gonna be made it was extraordinary it felt that groundbreaking to. Because she was a woman and because she was of East Asian origin. Yeah. And the dynamic between her character, Hannah, and Richard's character, Nolan, is usually, is role reversal. Because it's usually, you know, the man saving the damsel in distress.

And, you know, he'll figure this out. You just get back in the back and I'll do this. I'll drive this. And it's completely reversed on the show. And it was, it was, we all felt when we were making this that this was something very revolutionary. And pretty much as soon as your character is introduced to us on screen, Hannah, her name is,

she's calling out a male superior. I've got a clip of that. This is Hannah going into her boss's office. Take a listen. Have a seat. Is your passport current? Why? Pack a bag. You're catching tonight's red eye to Beijing. What? Well, the chief needed someone on babysitting duty and I thought of you. Look, Hannah, he was very clear that during the handoff, the Foreign Office don't want any cultural misunderstandings. Simon, aside from the small detail that Beijing is in China

and I was born in Hong Kong, I haven't lived there since I was five years old. I have never been back and have no desire to. Because of what happened with your mum? Sorry. But it doesn't change the fact you are the best man for the job. And frankly, right now, you need this. Are you really doing this?

Come on. Don't make me order you. Yes, boss. That was significant, that moment, wasn't it? You correcting him about where he believed you were from and the reason why you were going on to that trip, on to that specific job. Yeah, it was a really wonderful moment in the script

where originally it was more minimalised than that. It was sort of, you know, oh, I don't even think she really talked about it. And I just thought, what a wonderful moment to call something out that happens to everyone of colour or of, you know... So you decided that you wanted to bring that particular issue to the fore? I suppose it was an issue, but then you decided to...

Yeah, I decided to make more of it. I thought, well, let's emphasise this, because I think this is something that people experience all the time. And what a wonderful platform for her to actually be like, are you, you know, what are you doing? You're just thinking that because I look like this, I'm your ambassador for Asia. And, you know, what was so wonderful about the production, the writer,

Pete Dowling and Bad Wolf was that they really embraced that and they saw that moment and opportunity and thought, let us actually unpack that and say it. Because it's things like this that need to be said. Was it difficult for you to come to that decision to, I suppose, give some insight to the audience into the nuance of being an actor of East Asian heritage? Well to put that line in or to make that moment no it was really easy I really really wanted to do that. But you've always done that is that something that's

always been within you to I suppose stand in your truth or is that something that you've developed over the years? It's a bit of both I think I've always been someone that couldn't not speak out, much to my parents' chagrin. And then I studied law and it basically was three years of training you how to speak out, which was the best boot camp ever. And then as I entered the industry, and I think as an actress, firstly, and then as an East Asian actress, there's a lot of things that come at you that maybe, you know, that don't make you feel comfortable or inappropriate. And so to speak out in those cases, I felt like that is actually something that is really important to do. You don't compromise your integrity. And I think a lot of people may think just going with the flow, saying yes and being easy and appeasing is the way forward.

And I actually have experienced the complete opposite the more that you stand up for yourself you know the more respect you have and the more people actually listen to you. So what are the stereotypes that you've had to battle your way through as an actor? Oh goodness I mean as an East Asian actress it was the widest thing that we were seen for was prostitutes um yeah or some or you know not necessarily exchange for money for sex but definitely very sexualized uh women who would sell their soul to have a visa or something like that and it really I mean I I came from an academic background my parents entered this country and we immigrated um through academic scholarships so that's kind of the world that I knew and that was kind of their friendship circle.

So when I sort of entered the industry and everything was highly sexualized for women, I was like, wow, is this how you see all of us? I don't disagree that this segment of society exists, but there is another side. You know, there's the educated, there's the intellectual, there's the doctor, there's the lawyer,

there's everything in between. Why are we only seeing such a tiny, tiny niche of society? And then obviously, you know, hospitality, takeaway workers and things like that. I suppose then when you were cast in Crazy Rich Asians, which was a massive success over in America and worldwide, quite frankly, but it was an American film. I suppose then that was groundbreaking because representation there, there was more nuance in the way East Asian actors and actresses were represented. Yeah, I mean, I remember hearing about this film

when it was casting. And I think, you know, we're a very small pool, we are the East Asians, whether it's in America or here, and everyone's talking about this movie. And then everyone's dying to be seen and auditioned for this movie and then i get the script and um i just couldn't quite believe that every single person in this film was asian and they were uh you'd never experienced that before no it was a little normally you're like pick out the asian you know pick pick out the person of colour, pick out, like, what gimmick, what schtick do these different people have?

Like, it's like a whole rainbow, it's like a United Colours of Benetton advert. And you're like, there I am. But this was like, wait, we're all of these people. It was extraordinary. And then it became, you know, they were seeing people from around the world. And that's what was so great, because they weren't leaving any stones unturned. They wanted to get the best cast to fit the, to fit these amazing characters, this landscape that Kevin Kwan has created. And I still to this day, can't quite believe that I made that movie and made the friends that I did, because it was

a piece of history. It was and it was groundbreaking for so many reasons. Did it break ground in setting forth better representation for East Asian actors? I think it did. Therefore, like since then, since 2018 was it? 2018, yeah. So it's been six years. We shot it in 2017. It came out in 2018 in august um six years ago what i've seen is a huge landslide of amazing projects come out of the of america for in terms of asian representation you know that was quickly

followed up by the farewell aquafina one of my bestest friends but also a fantastic actress hilarious she's so hilarious um she won the golden globe for it. And then, you know, the success of Beef, everything everywhere at once, Always Be My Maybe. So many things. But I didn't really see that reflected in the UK. Why? Why is that? Because I looked at the American model and it was success, box office success. So many awards, you know, Ali Wong, Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh became the first actress of East Asian descent to win leading, leading actress awards in the Globes, the Oscars and the Emmys. And then so critically acclaimed and financially successful box office revenue. Why would you not want to repeat this business model? If someone was like, here's a fast track to success, you'd be like, where do I sign? But we didn't sign for six years.

And I'm like, what what more proof do you need that this will do well? It's I really don't know the answer to your question of why hasn't it happened. And I wish I knew. And I suppose some part of you is trying to change that, taking up this role and being in your first lead role. Do you feel as though this might be a breakthrough moment in the UK? I really, really believe and hope that it will. I think the visibility of Asians, we have gotten better in the last few years since Crazy Rich Asians, for example, but they've always been sort of in the background, the peripheral, you might's usually reserved for someone that's not Asian. And then to have such a strong support of an Asian cast,

which are there for specific reasons related to do that with their character. And to see all of these archetypes play out, you know, the villain, the authority figure, the sister, the father, the mentor, all of these things as Asians. It was just like, oh, my goodness. I used to have moments on set when I had to check myself and be like, is this happening? Is this really happening on home soil? Yeah.

And you're working on new projects. I know you can't say too much, but can you give us an overview of what you're working on and whether you will be breaking even more new ground? I hope so. So I started writing just before Crazy Rich Asians came out. And it was something to fill the boredom with, but then suddenly it became, it took on a life of its own.

And I write in the rom-com space because I just grew up with that space. We're moving away from action thrillers then. Because we're used to seeing you as action star of a gun perhaps. I've played with a lot of guns in the last few years. So I want to like just turn up to work and be really smushy. So yeah, I grew up with like working title Richard Curtis films, which I love and Disney. So I started writing in that space.

And so I'm now adapting a very well-known iconic rom-com from the 90s. Oh, that's a tease and a half. I know, I really can't. I wish I could. It's set in London. She gets a haircut. That's the one scene that people remember. She has two haircuts.

And the other one is a film for Film 4, adapting a book for them into hopefully the first Asian-led rom-com in the UK. Wow. So you will be breaking new ground. That's fantastic. Well, if I sit down and write them, I will. Okay.

We'll let you get away then. Jing, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming into the studio. And Red Eye starts on ITV1 at nine o'clock and on ITVX, I believe, on Sunday, the 21st of April. Thank you very much, Jing. 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. 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. You. Now coming to our next story, because 10 years ago, 276 Nigerian schoolgirls were abducted by the Islamist group Boko Haram from their school in Chibok, a town in northeast Nigeria. The kidnapped was condemned around the world and actually sparked a nationwide campaign in Nigeria. But it would be two years before the first girl managed to escape. That was in 2016.

A decade later, more than 90 girls are still missing and gunmen continue to attack the area. Joining me now from Lagos is BBC's Africa senior reporter, Yamisi Adegoke. She's recently produced a documentary about the Chibok girls and joins me now on the programme. Good morning. Morning.

Yamisi, please just give us a reminder of what happened 10 years ago, back in 2014. So, as you said, 276 schoolgirls, they were boarding, the boarders at their school were abducted by a militant Islamist group, Boko Haram. This happened in the dead of night. And they were taken to the group's hideout in a forest in northeast Nigeria. And like you said, it would be two years before the first girl managed to escape. Right.

And it was an attack that completely shocked Nigeria and the rest of the world, even though kidnappings and schools as targets had been happening for years. This was the biggest, 276, huge number. And you've spoken to, in your documentary, spoken to some of the young girls that managed to escape. What is life like for them today? How are they doing? It's a really mixed bag. And unfortunately, a lot of them are struggling. I spoke to the first girl who managed to escape in 2016. Her name is Amina. She now lives in another town in northeast Nigeria with a daughter. Like many girls who were abducted by the group, she was forced to marry a Boko Haram fighter, and she gave birth to a daughter who she lives with now.

She is a student at the American University of Nigeria, but she's spoken about her struggles with education since. She only gets about £12 a month to support herself and her child. She's very grateful to be out, but life remains a daily struggle for her. I spoke to another girl who escaped more recently. So she's currently in government housing. And we had to speak to her under the condition of anonymity. And she spoke about the really difficult times that she's having.

The government did not want her to speak to journalists. And she spoke about a lack of food, a lack of basic necessities, having her movements controlled by security. She actually told me that she felt freer when she was living in Boko Haram captivity than she does now that she's back in Nigeria that's extraordinary why yeah very very distressing to hear I mean she said that she's not free to sort of move around you know her movements are guided she cannot talk to um she wasn't allowed to speak to journalists we had to meet her in secret um she's really struggling to get food and basic things to take care of herself

uh the security she said sometimes lock the girls out at will if they come uh they come back to the accommodation after their curfew i mean we put all these claims to the state government and they said you know they denied mistreating the girls but you know you know, the way she spoke, it was quite harrowing to hear her say something like that, because this was a group that obviously subjected these girls to forced marriage and beatings and all sorts. And she's saying that she felt freer there. So really, really difficult stories we're hearing from a lot of girls. So the government are counteracting their claims, they're saying that that is not true, that is not a truthful account of what is happening?

Yes, that's what they said in that particular case. As there are different girls that come out at different times, they said in this specific case that they don't recognise that assessment, that they don't mistreat the girls. Any curfews are down to the fact that the area is still insecure and they need to safeguard the girls but they denied any claims of mistreatment. Now you also met one of the Boko Haram captors, one of the people, one of the men who actually helped to abduct the school girls. What was like uh meeting him and what is his story to tell that was a very surreal uh part of the story um speaking to the girls they sort of described the night of the kidnap uh amina told me about the fact that you know she was running a bath um and

she just finished and she was getting ready for bed and then she sort of heard gunshots and she just finished and she was getting ready for bed and then she sort of heard gunshots and she spoke about overhearing the gunmen talking about whether or not they should kidnap the girls why would we want to kidnap girls you know it doesn't make sense and then speaking to Mohammed who was the Boko Haram fighter he also said yes we did argue about whether or not we were going to take the girls or not so hearing about the kidnap from those perspectives was quite strange. He has been through the rehabilitation process, like thousands of other Boko Haram fighters, he's been granted amnesty. He says that he's now repentant for what he's done.

He's now working with the military to help rescue some of the girls that he actually kidnapped. He told us that last year he was involved in an operation that managed to rescue two Chibok girls. He said he was moved to tears when he found them because of the state they were in. But of course, I had to tell him that certain people will still believe that despite the fact that you say

that you've changed and you've repented, that you should be in prison because you still took part in in such a heinous crime and you know he just kept saying that you know he was brainwashed and and continued to ask for forgiveness and said that what he's trying to do in his daily life by working with the military uh that's his way of sort of trying to clamp down on on the chaos that Boko Haram has ravaged on the region. So some of the school girls, as we know, have escaped, some have been rescued. How many are still missing and what are the chances that they will return? Sadly, more than 100 girls are still missing. I spoke to the chief of defence staff in Nigeria about whether or not the Chibok

girls have, whether there's still hope that they'll be found. And the authority said that they're still committed to finding these girls, but a lot of the parents, they're hopeful, but in light of other sort of insecurity, sort of um types of insecurity ravaging Nigeria it's very difficult to say whether or not that these girls will actually be rescued I mean it's been 10 years now um and there are lots of other of these high-profile kidnappings lots of other people missing across the country people do wonder whether or not the military has the right tools and the right sort of time to find these girls, sadly. So, I mean, parents, I've spoken to some who are just so, so devastated still. You know, this is a daily struggle for them, not knowing what's happened to their children.

They are hopeful, but it has been 10 years. And I mean, we do get reports of girls coming out once every couple of months or once every few years. But it's difficult to tell. Thank you for bringing us up to date. That is Yumisi Adegoke, who is the BBC Africa senior reporter. Thank you for that. Let me just turn to some of the messages coming in on across social media and across text because I asked you earlier about a time where you never really dreamt of doing something but actually it brought you a lot of success in your life. Jackie from South Warwickshire said I had never dreamed I would create, launch and run a literary festival. Wow. The South Warwickshire Literary Festival was a why not

moment born out of COVID three years later and we're going from strength to strength. Who would have thought? Congratulations. Five years ago at the age of 60 I was asked to produce and present a podcast on organic gardening. I had no idea what a podcast was so it was a steep learning curve. I learned to love the microphone, to chat with wonderful characters and taught myself the editing software. Wow. It went on to win gardening podcast of the year. All credit to my boss who supported me throughout. Never too late to bring up or try something new and get a new hobby. That's absolutely fantastic. Continue to get in touch with us, please, particularly if you've never been in touch with the programme before.

We'd love to hear what you have to say. You can text, you can message, and we're also on social media as well. Now, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child is 100 years old this year. That is the international agreement that aims to protect children around the world. It's been adapted over the years and also had a name changed. Today, we know it as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. But did you know that it was initially written by British feminists in the aftermath of World War I? Dr. Emily Bourne, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Sheffield can tell us all about that

and to give us some insight into what it actually means day to day for a school that has implemented the convention, Danielle Scott, who is assistant vice principal at Green Gates Academy, which is a UNICEF rights respecting school. Good morning. Good morning. Great to have you both on. Emily, let me start with you. So there's a link then, is there, between British feminism and the Declaration of the Rights of the Child? Tell us more. So in 1919, we had the beginning of women's suffrage, the vote for some women in Britain. And throughout the campaign for women's suffrage, one of the things that British feminists had promised was that bringing women into politics would also bring the voices of children into politics. They believed that because of women's sort of inherent maternal qualities, that they would champion the voices of children in the political sphere. And so introducing this declaration of the rights of the child was really making good on some of those promises. And they wanted this to be an international declaration because

women had also campaigned for peace during the First World War. And again, it was because of some of these very dated ideas about the inherent sort of maternal qualities of women, that women were naturally more peace loving. So British feminists working with kind of groups of feminists across Europe, the connections they forged during the war, started to work on a declaration that would fix children in the minds of people as important as kind of international citizens worthy of respect. But British feminists believed that it had to be them essentially that made this declaration first. Britain was an imperial power at this point and British feminists were adamant that Britain had to lead the charge. And so they they pulled a very successful publicity stunt. Eglin Tungeb, a woman who was at the time the leader of Save the Children, went up a mountain and she went up a mountain with a declaration of rights that had already been written.

But she kind of she walked down the mountain and had this Moses-like moment where she sort of presented this declaration as if it had all come to her atop the mountain. And that was really the origin story. And that's why we have the declaration we have, well, we had in 1924. Okay, so it protects the rights of all children, but importantly, most importantly, girls, I suppose,

because we know how they often face discrimination because of sex or gender. Was that something specifically thought of at that time when it was created? I'm sad to say no, actually. The reason it was created at that moment was because people's views of children were changing very fast. Again, because Britain was an imperial power, it started to worry about the health of its child population, which it saw as the kind of colonizers and soldiers of the future. And then during the First World War, people saw what war did, particularly to the bodies of children through malnutrition and understood increasingly through science that young bodies, when they're impacted by war,

will really bear those scars for the rest of their lives in a way that adult bodies are more resilient. So it was really about bodily health and it wasn't specific to female children. And because it was kind of about imperial power as well, it was it wasn't about equality. It wasn't about kind of global equality. And so one of the things that happened after the declaration was implemented was a lot of discussion about like which children it would apply to. And one of the things that the authors of the declaration later argued was that African girls particularly left girlhood earlier. They argued that black and brown girls became women earlier. I mean, that's ridiculous. And so really, they were sort of trying to keep these particular protections for children, something that was really for kind of white and European children much of the time. Right. That's an interesting aspect to this, isn't it? And also, one of the important conversations that were happening at the time, I suppose, was around eugenics.

And that informed this declaration, is that right? Or at of the Child is born out of this recognition of children's bodily health being really important in infancy. And so authors of the Declaration, they want children to grow up in a particular way. They want them to grow up to be workers or even sort of soldiers of the future. And where they're facing the idea that children won't grow up to be kind of productive citizens, they talk about whether the Child Rights Declaration needs to be limited. And particularly, they talk about whether or not it should be extended to disabled children. And they consult with the nephew of Charles Darwin, who at the time is the president of the London Eugenics Society. And he argues that disabled children should be excluded from the declaration.

So it's really important when we talk about this declaration, and when we talk about kind of British feminism in this time period, that we don't lose sight of these imperial connections. So I suppose then it was important that it was updated, as it was when it became the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which expanded the protections afforded to children. Absolutely. And the idea of rights and human rights is really revolutionised in this period. And so the Declaration of the Rights of the Child has five points. And those points are, first of all, about what society owes the child. It says society owes the child the best that it has to give.

And children should always be the first to receive relief in times of conflict or distress. But then at the end of the declaration, it talks about children need to be brought up to understand that they owe society too, and that they need to be brought up able to work. So it's this understanding of rights that are based on productive citizenship that you have to put into the community to expect yourself to receive rights. And when we get the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights, and then we later have an updated version of the Child Rights Declaration in 1953, there's a very different way of thinking about rights. That's a way of thinking about rights as being individual, as applying to all people, irrespective of the community they inhabit

and irrespective of what they could give to that community, because rights are individual rather than collective in that framing. OK, let's see then how this theory is put into practice. Danielle Scott, who I mentioned before, is the Assistant Vice Principal at Green Gates Academy. Good morning, Danielle. I wonder if you can tell us about your school, because it's one of UNICEF's rights respecting schools, which means you've actually been recognised as having embedded children's rights into your school's practice day to day. So what does that mean exactly absolutely just so we've recently achieved our re-accreditation for the gold award and for being a rights respecting school and it basically means that our school is everything that we do as a school is underpinned by the children's rights and it's

ready to throw our policies guidance and it's in our medium-term planning it's part throughout our policies, guidance, it's in our medium term planning. It's part of our key performance indicators. So we've got accountability to ensure that these rights are embedded in school life. Our staff talk about rights with the children on a daily basis. It's threaded in our assemblies, our enrichment calendar. We use the children's rights to teach our children about protected characteristics, which includes talking about the ABCDEs of rights, which means that the children's rights are universal for all of the children. They get them at birth, they can't be taken away, they don't have to be burned, and they equally important all of their children's rights and do

you feel it helps oh absolutely it really empowers and it empowers the children to know that they can challenge when rights aren't met if they see that you know we um watch news rounds we do a lot of um smsc opportunities with the children to help them develop a wider view of the world. And we encourage the children to advocate for others through campaigning opportunities. If they spot that rights aren't being met, and that can be used as a safeguarding tool as well. If the children feel that one of their rights isn't met, you know, it empowers them to have a voice. And we are a specialist school for children with social, emotional and mental health difficulties, meaning we care for a range of complex needs in children with neurodiversity.

So has that happened? So has there been an example where the children have come to you and said, we need more rights in this certain area for example so one of our we really focus a lot on pupil voice um which is article 12 for children to have the right of advice and we really try and empower our children that despite their additional needs their voice should be heard and we want the children to drive the decisions of the school so an example would be roedd yn cael eu cymryd i ddibynnu'r penderfyniadau ysgol. Felly, ffyrdd o ffyrdd fyddai, mae gennym cyngor cymdeithasol ar gyfer ymddiriedolwyr ac mae gennym breninist yn ysgol, ac mae'r holl blant wedi bod yn ymwneud â hynny. Roedd gennym bwyd yn y Parlamant, ac yn y cyfarfod, roedd y plant wedi dweud eu bod wedi teimlo bod amser chwarae, un o'r

hawliau, artyn 31, yn ym right for children to have the opportunities to play and relax. And they brought to me that they felt that playtime didn't have as many opportunities for players, what they would like. So we, as a school, invested in Opal Playground. We have a display in the hall that says, you said we did. And that really shows the children how we're listening to their voice. We invested in Opal Playground. We've had a lot of developments with play. The children participated in what they wanted to have at playtime,

as extra opportunities to develop their own talents. And then we had a further meeting and they said well actually we're loving playtime now we've got all of these activities to do but we don't feel like it's long enough you know we just get out there and playing the whistles blowing to line up so our school prime minister then had a meeting with our principal and discussed how playtime incidents had reduced how playtime incidents had reduced, how playtime had really developed and that the children now felt that they deserved a bit longer to play. That's good. So it was successful with the children coming to you

and you taking heed of what they wanted. We'll have to leave it there, but that's a fabulous insight. Danielle Scott, Assistant Vice Principal at Green Gates Academy and Dr Emily Bourne, Senior Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Sheffield. Thank you both very much. Now, Imogen Wade, who is sitting across from me in the Women's Hour studio, has just won the Poetry Society's National Competition with a poem inspired by her own experience of being mugged in New York when she was just 19. Imogen's poem came first out of 19,000 entries from more than 100 countries. Good morning, Imogen. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Take me back to the moment that you got the phone call where you found out you'd

won. How did that feel? It was absolutely amazing. I've been working at my poetry for about 10 years since I was 15. So it was an incredible moment. And just amazing to have this poem be so widely read as well, just knowing that was going to come from it was just amazing. And you've been writing poetry since you were a young girl, 10 years old? Yeah, yeah, very young. Yeah, started early. Okay. What was it about poetry that grabbed you? It was the first poem I ever heard properly was When You Were Old by Yeats.

And I remember just instantly just feeling like, this is my thing. Like, I don't want to read anything else. I don't want to read a novel. I want to just read poetry. I want to write poetry. And then just started doing that and just was incredibly productive from a young age, just churning out all these poems. Okay. And I know you're going to read the poem in question for us which is called the time I was mugged in New York City but why did you I suppose focus on something that you know many would see as quite traumatic yeah so I work as a therapist so I have a lot of interest in therapeutic processes and I think that creatively going redrafting the process of redrafting a poem you're working out what you think you're working out what you feel you don're working out what you feel, you don't know when you start. And then this poem took me about six months

to write, quite a while. Okay. And that's longer than it would usually take for you? Well, it depends. I mean, some poems I work on for four years and some 20 minutes. Four years? And they're the same length.

Like, it totally depends. But this one, yeah, six months. And every redraft, I was more in touch with my feelings, I was more in touch with maybe the impact the event had on me. I was realising new things about what had happened, like remembering different aspects of what happened and just coming to a place of peace with it.

So I think I chose this because I knew it was going to be therapeutic. OK. And then it was more, yeah, and then it definitely was. And I felt a lot more accepting about it afterwards. I think we should allow people to have a little listen to this poem. So if you don't mind, please could you read out your winning poem called The Time I Was Mugged in New York City. I told people that the travel sickness pills made me stupid.

I entered JFK with a red suitcase and no one to greet me. A man came up to me dressed in black. I found myself in a car park by an expensive van and he was holding my luggage. Get in, he said. There wasn't a single thought in my head. I found myself inside his van. He locked the doors immediately after, made me switch my phone off as we went under the bridge.

We spoke about Niagara Falls. He chose the narrowest roads in the city, a needle making a joke out of Manhattan. When he pulled up outside Grand Central Station, he said, don't get out, there are bad people around. He made me unzip my suitcase, books and bras spilling over the seat and give him all my money. Then he helped me out of the van like I was a princess. He held my bags like a vassal and kissed my cheek. get in I hear whenever a man pushes me too far get into my big black car sometimes in my dreams I'm sitting beside him on the leather I don't need to be ordered and together we drive with melodious speed over the East River. Wow. It's stark, isn't it? But also quite vivid.

Is it all based on truth? All based on that one experience? Yeah, yeah, pretty much. He didn't kiss my cheek. He shook my hand in a very lingering, uncomfortable way. But I felt that the theme in the poem that was emerging was that fake chivalry. You know, a man being really over the top and polite to a woman but really the undercurrent is is menace and I felt the kiss on the cheek

embodied that more than the handshake and was easy to come across in the poem so I went with that one instead but yeah the rest of it is totally accurate and yeah almost like a journal to an extent. Now many people will have an idea of what a poem should be or, you know, particularly what it has been in the past traditionally. And people would have heard you reading that and noticed that it doesn't rhyme. There has been some criticism from a journalist that wrote in The Spectator. And the headline of that article was that the Poetry Society has betrayed poetry. And she described your poem as prose, like a diary entry, interesting as self expression, but poetry, question mark. What's your response to that? I actually wrote them a letter back. And I said,

thank you so much for referring to me as a poet who is betraying poetry. This is a huge honour. And I feel that way because poetry is such an expansive thing you know when we can look to the past we inhabit the present and and we also look towards the future and prose poetry I mean it is not a contemporary invention I mean I'm thinking Arthur Rambo he was doing this in France you know I mean the the origins of prose poetry go back a long long time time, you know, hundreds of years. It's not a contemporary invention. And so I think being too restrictive with poetry, we limit ourselves.

But actually, with that article that you're referring to, the issue I actually had with it wasn't what it said about me, because I welcome criticism. I welcome those debates and those arguments. It was the racial prejudice in that article, talking about the second prize winner for the national poetry competition um and referring to the poem as a literate because it was in creole and and that was something i mentioned the letter and that was really the issue um and so i think as long as we stay expansive and open-minded about literature wonderful things can happen and and i try not to limit myself too much in my form or my technique some of my poems rhyme some don't and it's the variety that makes it so beautiful. So what next for you now you've got this recognition from this prestigious award and

some prize money as well I believe so what's next? Yeah so made back the money I got I got mugged I got bugged by so that's great in profit profit from the mugging um yeah so so kind of really soon after the competition a literary agent actually reached out to me and it's the agent who works with one of the judges one of the top poets in the country at the moment saying you know I love your work I've been following it for a while I was like oh wow this is amazing um and so now I have a contract with an agent and I'm working on my first book um which is such an exciting thing for me and a real childhood dream since I was young. Yeah, so that's what's in the imminent future, hopefully, is a book.

That's very exciting. Imogen Wade, thank you so much for coming into the Woman's Hour studio. I'll be back tomorrow and I'll be speaking to a major Hollywood film producer, Deborah Snyder. Do join us then. And thank you to everyone who also got in touch with the programme. We'll see you tomorrow at 10. And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. From BBC Radio 4. I just remember shouting and screaming, get off my sister. Life as we know it can change in an instant.

I was just punching frantically. I wasn't going to let it take away my sister if I could help it. A single transformative moment. I heard this engine sort of go past and I was like, what is that? And mum had looked up into the rearview mirror and she went, oh my God, he's here. I'm Dr Sian Williams and this is the programme that explores the most dramatic, personal and poignant stories from the very people who've experienced them. I always pass it there and said, hi John, hi John. You've got to find some joy in the sorrow, you know. You've got to find some joy.

Subscribe to Life Changing 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.