Woman's Hour - Kathryn Harkup on Agatha Christie, Ofcom, Sexual violence in Haiti, Mistress Dispeller

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

From today, websites operating in the UK with pornographic content must ‘robustly’ age-check users. Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must protect young people from encountering harmful content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography. Kylie discusses the issues with the BBC’s senior technology reporter Graham Fraser and Head of Policy and Public Affairs at CEASE, Gemma Kelly.Dame Agatha Christie, also known as the ‘Queen of Crime’ and the ‘Duchess of Death,’ is the best-selling novelist of all time with more than two billion books sold and translations in 104 languages. In her new book V is for Venom: Agatha Christie's Chemicals of Death, author and former chemist Kathryn Harkup uncovers the real science behind the fiction and the true crime cases that inspired Christie’s plots.Rape and other sexual violence is surging in Haiti as armed gangs expand their control across the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond. Medicine Sans Frontiers say cases of sexual violence have tripled in the past four years and that one in five victims are under the age of 18. BBC Correspondent, Nawal Al-Maghafi, has recently returned from Haiti and she describes what she witnessed.Director Elizabeth Lo’s new Mandarin-language documentary, Mistress Dispeller, follows the real-life story of one woman who hires a professional, Teacher Wang, to help break up her husband’s affair and save her marriage. It’s a compelling documentary about love, infidelity, pain and joy in modern-day Chinese society. Elizabeth joins Kylie in the studio to tell the story.A joint holiday with another family can be the perfect recipe for a memorable break - playmates for your children, shared responsibilities and enjoying other adult company. But different parenting styles and routines may lead to tension rather than relaxation. Genevieve Roberts, parenting columnist for the I newspaper, describes why she enjoys holidaying with another family and manages to stay friends afterwards. Presented by Kylie Pentelow Producer: Louise Corley

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. Hello this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up, it's been described as the worst place in the world to be a woman. I'm talking about Port-au-Prince in Haiti where sexual violence is surging. We hear from our correspondent who has spoken to women there. As you heard in the news, from today, websites operating in the UK with pornographic content must robustly age-check users. We'll be discussing if that can really work to protect children. Plus, we're very much in the grip of the school holidays and maybe you're heading

off for a break or we'll be speaking to a parent and columnist on the highs and lows of going away with another family and her tips on how to make it work. So we want to hear what your experiences are of this. If you're holidaying with friends, do you set ground rules before you go? Maybe you gave it a try and fell out with each other and will never do it again. So we want to hear from you. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. On social media we're at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email us through our website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or a voice note. That number is 03 700 100 444. Do get in touch. Plus, I'm guessing you might not have heard of a mistress dispeller.

It's where a professional is hired by a husband or wife to go undercover and break up an affair. We'll be finding out why this is a big thing in China. And are you, like me, a big Agatha Christie fan? We'll be exploring how Christie's work in pharmacies inspired many of her fictional murders. Catherine Harkup, author and former chemist, talks about the Queen of Crime's favourite weapon, poison. But first, today marks the first day that websites operating in the UK with pornographic content must robustly age-check users. That means that in theory people won't just be able to tick a box to state that they're

18 anymore. Under the Online Safety Act, platforms must prevent young people from encountering harmful content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography. And websites that ignore these laws could be fined up to £18 million or 10% of worldwide revenue. We're here to discuss what that means as BBC senior technology reporter Graeme Fraser and Gemma Kelly, head of policy and public affairs at CEAS, that's the charity, the centre to end all sexual exploitation. Good morning to you both. Graeme, I'd just like to start

with you if I can. So from today we know that websites in the UK will make it harder for under 18s to access that explicit material. But just can you explain the rules around this? Yes, well good morning. Well, as you were saying in your introduction, the Online Safety Act is a huge piece of legislation and a key part of it is coming in today in the UK and this could potentially change the online experience for millions of people around the UK. Now what is happening today, one of the key things is age verification. As you said, websites must prevent children from accessing four specific areas of content

deemed very harmful. They are pornography, suicide content, self-harm and content around eating disorders. And the way that the age verification will work is that Ofcom have not said that the companies have to do a specific thing, they just want the age verification to be robust and for it to be fair on users. They outline seven different methods that they recommend could happen, such as facial age estimation or being able to determine someone's age via their email or from a digital ID or from uploading your actual ID, such as your passport.

And that is the way that they intend to do this verification. So that's websites specifically, but we know, you know know social media sites as well, children aged between 13 and 18 are able to use them. So how will they control what those children can see? Well yes, absolutely, this is going to be one of the big questions going forward. Now people access pornography in the UK in a variety of ways, not just on porn websites. Ofcom has already outlined that many young people in particular under the age of 18 are discovering pornography for the first time on X, the social media platform run by Elon Musk. Now Elon Musk's site X, they announced yesterday that they were going to be part of the Online Safety Act and this age

verification and they put out quite quite lengthy document on their website which outlines how they're going to do that. And part of it talks about methods that it can do without checking with its users at all, such as being able to determine that users over the age of 18 because of things that have happened on their account in the past, such as when their account was registered. They say that there's a number of things that they can do going forward, such as being able to determine the age of a user via facial age estimation using its own AI. But of course, it is key to remember that there is no age verification of social media companies in the UK.

This is going to be something that is going to be looked at very closely by Ofcom going forward. They told me yesterday in an interview that this is going to be one of the priority conversations with them is with X to determine that what actually happens on the website going forward is safe for young people. If we're talking generally about websites and social media sites, do you think the methods are strong enough to deter under-18s from accessing that kind of material? Well, Ofcom themselves, they've said that the phrase they used is that this isn't going to be a silver bullet. It isn't going to fix everything. But it is, in their view, better than the status quo. What is coming in today will prevent young people from stumbling across harmful materials such as pornography. People will still try perhaps to get around the verification methods and that is obviously

a key concern for the regulators as well. But in the views of the UK government, of Ofcom, the regulator, they believe that today is a landmark moment but there will of course be concerns privacy concerns data concerns for people being able to access these materials going forward and also you know the key test is will young people will people under the age of 18 actually have a safer internet going forward that is the key test. There was mention of one of the things that people could use a VPN which is it kind of masks your IP address making it appear as though you're actually

connecting from a different country that might not have these rules. So there are methods it seems to get to get around this if someone is intent on on accessing this content. Yes, so Ofcom likened it to, you know, if a young person was intent in the real world of buying alcohol then they would go to, you know, a number of different pubs until or shops until they found one that sold them alcohol. They likened it to that. If someone is determined enough they could find a way and one of the ways is a VPN. Now VPN basically is, VPNs are a completely legal way that many people do business.

People listening at home might work from home, and they might use a VPN in terms of connecting to their colleagues with their business. It's a completely legal method of communication. But one of the key things about it is it masks your location. So as you say, I'm sitting here in Glasgow. If I was using a VPN, rather than the website that I'm visiting, rather than knowing I'm in Glasgow, because I'm connected to a VPN that might, let's say, be in India, the website might

think I'm in India. So that is how it can mask your location of your device that you're using. It's key to say though that the UK government have outlined that any platforms that are encouraging people to use VPNs to get around these new rules are breaking the law. And also, it's key to say that some of the big players who people might choose to use a VPN to access, such as Pornhub, who are the biggest porn website

in the UK, They have themselves have said they don't encourage people to break the law. What can parents do? Well, you can control VPN usage at the router, the device in your house that's controlling the internet. That's one way that you can control VPN usage and also Ofcom continually say that education and conversations with young people are a key thing as well and those should continue. Okay, Graham stay there for a moment if you will. I want to bring in Gemma who's from Cease. Gemma, how do you feel about these age verification checks coming in? Are you

confident that these checks can work? Yes, so we are very happy that these checks are coming in. Age verification for pornography is something that Cease and others campaigned for for a very long time. And we were extremely happy to see that that was in the Online Safety Act. I think what is going to be really important going forward is how this is enforced by Ofcom. So, you know, we are very glad that this is happening, but we are very much in a wait and see moment, because I think really legislation will only ever be as good as its implementation.

And so all eyes are on Ofcom to make sure that they are robustly enforcing this law and that they will act very swiftly against any company who is not adhering to age verification rules. And do you think that is what they need to do then, be able to enforce those rules? Yes, so what we know from the pornography industry is that it has avoided regulation for decades. It does not want to be regulated. We have seen Pornhub say that it is going to age verify from today, but there are, of course, other pornography sites and they have a history of not wanting to adhere to regulation. And so Ofcom have to be really very strong

and they have to be strong because the content that children are accessing is extremely violent, it's extremely misogynistic and it's having a massive impact on young people's understanding of sex and relationships and it's increasing violence in relationships. So it's really important that we get this right. We know also that children are very tech savvy. We were talking about VPNs though with Graham. Are you concerned about children using those to be able to get around these new rules? Yeah, so as Graham said, you know, VPNs can be used. I think what's going to be really important is that this is going to prevent children from stumbling across pornography.

So again, as Graham said, yes, there will be tech savvy children, you know, probably older teenagers who might be able to get around it. But what this is going to do is stop the 60% of children that are accidentally stumbling across pornography at ages as young as 7, 8 and 9. And I think that's why this is so important. And while it isn't a silver bullet, as Ofcom has said, it is the beginning of regulating an extremely dangerous industry that thus far has had no regulation. What do you say then to those who are concerned that these extra age checks might infringe

on the privacy of adult users? So age verification methods have been around for many years. They are privacy preserving, they have no need to collect data, you know, they are very good at what they do, the age verification industry, and So I don't think people need to be concerned. Ofcom have been very clear that any age verification checks has to meet their very high standards and that it has to be privacy preserving. And I would say that porn sites themselves are renowned for taking people's data. Any way before age verification has been on the table.

They make their business from people's data. So they're already doing that. Some sites, of course, would say they're not doing that. But according to BBC News, the debate research from 2019 carried out by a researcher at Microsoft, actually, into academics at US universities. They analyzed more than 22,000 pornography websites. They found actually that 93% leak user data to a third party. So Graham I just want to

bring you back in. Are these kind of checks being brought in anywhere else or is this just the UK? No this is not a UK only issue. Two recent developments of course have been in America and in France and in America the US Supreme Court recently upheld a Texas law that requires the pornography sites to verify the age as a number of US states that already have age verification. In France Pornhub actually withdrew from France and it wasn't available there for a while due to this ongoing row that it has with the French regulators there. So this is not a UK only problem, there are regulators across the world trying to look at the issue of online safety and how to best deal with that.

And just finally, what are the big operators and websites who are showing explicit materials saying about these changes? Well, yes, Pornhub and the BBC have wrote a number of articles in recent weeks about this issue and as I mentioned earlier, Pornhub are saying that they don't want people to circumvent rules using something like a VPN. They haven't said much else. Social media site X tends not to speak to the mainstream media, so we haven't really heard

at all from what they think. But they do speak to the regulators, and as I say, they have outlined to Ofcom what they intend to do. And there's a number of other websites that I've already said that they're going to introduce some sort of age verification. Reddit is one of them.

Of course, mature content can appear on Reddit as well as other types of content. So they're introducing age verification grinder. It's another one, Discord, social media site blue sky seen as a direct comparator to X that is introducing age verification so it's not just porn sites there's a number of different websites today who've introduced age verification and that's why many people across the UK both adults and young people may notice a difference to their online lives.

Okay Graham thank you very much that That's our BBC Senior Technology Reporter, Graham Fraser. And also thank you to Gemma Kelly, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at CEAS. I should say we asked Ofcom for a statement, and Dame Melanie Dawes, Ofcom's Chief Executive, said, Prioritising clicks and engagement over children's online safety will no longer be tolerated in the UK. Our message to tech firms is clear. Comply with age checks and other protection measures set out in our codes

or face the consequences of enforcement action from Ofcom." That's a statement there from them. We have been asking for your views on going on holiday with another family. And lots of you have been getting in touch. Let's just read a couple of them. Andrea has messaged in to say, when my daughter was three, her daughter is now 34, my NCT group started these big house holidays where usually 12 adults, 15 kids and the odd dog would stay in a big house somewhere in the UK or France. We did this for some years and now eight of the adults are still good friends and still go on holiday together, but without the kids, sounds fun. Another one here, I'm very careful

about which friends we holiday with. We holiday with people who parents similarly to us, very important. We are particularly strict parents, but it's impossible to go away with friends who don't have any boundaries with their children. Do please keep those comments coming in, we'll be discussing that a little later in the program. 84844. Now Dame Agatha Christie, also known as the Queen of Crime and the Duchess of Death, is the best-selling novelist of all time with over two billion books sold and translations in

104 languages. Author and former chemist Catherine Harcupp's new book V is for Venom, Agatha Christie's Chemicals of Death follows up on her book A is for Arsenic. Now in both she examines Agatha Christie's favourite weapon, poison. I'm delighted to say that Catherine has joined me in the Woman's Hour studio. Hi Catherine. Hi. I should say from the off that I'm the Woman's Hour studio. Hi Catherine. Hi. I should say from the offset, I'm a huge Agatha Christie fan.

Excellent. Like many, many of our listeners. So why did you decide to write a book then about Agatha Christie's creative use of chemicals to kill victims in her novels? I was very lucky to be asked to write a book about chemistry and chemistry can be quite a daunting topic, I think, to a book about chemistry. And chemistry can be quite a daunting topic, I think, to a lot of people. So a way to perhaps engage audiences would be to talk about poisonings because everyone loves a good poisoning. And if you're going to write about poisons, you

have to write about Agatha Christie. It was such a fantastic combination and I got to do it twice. How crucial was poison to the plots of her stories? They are so brilliantly interwoven into her plots. They are almost independent characters within her novels. Some of the ways she incredibly well introduces symptoms, doses, the time it takes to take effect. All of these are important clues that you should be taking note of as you go through the novel if you want to work out who done it before Cuero or Marple get there

first. So it is a brilliant way of introducing clues that people can latch on to and even though it is chemistry and it's science it is explained in such a good way that anyone can pick up on these clues and stand the same chance as anybody else of solving the crime. How much did your background in chemistry help with researching the book? It helped a lot just in terms of appreciating how much research I would have to do on top of my very basic knowledge of chemistry. It also gave me an insight into just how good she is.

I really do appreciate that she put in the effort and she was very accurate in her descriptions. So she's wonderful for any level of reader, any background reader, but it gives me an extra pleasure when I read her and I can go oh yeah that bit of chemistry was really nicely dealt with. So where did Christie's knowledge of toxicology come from? During the First World War she trained as an apothecary's assistant as it was called at the time or a dispenser.

So she was working in a hospital dispensary and this was a time long before anything was pre-packaged, pre-weighed. So she had to weigh out all of these prescriptions which were bespoke. Doctors could make up very individual prescriptions for their patients. So you had to interpret their handwriting, you had to take down the chemical in question, you had to make it up into a pill or a cream and that's an art as much as the science and you have to know what you're mixing. If two drugs are prescribed, can you put them in the same pill? Will they interact with each other? So it's

and this was also a time Christie was at the cusp of moving from the imperial system to the metric system and she hated the metric system. And she hated the metric system. Why? Because if you get your decimal point in the wrong place, you go 10 times too wrong. And 10 times too much of some of these compounds can be the difference between a therapeutic dose and a lethal dose. So naturally, you have to know what you're on about. There is an awful lot of training, there's an awful lot of very difficult exams because you are potentially risking lives. So she had a very thorough background in theoretical chemistry, practical chemistry, as well as pharmaceuticals. She's known for arsenic and cyanide, but the new book covers some of the slightly more obscure poisons that were used. Of course, you

know, you have to say they can be harmful and lethal substances, so shouldn't be handled by anyone who's not trained to work with them. Which ones are you most interested in and why? They're all fascinating in different ways but there are a few stories that you come across and say, oh I didn't even realize, I didn't even know that was a thing. And researching about one compound, strephanthin, which I'd be surprised if many people have heard of. It was originally an arrow poison in Africa, it comes from a plant and it interacts with the body, it basically stops your heart, which is a very rapid death, which is very

useful if you're a hunter. You can bring down big animals very quickly. But if you get the dose right, so a much smaller dose, you can slow a rapid fluttering heartbeat to intensify and strengthen contractions of the heart and get more efficient pumping of the blood around the body. So it's a brilliant heart medicine for the appropriate situation. The problem was that when it was eventually introduced into Europe, there was already a drug that did pretty much exactly the same thing. So it never really took off. Most people will have heard of digitalis or digoxin, which comes from fox gloves, and that was the drug of choice. But strephanthin,

it had a brief vogue for a couple of decades, but Christie picked up on it. And she used it in a few of her short stories to bump off a couple of unwanted wives. There was strephanthin slipped into drinks and there was a staged fall from a horse that looked like an accident, but actually the woman had been injected with strophanthin. So a very rapid death and not too many questions asked and we have a lovely puzzle to solve in our short story. I've always read the books and thought that she was smart in the way that she weaved things, you know, clues for the reader. But how accurate actually is her use of poisons and descriptions then when you've looked into them? You really have to be picky if you're going to find fault with her use of poisons. An

example would be there's a description of a cyanide poisoning where the victim turns blue. Now cyanide victims typically, you're going to turn a funny colour if you've been poisoned I'm sure, but cyanide victims typically turn a kind of pinkish colour. That's the kind of detail you have to look at. She also speeds up a few deaths. She's also a little quick to identify what the poison is, but this is just a pacing thing. You don't want hours and hours of agonising convulsions. No reader wants to get through that just to, we want to get on with the plot. The puzzle is the key with Agatha Christie. It's not the

the gross details of poisoning which by and large are pretty grim. What real-life cases does Christie reference in her books? Oh so many. Honestly there is a lot. If you're into your true crime, particularly 19th early 20th century poisonings, there's a lot of name dropping in Agatha Christie. So one classic example would be Dr. Crippen. She references Dr. Crippen. She also uses certain plot points from this real life case.

So Crippen used a drug called Hyacin, which is a nerve agent, and he gave it to his wife and then he cut her body up and he buried it in the cellar. Big scandal at the time, huge references, and Christie used the same poison in, on a couple of occasions, on one occasion in Fillamel Cottage, a brilliant short story, I love it. A wife realizes that she's married a serial killer and realises that she is soon to be the next victim, so to stall her inevitable death she tells her husband how she poisoned her previous husbands with hyacin and he notices, oh that coffee that you gave me tonight that tasted a

bit off and it's enough to derail the situation and she is saved. I like that you don't put any spoilers in or if you're about to put a spoiler in you're very clear that there's a spoiler alert coming up. I know these books have been around for a long time and they are very well known but there are people who have not read them and I don't want to spoil anything for them. No, it might be inspiration for people to go and read them as well. If we're talking in real life, is it the case that women use poison to murder or attempt to murder more than men? Poison is used more by female killers simply because they had access to these things. They were the

ones who did the shopping, they were the ones who prepared the food, they were the ones who nursed sick family members at home. So they had the opportunity to administer these things. However, there are far more male poisoners simply because there are ten times as many male killers as there are female killers. So actually in terms of numbers there are more male poisoners but women use poison slightly more compared to other weapons. If Agatha Christie was writing now using these same kind of poisons would there be an issue because I'm guessing we have methods of detecting these poisons now that weren't available when she was writing?

And it's not so much detection. Detection is not usually a problem for Christie because we need to know what we're dealing with. So we need to understand symptoms. Yes, detection levels are so much better today than Christie's time. But the main problem is getting hold of this stuff. It was a lot easier in Christie's day. There are still issues, but you simply

can't walk into the shops and buy this stuff over the counter. There are rules. There are still issues, but you simply can't walk into the shops and buy this stuff over the counter. There are rules. There are regulations So yeah getting hold of it being detected afterwards the other Disadvantage modern poisoners have and I'm not sure I should have phrased it that way But the disadvantage they have is that medicine has improved greatly since Christie's Day So your victim is much more likely to survive, which means you don't have this problem to solve. You don't have a whodunit.

I understand what you mean. Just finally, why do you think we're still reading Christie's stories? We're still talking about her. You're still writing books about her. She's great. They're great stories. They are brilliantly plotted. They are in such accessible language, which I think has done her a disservice. People think she's too easy, but I would say that the clarity, the simplicity of her writing actually disguises an awful lot of what's going on underneath. The ability to explain science so clearly to a lay audience, every science communicator should look in awe to her. And on top of all of that, there's the nostalgia,

the brilliant cars, the clothes, and she's funny. She's a great writer. I encourage anyone to read her. Well, it's been fantastic talking to you about one of my favourite authors too. Catherine Harcupp, thank you very much indeed. Now it's that time again to remind you that Listener Week is coming up again very shortly so have you taken up a surprising hobby maybe and uncovered a family secret or beaten a record or do you do a job that no one's ever heard about or maybe you've accidentally gone

viral on social media we would definitely like to hear from you it could even be something that you're passionate about but would like an expert to tell you more nothing is off limits so get in touch via the woman's hour website or you can text women's hour on 84844 text will be charged at your standard message rate do check with your network provider for exact costs. On social media it's at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us as I said through our website. Now rape and other sexual violence is surging in Haiti as armed gangs expand their control across the capital Port-au-Prince and beyond. The Caribbean island nation has been engulfed in a wave of gang violence since the assassination in 2021 of the then president Jovenel Moïse.

Medicins en Frontieres say cases of sexual violence have tripled in the past four years and that one in five victims are under the age of 18. Well our BBC correspondent Noelle Almagafee has recently returned from Haiti and she joins me now. Hello Noelle. Hi, hi, nice to speak to you. And to you. Can you just explain, it was very difficult I imagine seeing this, can you explain what you witnessed there? I mean we were there six months ago and when we went six months ago, I didn't think

the situation could get any worse. And I've got to say, on this trip, it was a lot worse than the last time we were there. I mean, the gangs have expanded their control of the city, Port-au-Prince. They now control 90% of the city. Last year when we went in December, we were told that the death toll of the entire year was 5,600 people this time only six months into the year and that number is already at 4,000 but as you said in your introduction there really the greatest victims have been the women and children just to give the listeners

an idea of what these gangs do you know they go into these neighborhoods and they ambush people's homes and they kill the men and rape the women. And it is systematic abuse from home to home to home. We went to one area, Dalmas 30, this neighborhood, we spoke to, you know, dozens of survivors from this attack and they were telling us the same thing. They came into our homes, they raped our women, they, you women, they killed our men. And it's just devastating. It really is some of the worst testimony I've ever heard.

And I've gone to some pretty tough places in my time. And it doesn't make sense. It's hard to understand why these gangs are inflicting such horror on their own people. But yes, our focus this time was really on the women and girls and you know it was really difficult to listen to their stories. You visited safe houses as you said, can you tell us more about who is living there and what those houses are like? Of course, so we went to two safe houses.

One of them, four women came to meet us. It's a shelter, so they come and collect food, they get some guidance. And the four of them told us some of those stories that I told you where, you know, the gangs came into their homes. They, you know, one of them told us something very shocking. She said, you know, she was raped as her six-year-old daughter watched. And then moments later, they took her six-year-old daughter and they raped her too. And you know, that kind of testimony is the kind of thing that just sticks with you forever.

It was hard to even process it when she told me this. But then we went to another shelter and I was expecting to meet more women victims. And when I went, they took us to this balcony and it was all young girls. And I actually thought when we first went in that these were the daughters of the survivors we were about to meet and then the counselor there was like no

these are the victims. Immediately I was like you know I'm not going to interview these girls I don't want to put them through that trauma again who can I speak to. The eldest survivor there was 19 years old now she went through this when she was 17 She's now a single mother as a result of rape. She was captured for two months and raped repeatedly by multiple men and then she managed to escape when fighting ensued in that neighborhood and we'll just we'll hear from her now. Her name is Helen and we're going to hear a clip from her now. And just a warning to our listeners that of course this does include accounts of rape and other violence that some of our listeners may find distressing.

They raped and beat me. Sometimes I think about ending it all. They made me do things and said they'd kill me if I didn't agree. But then I fell pregnant and they told me to abort the pregnancy. But I said no, this baby could be the only one I ever have. At another women's shelter across town, we hear more distressing testimony. They raped me. I had my six-year-old with me. They raped her too. Our neighbourhood was ambushed.

I went back home only to find my mum, my dad, my sister. All were murdered. They killed them and then burned the house down with them inside. Nawal, it's so upsetting to hear that. And some of the women that you were speaking to were telling you that their assailants themselves are under 18. And really that really kind of blew me away you know we spoke to some of them and one of them told us one of the assailants was as young as my son and then we spoke to MSF you know I took all this kind of testimony from these women I spoke to MSF, you know, I took all this kind of testimony from these women, I spoke to MSF and they said that that's what they're seeing. First of all, since 2021, the number of women coming in to be

seen because of, you know, being exposed to sexual violence has tripled. And not only that, but they're seeing a trend where the assailants are becoming really young. And what that tells you is that these gang leaders, that's what they're teaching young boys in these neighborhoods, that they're encouraging them to go in and abuse women. And it's terrifying to think, you know, how that's gonna unfold over the next couple of years. So we took all this testimony and we confronted

a gang leader who has been accused of doing the same kind of thing. And, you know, he was completely kind of just blasé about it, you know. He said, well, when we go into these places and we're fighting, we just become the devil. And these gangs are now recruiting so many young men every single day. They are taking control of neighborhoods, texting people, and with that that money they're paying young boys to join them. It's really difficult to see a way out of this if I'm totally honest with you. And I believe gangs are estimated to control 90% of Porto prints. So what's being done here?

So right now there's a mission called the MSS which was signed off by the United Nations Security Council. They're led by the Kenyan police and they're meant to be supporting the Haitian police in cracking down on these gangs. Now we embedded with them, we went on one of these tours into Gang Hell territory to see what they do. They go in with these armored vehicles, they're heavily armed and as soon as they enter the gangs just, they come out on their feet and start shooting at these armored vehicles. When we were there with them they come out on their feet and start shooting at these armored vehicles. When we were there with them, they took out our tire immediately. And then we had to kind of limp out of this territory.

And they're too afraid to leave these vehicles because they know they're going to be shot immediately. They're outnumbered and they are outgunned. And so now the government is bringing in these American mercenaries to hit the gang members from the air. And what that means is just more violence for the people there to have to endure. It's not just sexual violence that women are facing in Haiti. Half the population now face acute hunger. How does that particularly affect women? And it all feeds in to each other, you know. So we

spoke to the UN regional director there at one of the food distribution sites and she told us, you know, this is the last batch of food we have, we don't know what we're going to distribute next month and it's because USAID, which used to be the biggest, but first of all Haiti was the biggest beneficiary of USAID and now USAID is being cut, it's also going to be the biggest beneficiary of US aid and now US aid is being cut. It's also going to be the worst hit, you know. So she says next month we don't know what we're going to distribute and that exposes women even more because these women are having to go out into these neighborhoods that are controlled by the gangs trying to fight food for their children

for their children and that exposes them to the men that end up abusing them and so the situation is only getting worse because the world is beginning to look away. Noelle, it sounds like a truly desperate situation and we do appreciate your reporting on this. Noelle, thank you very much indeed and I should say that if you've been affected by anything you've heard, you can go to the BBC Action Line for help and advice. There will be lots of information there for you. Now, have you heard of a mistress dispeller? My next guest is here to tell us more.

Director Elizabeth Lowe's new Mandarin language documentary, Mistress Dispeller, follows the real life story of one woman who hires a professional, teacher Wang, to help break up her husband's affair and save her marriage. Now it's a compelling documentary about love, infidelity, pain and joy in modern-day Chinese society. Well I'm delighted to say that Elizabeth is with me to discuss it. Hello. Hi, thanks so much for having me. Thank you for coming in. I guess the most important thing to our listeners, this is a new term to me. Can you please explain what a mistress dispeller is?

So a mistress dispeller is this new industry that's cropped up in China in the last decade, where if you discover that your spouse has cheated on you, instead of directly confronting your spouse, you can hire this woman who's a mistress dispeller to infiltrate your family, your husband's life and the mistress's life under a false identity. And in doing so, gain their ear and influence them to end the affair seemingly of their own accord. And that's sort of the industry that the documentary explores. So it's not only women engaging mistress dispelers? Yes. Men can engage in it too. If they're engaged in an affair and they want the mistress

to go away quietly without conflict, they would hire her too. So in the documentary, we meet Mrs. Lee and her husband Mr. Lee and we see the kind of inner workings of their life, what they're going through and specifically the pain that Mrs. Lee is in after finding text messages on her husband's phone that led her to believe that he was having an affair with a woman called Fei-Fei. Really interested to hear how you came across their story. So we knew that, you know, making a documentary about the subject matter would be a real challenge. And it actually took us three because we wanted to document a case very authentically from

beginning to end unfolding in real time. And it took us three years of following teacher Wang, the mistress dispeller, and filming multiple cases until we arrived at Mrs. Lee's story. And the reason why we were able to get such deep access from the beginning and trust was because we had actually filmed with her little brother two years prior to production, when he himself was a male mistress

in the process of getting dispelled by Teacher Wang. And so two years later, when his older sister comes to him and says, you know, my husband is cheating on me, what do I do? He says, I have the perfect solution for you. Participate in this film. They're a lovely crew. And Teacher Wang is a magician, and she

will make your problem go away. So because of that preexisting sort of vouch of approval from him, from someone that she trusted, we were able to gain access to her from the very beginning. But of course, deception is a big part of Teacher Wang's work and we didn't want to interfere with her case. And so the husband and mistress in the film couldn't possibly know what the film was about

at the beginning. So they were approached to participate in a film more broadly about modern love and marriage and dating in China, and that's what they had agreed to. But my producers and I were very conscious that, how do we handle this from an ethical perspective? So by the end of the case, which took around three to four months to film,

we went back to China to show them the film and gave them the opportunity to reconsider to being a part of the project or drop out if they wish to after they fully grasped teacher Wang's real role in their lives. And thankfully they chose to remain featured. But if they had, you know, wanted to drop out, we would have respected that and pivoted because over those three years we had filmed with many different love industries across China and we would have pivoted to a different film. But yeah.

Were they surprised when they found out that Teacher Wang was a mistress dispeller? I think, I think over the course of the process of this three to four month journey that they go on, I think they slowly gather what is happening. But I think people are so invested in the relationships, whether it's the mistress or the husband, that it's still difficult for them to step away. And I think there is a degree of surprise, but also this acceptance. And partly it's because Teacher Wang is so good at what she does. She knows exactly what strings to pull to elicit what reaction, so that by the end of the journey, even though she's deceived at the beginning, they still feel that she has

helped them in their lives and guided them out of this turmoil. You very much get the impression that she's, you know, on this, she kind of sounds like she's on their side in a way and guides them through. It's very gentle, isn't it? How did you feel observing her methods and the fact that, you know, she doesn't reveal who she is? I mean, personally, of course, I think it's ethically really murky. But I will say that from what I observed, instead of openly confronting an issue or conflict within your family, what she allows them to do

is to circumvent that and to find a peaceful resolution without that kind of direct confrontation. And in approaching the conflict in this very pragmatic subdued way she's able to achieve results that that you know by the end of the process all three of them are are in a better place than they were when she began her work so I have respect in that in that regard. Do you know how much it costs to hire a mistress dispeller? So she charges 700 rim and bee per, which is around 100 US dollars. And typically cases

go on for two to three months and she charges while she's sleeping and when she's on trains coming to visit you. So this is pricey, right? It takes around 20,000 US dollars per case. Gosh. Yeah, you've got to be pretty sure then that you want this to have the outcome that you want. And for the people who employ Mistress Dispeller, is that about keeping the marriage together? Yeah, I think the people who are willing to pay that amount of money to come to her to save their marriages, they have a very strong will to preserve their family.

And I think that is part of a reality that's so deeply woven into the fabric of Chinese society, the preservation of the family unit. And it's this negotiation between intimacy and pragmatism and one's emotional truth with social conformity that I feel are very universal struggles that you know are relatable around the world. I don't want to reveal any kind of spoilers but at one point teacher Wang says the mistress is the most in pain person and the most in need of help. Does that surprise you? I think going into this you know we didn't have any judgments and that is the part of

the film that shocks most people. That you know, her argument is that the mistress is the one who's suffering even more than the wife for being willing to be a part of a relationship that's not fully satisfying. And I think what I admire about that assessment is that she approaches these love triangles with so much empathy for every single person, every corner of that love triangle, that she's able to gain their ear and able to influence them because they feel that she is in their corner. And that's really why we wanted to make the film as well, which is we wanted to approach a love story without judgment. And if audiences can feel their empathy expanding

and stretching to a place that they would normally never have thought it would go to, whether it's the woman, the wife that stays, or the husband that has cheated, or the mistress who's potentially fracturing a family, that that's a meaningful exercise just as a human being. That was one part that surprised me. The other part was comments made by Mrs. Lee's brother who talked about gliding past this, perhaps suggesting moving on past the infidelity,

not breaking up the marriage because of it. Would you say that's a common attitude that some people have that you encountered? I think it's a case by case basis. I think in China, you know, divorce rates are rising and marriage rates are declining. And China has gone through huge seismic shifts in the last, you know, half century. And I think that it's hard to make generalizations about how everybody approaches love. But at least in this case, I think, I think she could see that the 30 years that they had together was meaningful and full of love and that this bump in the road in which her husband has strayed from her marriage for whatever reasons, that overcoming this would be worth their

journey together. And I think audiences can come away with however they feel by the end of the film, with what results and what we really wanted to show as storytellers was just exploring, you know, why do people do what they do? And that's at the heart of what we were trying to discover. Is there a danger, do you think, that the mistress gets the blame and the husband kind of gets off scot-free? I'm thinking of a scene where he's talking to Teacher Wang about the kind of love he has for his wife and the kind of love he has for his mistress, which again I won't talk specifically about what he says because I think that might spoil it for people who are about to watch. But that must have been extremely painful for the wife to hear how he described that.

Yeah, I will say that throughout watching case after case that teacher Wang is solving over those three years of filming, a lot of the emotional labour is taken up by the women in these relationships. They're doing the heavy lifting, they're doing the self-interrogation. And I think that's a state that is universal across cultures, where women are the ones who are having to introspect and be thoughtful and care about relationships in this very deep way. And that is something that is unfair, I think, in the world, and it's reflected in the way that these cases are solved. Can I ask you how things are for Mr. and Mrs. Lee now, and also Fei-Fei? I don't want to give away the ending to the film, but I think they are each where they were meant to be when when Teacher Wang found them at the beginning of the case.

It must have been so interesting for you to explore. We really appreciate you coming in. That's Elizabeth Lowe there. Mistress Dispeller is in Bertha Dockhouse in London from the 22nd of August. We've been asking for your views on holidaying with another family and plenty of you have got in touch. Jackie says, my husband and I have holidayed with friends since our early 20s. We carried on holidaying together as children came along. We are now in our 50s and still holidaying with the same families. Our adult children still come and now bring their partners. We're so fortunate to have such amazing friends. We don't live geographically close and we can't imagine our holidays without them. Jackie, thanks very much for that comment.

So are you planning a joint holiday with another family this year? Maybe it's a perfect recipe for a memorable break. Built-in playmates maybe for your children. Shared responsibilities. Enjoying other adult company. Or is it a case of different parenting styles and different routines leading to tension rather than relaxation? Well, Genevieve Roberts, parenting columnist for the iNews paper has written a column today called How to Holiday with Another Family and most importantly, Stay Friends Afterwards and Genevieve has joined me to discuss this. Hi Genevieve. Hi, thanks for having me. Pleasure. So you've got three young children

and you regularly holiday with another family. Just tell me why. We absolutely love it. I mean, we're great friends as adults and it's lovely at this stage of life when you've got three, we've each got three young children to actually have time where you get to more than just catch up, often when you meet up you get as far as catching up with what's going on in your life but you don't really get beyond that and to actually share time together and then we watch our three children and their three children getting on together and it's wonderful, it's like the next generation of friendship is being made. My children refer to their children as their cousin friends and we are

really good friends. It's my eldest daughter Astrid's godparents who we go with and so they know that they're going to be, they regard them as family almost. It's that sort of almost unconditional friendship, those people that you grow up with and you know. Oh we're having a few problems there with the line to Genevieve. While we're trying to get her back, I'll just read another couple of comments on this. This one here says, we used to go away with friends. We establish, when we used to go away with friends, sorry,

it says we establish a no blame culture. It was understood that everyone took responsibility for their own actions and had avoided arguments about whose fault it was. If something went wrong, we were in it together. That, along with everyone being open and honest about what they actually wanted or liked, had avoided polite acceptance of things that didn't work out and usually meant everyone was actually in agreement rather than second guessing what others wanted. Well, let's see if we can go back to Genevieve now. Can you hear me Genevieve?

I can, sorry about that. Lovely, no problem at all. So I'm just interested to find out, is there one person that kind of takes charge of organizing the holiday? Because I'm wondering if it might be a little tricky if you're all kind of, you know, trying to decide where you're going,

where you're staying and all that kind of thing. So absolutely, and I am very open about this. I feel like there are winners and losers amongst friends on this. And my friends, unfortunately, are the losers. They do admin, they work it all out. My friend Sarah, I pay her a deposit each year. And I was aware of this imbalance and a couple of years ago I tried to get involved and we pick a campsite each year and the one I picked was the one that so far compared to all the others hasn't had nearly as much space and all the cabins were on top of each other and so I realized maybe my role in this wasn't so much playing to my strengths. So I'm very, very happy and very grateful to let her get on with that.

And obviously, I'm happy to pitch in as well. But yeah, it definitely didn't go as well when I tried to get involved. You know your place. You know what you're good at. What happens then? And one of our comments mentioned this, that, you know, if you have different parenting styles, how do you make that work? You know what, so again, I feel like we're the winners, is that my friends, so their children are more independent. I mean, they are slightly older, but they're also more independent, I think, because their parents expect them to be, and that kind of is part of the point of point of parenting isn't it and it rubs off on my children absolutely brilliantly. So

for example we take it in turns each night one family will do dinner and they watch their friends start the eldest or maybe do some barbecuing, the younger two will lay the table. This year my children were making name places for each of their friends for where to sit. They were laying the table, clearing up afterwards. Now that is something I have tried to encourage at home so much, but it takes till we go on holiday with them and they see their friends doing it and all of a sudden they want to be like them. Also kind of at meal times they expect their children to sit around till everyone's finished eating. Again that's something we'd love to do and my children sort of unless it's a

Sunday roast they pretty much tolerate the interruption to playing and they'll sit there for as long as they've eaten and then they'll get back to playing and they'll sit there for as long as they've eaten and then they'll get back to playing whatever they want to. But again, they see this and honestly the halo effects last for weeks and weeks. It is absolutely brilliant and sometimes I just hope they don't have the inverse halo effects going on in there. It sounds like it's working for you, but you have spoken to families for the article who said it didn't work. What were the reasons behind that? Oh my gosh. I mean, it was, I mean, we have separate cabins and I think that's very good because I am, I am a bit messier. And that, that seemed to be something across the board. That little bit of space to yourself seemed really good.

But I mean, there were some quite kind of when it goes wrong, it can go really wrong. There was, I talked to one friend and she not only will not go away with these people again, but she plans to never go camping again because she said the family she went with kind of totally forgot that they were separated only by a canvas. And she could overhear these divorce threats going on.

And it's actually, I mean, the couple is still together and did survive their camping trip from hell, but their friendship has been forever affected by this. Another friend I spoke to, she was, she's a solo parent, but she was just starting to blend her family with her now ex-boyfriend and because they were used to co-parenting with their exes, they hadn't really put all the children together before and they thought this would be an idyllic way to do it, but it really brought into, because they were in one living space, it brought into sharp focus how different their parenting was. And I think she feels grateful that it perhaps accelerated the end of something that may not have lasted forever, but it does sound a real shame. And she said it was definitely

one of the strong contributing factors as to why they didn't make it through. So I do think it is worth being mindful of who you're going with and be very open and upfront and you know good communication if something isn't working for you then talking about that at the beginning rather than waiting to the end and going home with a grudge because you really want these people to be friends for a long time afterwards. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for talking to us. That's Genevieve Roberts there. And I just want to read this final message out here. It says, we're heading down to South Devon today. 28 years, two families, ex-partners, new partners, 30 plus children still coming

if in the country, every night a different person makes the meal and brings the ingredients. We are as one for the whole week, same routine, never leave the cottage for the beach until midday. Fabulous, can't wait. Oh, I'm jealous, have a lovely time. Make sure you join me for Weekend Woman's Hour tomorrow, that's just after 4.30pm but for now, thank you very much indeed for listening. That's all for today's there's a better way of going about it. In this series I'm gonna sit down with 12 incredible guests who are really gonna help me rediscover what love truly means and how I can find it again. People like Stephen Fry, Louis Theroux, Matt and Emma Willis and many more.

So join me on this journey as I explore how to be in love. Listen on BBC Sounds.