Woman's Hour - LeAnn Rimes, Professor Julie Cupples, Fiona Macintosh, Ebinehita Iyere, Professor Asma Khalil

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

The Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter and actress LeAnn Rimes released her first album, Blue, aged 13 and at 14 she won "Best New Artist”. Her unforgettable ballad "How Do I Live" holds the record as Billboard’s Hot 100 all-time #1 hit by a female artist. She joins Anita Rani to talk about the inspiration her latest album – god’s work – which features artists including Ziggy Marley and Aloe Blacc. We’ll be getting an insight into what life behind bars is like for female activists in Nicaragua. Professor Julie Cupples, an Academic who has written about the country and spent time doing fieldwork for her thesis, will be speaking to Anita Rani along with Fiona Macintosh an author who was in Nicaragua at the time of political revolution in the 1980’s. They’ll both be sharing their experiences of women trying to push for revolution in the country.A new report ‘Girls Speak: Pushed Out, Left Out’ from the charity Agenda Alliance highlights the problem of persistent adultification in schools which often leads to extra harsh discipline for Black and dual heritage girls. Anita speaks to Ebinehita Iyere who collaborated on the report joins Anita.With early indications that COVID-19 rates are beginning to rise ahead of winter and a predicted flu wave, the UK Health Security Agency and NHS say it’s essential that pregnant women come forward and get protected. Anita is joined by Claire who contracted covid-19 when she was pregnant & Professor Asma Khalil, Professor of Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Medicine at St George’s University Hospital, University of London.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Michael Millham

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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. We have a megastar in the studio today. She really is looking at me right this very minute. She was only 14 when that came out in 1997. The incredible Leigh-Anne Rimes will be here to talk about her new album and life at 40. If you want to share what that song means to you, please do get in touch. 84844 is the number to text.

Today is also Armistice Day, which marks the end of World War One on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. And Sunday is Remembrance Day. So we thought we should remember what women did for the war efforts. An opportunity for you to share the stories of your mothers, grandmothers, or indeed your great-grandmothers. Have they shared their stories with you about the war? Do you know what they were up to? We would love to hear from you today.

We know it was the women who made sure the country would continue to function day to day during World War II. So I would love to know what the women in your family were doing. Get in touch with the programme in the usual way. You can text 84844. You can contact us via social media at BBC Woman's Hour. You can email through the website or you can send me a WhatsApp [phone]. And if you want to leave a voice note about your grandmother or

great grandmother, then please feel free to do so. Then we will be discussing the adultification in black and dual heritage girls. And we have an update on the COVID and flu vaccinations for pregnant women. And of course, we would love to hear from you throughout the programme. If you want to comment on anything you hear, then please do just drop me a text 84844. Now we have rolled out the red carpet because we've got music royalty in the studio. The Grammy award-winning singer songwriter and actress Leanne Rimes has sold more than 48 million units globally. At just 13 she released her first album Blue. At 14 she won Best New Artist. Her unforgettable ballad How Do I I Live, which you just heard there, holds the record as Billboard's Hot 100 all-time number one hit by a female artist. Incredible. She's also received an Ally of Equality Award by the Human Rights Campaign for her over 20 years

of support for equal rights. She's just turned 40, launched a podcast, has a new album, and she's at Woman's Hour. Welcome. Hi, thank you so much. What an intro. Thank you. I know, we just got it all out there. So everybody knows you've done so much. You have lived so many lives. Yeah, I really have. What does it feel like when you hear that song now? I mean, you were only 14. I have such a great respect for songs like that. I mean, that really was woven in and has been

woven into the fabric of people's lives for now generations. I mean, that really was woven in and has been woven into the fabric of people's lives for now generations. I mean, it's crazy to think about, but yeah, now I like to play around with my music and rework things. And we've done a re-imagined version of that song and it's almost like a prayer. And it's just, yeah, it's such a beautiful song,

it really is. Why did you want to do that? I just, I love, you know, whenever you recorded something so young, I just have such a beautiful song, it really is. Why did you want to do that? I just, I love, you know, when you recorded something so young, I just have such a different view of it now and such life experience behind it. And I like to keep it interesting too for myself or for everyone else. And yeah, it's just a bit of a different spin on it.

And what do you think about the 14-year-old who sang it the first time around? Yeah, I know. Wow, yeah yeah I have great I have great respect for for that child I mean I was such a child and such an adult too at the same time like living very much in an adult world but I have two step sons that are 19 and and 15 and like not till I saw them in their normal childhood did I understand like how abnormal what I was doing was because it felt so normal to me back then but now looking back it's like you know I was a real survivor of so many things and um had a lot of guts at 14 like I really did you really did

yeah and that's an interesting word a survivor of so many things what have you survived oh my god this business life I mean you know it's um I love being at 40 you know in the place that I am I feel like I'm in a place of thriving instead of just you know struggling to survive and you know I've battled you know depression and anxiety for many years and been very open about that and um yeah and we've all been through it these last three years. And it's just humanity. I mean, we're all, you know, we're here experiencing the emotional rollercoaster ride

that is humanity. And it's, you know, to feel like you can come through, you know, all the ups and downs and then come out of it with wisdom. And like I said, feel like I'm thriving at this moment is an amazing feat you can tell you're thriving through your new album oh thank you God's work it's an incredible listen it's very powerful uh you've done so many different genres country pop contemporary Christian

talk to me about your new album which you've written and produced where does that fit in oh wow it's a mishmash of everything I think think when I created it, it was right in the middle of COVID. And I have so many great collaborators on this record. I just started calling people and was like, hey, would you come on the record? And everybody was at home. Everybody was like, yeah, sure. So like Ziggy Marley, Ben Harper, Aloe Blacc, Mickey Guyton, Sheely, yes, Sheely is amazing. And yeah, it was, it felt like a real community of people came together that just loved music to create this album. And so you have these kind of, I like to say, you know, we really looked at the light and dark of our human experience and the human and the holy of things. And I think that comes through sonically in the record because there's these really tribal, like primal rhythms. And then there's these very ethereal sounds. So it's kind of the, you know, two sides of the coin. Yeah. When you all listen to the album, it does connect to you sonically.

You are really transported into a different realm almost. So we listened to the single. Sure, yeah. This is Spaceship. No, I never felt like I belonged here. This world wasn't quite ready for me. Who of us out there in the

stratosphere got a question for the cosmic engineer is it all you believed it would be you know it's uh working sonically because it it just brings tears to my eyes instantly. Yours too. Yeah, it does still. I know, look at us both. I'm also very jet lagged and I'm really emotional right now.

Also, it's Woman's Hour, so you're in a safe space, Leanne. Yes, thank you. Safe space. We all shed tears here. You sang it for the first time live last night. I did. I was doing a TV show with Luke Evans that will air next month. And it was the first time I've sung it live and in rehearsal. I almost lost it at the end. I made it through during the performance.

But yeah, it's so powerful. Why is it so powerful? Obviously, you wrote it, you've sung it, but it's impacting me in the same way. Yeah, no, I think we've all experienced that you know having it out with God I love that I opened an album called God's Work with this song which is like this whole conversation of just having it out with God and I think you know we've all been in that space where it's just like I don't want to be here anymore especially these last few years I I think the collective experience we had really informed what

I was writing about. And, you know, there's such angst and heartbreak and rage in the song. And at the same time, there's a hopefulness, too. And there's humor. I mean, it's like I'm waiting on my spaceship to come, you know. So in the midst of it all, I think we can hold such complexities of emotion. I think that's what that song really does. And you wrote it during lockdown? I did, yeah um I had the title spaceship and I was like what the hell do we write this song about and it just kind of poured out in like a matter of a couple of hours it was just right

there um and in 2020 you released an album called chant yeah I feel like this is almost a progression because it is yeah yeah chant was um you know I do a lot of chanting myself just in my I have this voice that I've never really used for my own healing. Like I've used it for everybody else's. And it's like the last place I think to go for myself. And I started to be uplifted at that time. So we just went in my guest house with a microphone and recorded this chant record and people loved it. And I think, you know, using my voice and so many as an instrument, you know, with so many different layers, it gave me the idea to kind of take that into a full record of, you know, where we kind of branch that out into full song. So, yeah, they're very much intertwined. Yeah, it works. It lowers the frequency. Yes, it makes you feel good. First thing in the morning, put on the album, it will get you ready for the day. Now, you talked about surviving and you have lived many, many lives for your only 40 years. You were very open about your struggles with mental health and anxiety because it was after your 30th birthday you checked yourself into a facility. Yeah, I did. I was exhausted, I think, you know, at 30.

And I have always had people around me. There was, you know, either my ex-husband or, you know, managers and parents and the whole deal. So I'd never really been alone. And I was going through a lot. I was going through, I was going through a lot of teeth surgeries at the time. I had a bunch of dental surgeries and a lot of pain and it was just like mental, physical anguish. And I thought, you know, now it's time to get help because I just couldn't go on any longer like that. Like it just felt like, like I'm saying, I felt like I was really pulling, literally pulling teeth to survive at that moment in time. So because he's had this huge success at a very young age and then your dad was managing you.

Yeah. But you actually ended that relationship as your manager. That must have been really difficult yeah it was tough my parents got divorced when I was 14 and I went through a lot of struggles with my dad and my record label at the time and then you know it was just um one thing after the other and I never really had time to process it because I was constantly working so all of that builds up you know in your nervous system after a while and it's you you've when you never have had time to like actually sit with it, it, it can kill you. I mean, it really can. And on top of that, you're a young, beautiful female singer, successful in the 90s. Yeah.

I mean, the 90s must have been a tough time. You were, I mean, you were a commodity. Yeah, exactly. You know, we've left our left the humanity out of celebrity for a really long time. I think that's starting to change. You know, like people like me that are talking about, you know, the real humanity of what that's behind it. But I, yeah, I became, you're right, a commodity. And the human kind of got pushed to the side. And, you know, we're always, not just as celebrities, but as human beings, we're constantly wearing a mask. And it was like, I just needed to get back,

or even to get to, who am I? You know, who am I at the core of me? And I think that's what you're hearing on this record, is like just the authenticity of, I don't want to talk about surface stuff. Like I'm making music for,'m making music to heal my own heart and at the same time help heal others. Well, it's meaningful and I think it's important

because people respond to that. Yeah, oh my God, like Spaceship, the stories that I hear from people just sharing their own losses or their own struggles with mental health. It's like I've given people language for something that they haven't been able to communicate. And that's such a beautiful gift.

Because so much is projected onto young pop stars, particularly in the 90s. Britney Spears being the other one. I'm sure people have often talked to you about the parallels. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot. There's very much, you know, a lot there. And my heart goes out to her, anybody. And, you know, as a child star, most people don't survive it. Like I joke, but it's true.

It's like that's been my greatest feat in this life is, you know, surviving up until now. And then, like I said, thriving at this point. So it's it's a rough life to to to navigate. Shall we listen to some more music? Sure. I absolutely love this track it's called the wild oh yay co-vocals from country star mickey guyton drumming from the legendary sheila e I mean this is power she made that song she really did what's it about um wow I mean it really is

I think for me I was reading this book um called m Magdalene Revealed. And, you know, it's the persecution of women throughout the ages. And it just really struck me in the heart of like, you know, being a woman and coming into my own power now at 40. And really wanting to be a voice for that, like, you know, to reclaim our wild. You know, they talk about that mask as women, like we've been put in boxes and told, you know, you have to be polite and there's certain emotions you have to push away. And, you know, our sexuality has been, you know, so shamed. And it's, you know, it's reclaiming our humanity, reclaiming our wild as women.

And that's the way forward. It's the you know, it's reclaiming our humanity, reclaiming our wild as women. And that's the way forward. It's the only way forward. And I mean, and laws, actually. I mean, you've been so outspoken about what you think is important. You know, you said, I think, that guns have more rights in America than women. It's true. It's true. And I think the only way to shift that is when women do reclaim their wild. And, you know, it's that holy rage. It's that holy resistance. It's what, look, as women, we create worlds, we create new life. And I think that's what we're here to do now as, you know, our generation and generations after me, you know, to create a new world.

It's powerful. We have the power. Yeah, we do. Yeah. How is it turning 40? It was, it's been great, actually. It doesn't feel really any different. I went into 40, you know, I, as we all know, at 40s, our hormones start changing and things

start shifting. And I went in about six months. We know about it. We talk about it a lot on Woman's Hour. Yeah, six I turned 40 I was like you know what I want to I want to get my body in the best health I you know possibly can so I started working with a um a woman who taught me how to fast and taught me all about my hormones which you know why are we not taught this I don't know another thing that needs to be shifted like you know as soon as we we start our periods, like we should be taught about how to take care of ourselves so that when 40 hits, like

it's a much smoother ride, you know? Absolutely. Like Jennifer Aniston, only in the Allure interview, we were talking about it on the program yesterday, saying how she wished she'd just been told to freeze her ex. Like we're just, it's almost like we need society's catching up with what the way women are living yeah finally finally fast and not fast enough though yeah no it's yeah there's still there's still some resistance there but it is shifting um and why launch a podcast now oh you know the podcast was you know i feel like my my albums and the podcast very much have a through line, you know, and I wanted, I'm very curious

about everything emotional, mental, physical health, like well being. And I wanted to have a place where I could just discover with other people. You know, I have a name that I'm able to get people on the show and these fantastic people and, and to get curious you know with everybody else and ask the question so I've loved it and I think like I said that that kind of informed chant and chant to the album and so it's yeah it's very much one cohesive thought um you said something on the podcast to somebody about how you were you thought you were going to step into your relationship taking daddy issues but actually you realised there was mommy issues. It's such a huge thing to say.

What did you mean by that? Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I think as women, sometimes it's easy to like, especially everything I went through with my dad, to just kind of blame everything on that relationship. But I, yeah, there's a book called The Mother Wound that is fantastic. And when I started reading that and kind of digging into it, I saw, you know, there was, there was a lot that has been passed down through lineage from grandmother to mother, you know,

to now me. And, you know, as I think there's, at some point there's a responsibility, a beautiful one at that, to break those cycles. And so I just saw very clearly, you know, the trauma that had been passed down from generations. Tell me about your grandmother, because we're asking people to get in touch about, to tell us about their grandmothers. I mean, we're talking specifically about British grandmothers in the Second World War, but tell me about yours. Oh, my gosh. She was an interesting woman for sure. She was my mom's mom. Really rough childhood and hard life. And she loved me. But from what I remember of her, she was just very sad. This is where that depression piece comes from. It was just kind of passed down from generation to generation.

And yeah, it's amazing what can be passed down through, you know, the maternal lineage. And, you know, we're in our grandmother's womb, which is amazing. Like the eggs that are in my mom were in her womb, which was, if you think about it, like we've been carried by all of these women. And I think there's, it's so easy to look back and and blame you know um but at some point I think there's this great appreciation even for the difficult moments because you just you see so clearly um you know the hurt that's been passed down yeah and so yeah for me it's about breaking that cycle for sure someone said something incredible incredible to me because we talk a lot about intergenerational trauma here. And, you know, depending on the cultures you come from, what we carry from our past and how we're

dealing with it. Someone said it takes to get to the generation that have the resources to deal with it. Absolutely. It's so very true. I mean, they didn't have the luxury of dealing with it. I mean, it really is a luxury for so many people to be able to dig into, you know, to themselves. Otherwise, we go back to that survival piece because so many people are just trying to survive. There's no there's no thriving in that. There's no way to stop and look within and to heal that. So I know that my healing is definitely a luxury because there's so many people in this moment in time that don't have that. You have lived so many lives in your very young 40 years, as I've said before. What was the toughest time? Oh, wow.

You survived. I would say my early 30s, like late 20s, early 30s was probably the roughest time, because even though I had a really tough time as a teenager, I don't, like I said, I didn't stop to think about and experience what I was really going through so that catches up to you and I think once it caught up to me and once I was willing to take a moment to pause and look at it it was like you know a tsunami of of um pain but it was so needed like I so had I had to do that you know they say the only way out is through and it was like those five, six years. Was this when you got together with your husband?

Yeah. I guess I was like 20, 28 was about the time it all kind of came crashing down. But once I hit, I feel like once I hit about 35, it also kind of started to smooth over a little bit. And that wisdom kind of started to sink in and I started to come out of it so there's a track on your album called awakening oh yeah do you feel like you've had one oh many I mean I feel like I've had big ones and many ones and still do you know um especially when I'm jet lag I'm sure I'll have one today at some point in my haze no but, but I do. I feel like sometimes, you know, once the, when, when a piece of you starts to get broken down, and I think that comes in layers, like that ego

structure of who we think we have to be, like little by little starts to kind of fall, fall away. You start having these like many awakenings all the time and learn more about myself and learn my patterns and how I can, you know, shift those cycles. So yeah, awareness, awareness is so it's key and to creating the life we want. And so that song really is about, you know, surrendering to the process because it's, you know, the more we resist it, like the harder it becomes. I'm just smiling watching you thinking, you know, you've done so much and this album is so incredible. I can't wait to see what you do in the next 40 years. It's been such a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you for this beautiful conversation. I've really enjoyed it. And thank

you for the album. I think that's, you know, your art is going to speak to so many people and going to really help people through the next phase of their lives uh thank you for that wonderful the incredible liam rhymes maria has been in touch actually just says i wanted to share that i gave a cd of liam rhymes how do i live to my husband to tell him i was pregnant with our first child i still still love hearing these stories from people because it's you know songs like that just have been a part of people's lives forever incredible incredible thank you thank you now on with the program a two-minute silence will be held at 11 a.m this morning to mark the end of the first world war services will take place across the uk for our minister's day including at the cenotaph in london well the bbc is this year asking for help to collect first-hand accounts from the Second World War to mark the 80th anniversary in 2025.

It's called We Were There, and you can find out more by going to the BBC website. Well, some recollections are already in our archives. Here's a clip of Marie Garcia, a telegraph switchboard operator on D-Day, who was based deep into the cliffs overlooking Portsmouth Harbour. I really had the war in my ears. As it was a one-way system, I would pass whatever messages I had to, and then they would lift their lever and pass their responses. And it was when they lifted their lever that I realised I was listening to warfare. Because they were landing on the beaches and I could hear it.

I could hear it all. Gunfire, machine guns, cannon, screaming, men shouting, orders being shouted, all manner of things. So, you know, I think it taught me a lesson about war. Although I was a non-combatant, of course, war is something that should be avoided at all costs. That was Marie Garcia, telegraph switchboard operator on D-Day. Woman's Hour, we want to hear your memories of how women in your family were involved

in the war effort. And so many of you are getting in touch. Maureen has emailed in to say, my grandmother refused to leave her house during the blitz in Plymouth. She bedded down under the kitchen table and brought out a tray of tea to the rest of us who were sheltering in the air raid shelter in the garden

during intervals in the bombing. She lived to be 92. Maureen, how wonderful to have your grandmother live to 92. My granny, Elizabeth Beauchamp, as she was then, worked for MI5 during World War II. She took the Official Secrets Act very seriously and never told our family what role she played. All we know is that she ended up in Kenya

where she began a lifelong love affair with my grandpa. Oh, we need to know the rest of that story. What was she doing? Francesca says, my Nana Rosa lived in occupied Italy in World War II. At 14, she pushed a soldier down the stairs after he poked her baby brother with a bayonet. She also hid my

great uncle in a hotbread oven when they came round to enlist young men. Your grandmother, Francesca, sounds amazing. And Luciana Harrison says, I know when you asked for World War Two, I know you asked for World War Two, but I'd love to hear more talk about women of World War One. Indeed, please tell us about World War One, especially those in service. These are such amazing stories which often get overlooked. Without these women, there'd be no World War I. Indeed, please tell us about World War I, especially those in service. These are such amazing stories which often get overlooked. Without these women, there'd be no World War II service women or women permanently in the military. And that's from Luciana in Wales. 84844 is the number to text. Keep your stories coming in. Now, COVID-19 rates are beginning to rise ahead of winter, and there's a predicted flu wave which has led the UK Health Security Agency and

NHS to say it's essential that pregnant women come forward and get protected. Uptake rates have improved but statistics show that three in ten of women, three out of ten women who gave birth in June 2022 were not fully vaccinated and only around four in ten women get the flu vaccine during pregnancy. Well joining me now is Claire who contracted Covid-19 when she was pregnant. Welcome to Woman's Hour Claire. Tell me what happened. So I was 25 weeks pregnant when I got COVID and unfortunately it didn't end that great for me so I went into A&E and I actually had COVID pneumonia so I went into A&E twice and eventually my oxygen levels just couldn't sustain keeping my baby inside me and I ended up staying at the hospital and I eventually got put onto a ventilator so medically induced coma which I didn't really put two and two together at the

time because I was so poorly but yeah it's a very scary time. Terr terrifying absolutely terrifying had you been vaccinated so I um the advice when I first got pregnant was not to get the vaccine because the research wasn't there and then when I um as my pregnancy went on the advice started to change and I wanted to speak to my midwife about it face to face and and get her take on it and understand why the research was saying that so I waited until my 25 week appointment and I got the advice from her got the website to go on made the decision yes I'm going to get the vaccine and then that week I got COVID so I was just too late. And then you were put on a ventilator as you said absolutely terrifying time for you and your and your husband. Yeah so I was in my local hospital when I was put on the

ventilator and it was more scary for my friends and family during that time because I was essentially asleep so I don't really remember I don't remember any of it um but they were obviously all having to live through that and get updates each day to find out if I was doing okay and if the baby was doing okay um and I got moved to St Thomas's Hospital in London while I was on the ventilator um and I got moved to St Thomas' Hospital in London while I was on the ventilator and I eventually woke up there after 11 days. I'd been told a couple of times I was going to have to have a C-section and before I went on the ventilator they said I would probably have to have a C-section

while I was under but I woke up and I still had a bump. So the NHS were amazing. They kept baby inside me during that time. And then your son was born. And what's his name? You've named him after the hospital, haven't you? Yeah, so he's called Elliot Samuel Thomas. So Thomas is after St Thomas'.

So it was important to us to say thank you in some way for them for keeping us alive, basically. And how's he doing? How's he doing? He is a very healthy, happy little boy. He giggles all the time. Yeah, he's a little rainbow baby. And what myths, Claire, were you hearing around getting the covid vaccine when you were pregnant yeah we can hear you oh no we've lost her there we go um we will see if we can

get claire back um i'm also joined by professor asma khalil who's a professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at st george's University Hospital, the University of London. She is a subspecialist in maternal and fetal medicine, specialising in scanning women and babies with complications in pregnancy, asthma. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Why should pregnant women be getting vaccinated now? We've just heard from Claire there about her story, but why should all pregnant women be getting vaccinated? Because we know that pregnant women are more likely to get severe illness if they get COVID. They're more likely to need admission to intensive care units or require ventilation compared to non-pregnant individuals and it's not just for the mother or the pregnant woman,

but also for the baby. So we know that if you get COVID during pregnancy, there's a higher risk of stillbirth, which means the baby dying during the pregnancy. There's increased chance of premature birth. And we know that prematurity increases the risk of disability and also increased chance of needing caesarean delivery. So for all of these reasons, the advice to pregnant women is to get the vaccine

because it is the best way to protect themselves and protect their babies. But the messages were at the beginning of the pandemic for pregnant women not to get the vaccination. How do we know that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe in pregnancy? It is true that the message with advice has changed, but because pregnant women were not included in the initial COVID vaccine trials, and therefore we didn't have any safety data on the vaccine during pregnancy. But that was over sort of during the pandemic. We have data on hundreds of thousands of pregnant women. And we know that the vaccine is effective. It's nearly 90% effective against the infection.

We also know that it's safe. We know that the vaccine does not increase the risk of miscarriage or premature births. In fact, the recent evidence tells us that the women who get the vaccine, there's 15% lower stillborn or less risk of stillbirths compared to those women who do not get the vaccine. And it's not just that, but in fact, the most recent evidence that in fact, it's also protective to their babies. So the babies are less likely to require hospitalisation because of severe COVID in the first six months of life. Does it matter which vaccine someone has? It's a really good question. Most of the data that we have are on the what we call mRNA vaccines. This is like Pfizer or Moderna.

And therefore, the current guidance in the UK is that if you're pregnant, we will give you one of these vaccines, the mRNA vaccines. And why has the advice changed now what do we know um well we know that the vaccine is safe we know the vaccine is effective and therefore the advice to pregnant women to get the vaccine it's the best way if you're listening to us and you feel pregnant the best way to protect yourself and your baby is to get the vaccine. What is recent now is the fact that we, obviously the government is offering the booster for the COVID vaccine because you would have noticed that there has been increased number of COVID and the fact that your protection decreases over time. So if you want to improve your protection against severe illness,

you need to go and get your booster. And it's not just the COVID vaccine you're asking pregnant women to come forward to have, it's also the flu vaccine. Yes, because we know flu can vary from mild illness, but also can cause severe chest infection in pregnancy. And we know that increases the chance of admission to the intensive care unit. And again, it's not just the mother, but we know that flu during pregnancy can also increase the risk of miscarriage, stillbirths and premature births. And therefore, again, we would advise pregnant women to come forward to get their flu vaccine and get their COVID booster. Thank you very much, Professor Asma Khalil, for speaking to us about that,

giving us the information, and also to Claire, who we spoke to earlier, whose son is doing very well now. Over to Latin America now, specifically to Nicaragua, a country where women have been fighting for democracy since the revolution in the 1960s and are still fighting for the right to have a voice and to be heard. Earlier this year, the government stopped the work of 200 non-government organisations in a bid for full control, which led to criticism from the UN and global community. According to Amnesty International, women in activism in the country have often been

targeted with the use of sexual violence and it's difficult to understand how many women are incarcerated at the moment because human rights groups are not allowed into prisons. Well someone who's been looking into the issue of women activists in prison in Nicaragua is Julie Kooples, Professor of Human Geography and Cultural Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She's been looking closely at what life is like for women in the country. Also joining the conversation is Fiona McIntosh, author of Rosa of the Wild Grass, someone who was in the thick of the revolution in Nicaragua during the 1980s.

Welcome, Julia and Fiona. I'm going to come to you first, Julie. What's the scale of the problem? Let's just go, because a lot of people listening won't know anything about Nicaraguan politics and what's happening to women. Let's just talk about how many women are in prison and why they're in prison.

So, hi there. Thanks very much for having me on. So there are currently 219 political prisoners in Nicaragua and 21 of those are women. And why are they there? Who are these women? We're talking about political activists, aren't we? They're political activists.

So they're opposition activists. So the current government, led by Danieltega and Rosario Murillo returned to power in 2006 and over since that time we've seen a progressive or a constant form of de-democratization of a country, a grown authoritarianism and essentially the government has been at war with many sectors including the women's movement and feminist organizations. And so the persecution of these groups has increased, but it kind of it became increasingly violent. And then in 2018, there was a big popular uprising in opposition to the government. And the government responded massively with repression, took about 700 political prisoners at that time. yn ymgyrch â'r Llywodraeth. A ysgrifennodd y Llywodraeth yn fawr gyda chyflawni.

Roedd yn cymryd am 700 o ffyrdd gwleidyddol ar hyn o bryd. Roedd llawer ohonyn nhw wedi cael eu llwyddo yna. Ond wedyn, fe wnaeth y cyflawni ddechrau eto yn 2021. Ac mae newydd o ffyrdd gwleidyddol wedi cael ei ddefnyddio. Felly mae'r ddynion sy'n ymwneud â'r ffyrdd yma oherwydd eu bod wedi cymryd y Llywodraeth bryd. prisoners have now been taken. So the women who are in prison are there because they've opposed the current government. What's really interesting about them is they cross the political spectrum. So there are women on the right and on the left who are currently in jail and they're being held

in the most inhumane conditions. What kind of conditions? So for example, all of their rights as prisoners, so the rights that are enshrined in the Nelson Mandela rules of the United Nations, as well as in national legislation, the penitentiary law of Nicaragua, those rights are being violated. So they're denied regular visits from family members, including from their children. They're denied communication with family members. They're being denied adequate food and nutrition. ymwneud â phrofiadau cyffredinol o ffrindiau teulu, yn ymwneud â phrofiadau eu plant, yn ymwneud â chymuned â phrofiadau teulu, yn ymwneud â phwyd a nyddoedd cyflawniadol. Felly mae'r rhan fwyaf ohonynt wedi colli, chi'n gwybod, fel pwydau a pwydau mewn gwaith. Yn ymwneud â'r cyflawniadau meddwl, felly un o'i ffyrdd gwleidyddol, Evelyn Pinto, mae'n 63, mae'n arwain ganer, mae ganddi brofiaddi broblemau cydnodol, broblemau thyroid, hypotensiwn ac mae'n arwain ar ddynion meddygol arbennig ac nid yw hi wedi cael unrhyw ddynion meddygol o gwbl. Mae llawer o ddynion yn yn isolaeth, felly mae 4 o'r dynion wedi bod yn isolaeth mewn cellau golygfod ac dylai'r cyfnod oedd yn ddynion cyfnod arbennig pan fydd yn cael ei ddefnyddio, ond mae hyn wedi bod have been in isolation in dark cells. And solitary confinement should be a short-term thing when it's used.

But this has been for months on end. They're denied access to bedding. They're denied access to sunshine and fresh air. They're denied access to reading and writing material. And they've been denied contact with their lawyers. I'm going to bring Fiona in here. Fiona, what's your connection to the country before we talk about your response to what's being said?

What's your connection to Nicaragua? Gosh. Hello. Can you hear me? I can hear you. I don't hear you. Hello. Hello.

Lovely to hear you. This is so, so sad what's happened because when I went, I got there in 1981 and the place was exuberant after a revolution, a successful revolution by the Sandinistas. This same Daniel Ortega was part of that group that came to power then and what they rolled out in those first years was phenomenally positive. Health conditions, women's rights, not having exploitative publicity, using women, most important national vaccination campaigns that helped to improve life for women and children in particular. And I have a lasting memory when I was working there, in publicity, I should say, mainly in education, to help with the improvement of illiteracy in the country,

that it was the women, particularly the informal sector, that were promoting health care. And I was visiting in the countryside, homemade, if you like, clinics where women particularly were administering vaccines for their children. A very different political climate for women now. What's happened? What's changed? What happened? I think if you look, well, many people won't remember, but 1981 was when Ronald Reagan came into power. And instead of thinking that here we had a country

that had got rid of this dictatorship, Somoza, and was bringing health and education, this was an opportunity to help modernise the very mixed economy. They weren't hell-bent into old ideology of thinking that this was some communist threat. This is a country 1.3% the size of America. So how this was going to be a threat to America is beyond anybody's imagination. But

anyway, they really helped to fund the old dictator's National Guard. And they carried out a huge destabilization of the country, which was heartbreaking to see, you know, newly built creches on farms where women were working and had their children at last in a safe, clean environment were being attacked. And the place was hemorrhaging. And then in 1985, there was an economic blockade by America, the main importer for goods from Nicaragua. So this just exhausted the country. And by 1990, people knew that if they didn't vote in the opposition party UNO, then there would be probably more bloodshed. So really, they were pincered into a process that then unrolled terrible, more economic problems. So Julie, what role do women play in society now? Let's get a sense of the day to day for women in Nicaragua. I mean, it's interesting because during the revolution, there was a kind of mass mobilization of women. But a lot of, you know, really important gender issues were kind of put on the back burner while,

you know, while people fought for national liberation. So when the Sandinistas lost the elections, first of all, in 1990, there were lots of women who gained really important political and organizational skills, and a lot of them moved into the NGO sector. So up until recently, there were many feminist NGOs, NGOs working with women's health, women's media, reproductive rights, legal services. And so there's been a very active and vibrant feminist movement. But one of the one of the issues has been one of the reasons why the government has been at war with the women's movement was that at the end of the 1990s, the stepdaughter of a current president,

Zoya Merica Narvaez, accused her stepfather of sexual assault over many years from when she was age 11. And he, you know, he hid behindan o'i llyfrau o'r cyfrifiad yn y pryd... ..a'i gweithredol yn y Cynulliad Cenedlaethol. Ond, wrth gwrs, roedd y ffyrdd gwirioneddol a'r ffeministiaid... ..yn cefnogi ZOIL America. Mae gennym rai wlad... ..wneud i ddilyniadau gwirioneddol ddiffyg y gwirioneddol. Mae gennym y ffyrdd gwirioneddol ffeminist.....a llawer o ddiffyg gwledig... women's rights are routinely undermined. So on one hand, we do have this vibrant feminist movement,

but we also have quite a lot of domestic violence, really high levels of femicide in Nicaragua. And why is the level of violence towards women so bad? Well, part of it is ingrained forms of machismo, forms of culture, that kind of have merged in Latin America over a very long period and become very resilient. o ddiwylliant, rydych chi'n gwybod, mae hynny'n rhywbeth, rydych chi'n gwybod, mae wedi cymryd rhan yn America Llanes dros amser hir iawn ac wedi dod yn fawr yn hyderus. Ond, rydych chi'n gwybod, beth sydd gennym ni, wrth gwrs, yw genedlaeth newydd o ddynion ffeministion, mae llawer ohonyn nhw yn y gaeaf neu mewn aros nawr, sy'n ystyried un fath o Nicaragua gwahanol iawn. Mae hynny'n, rydych chi'n gwybod, mae hynny', that's intersectional, that's focused on liberation

for people of all genders. I mean, it's very much focused on LGBTQ rights as well as women's rights. It's very important. And Fiona, you were there working in publicity in the 80s. When was the last time you were there? Oh, well, visit was 2013 and yes the writing on the wall was all there and I was going back to talk to Rosa and her family this woman that was very much a supporter in the early days and a beneficiary of what was happening with women's rights. And she very clearly said to me, I am no Danielista, the very recent president, the president now. I am a Sandinista, holding to those values of equality that were being really promoted in those early years.

So since this man, Daniel, is back in power, he has pushed away all these NGOs. And it's quite tragic because there's now no way to really evaluate what's going on in the country. The level of centralized control is such that I would be very wary about going back because I feel I could be followed and I don't know if the people I would visit would be endangered because of that because in the end Rosa is very critical of what's happened and yeah and which is yeah such a such a shame when you've got such a strong connection to the country but like you say you have to be wary of what your your physical presence in the country would do to other women who who you're associated with um fascinating insight into the situation for women in nicaragua fiona mackintosh thank you so much for speaking to me as well as

you julie julie cooples professor of human geography and cultural studies at the university of edinburgh thank you both now a new report, Girls Speak, Pushed Out, Left Out, from the charity Agenda Alliance, highlights the problem of persistent adultification in schools, which often leads to extra harsh discipline for black and dual heritage girls. You'll remember the recent case of Child Q, the 15-year-old black girl who was strip-searched while at school by officers by the Met Police. Well, the Agenda report comes at the same time as a new book, Girlhood Unfiltered, with contributions from 20 teenage girls, which aims to reframe the perceptions of girls' behaviour and allows them to express in their own words what it means to be a black girl in today's

schools and society. Well, I'm delighted to say that the co-author of the book, Ebonita Aiere, is with me in the studio. She's also the founder of Milk Honey Bees that supports black and dual heritage girls and young women in South London. And Benita, you also collaborated on the Agenda Alliance. Welcome to Woman's Hour. It's a broad report looking at the lack of specialist support for the most vulnerable young women and girls most at risk of poverty, abuse, discrimination and poor mental health. But we are talking about adultification specifically today. Let's just remind everybody listening what we mean by that word. Firstly, hi Anita, thank you for having me.

It's my pleasure. And so adultification is a term that essentially comes from the US. It came from the US off of the back of Georgetown University's research, the erasure of a black girl's childhood. And essentially it means where children are not, black children are not afforded the same childhood experience and innocence as other children. It was then later researched in the UK by Janine Davis,

who's the founder of Listen Up Co. And that has further trickled down into a UK meaning with the same kind of meaning, but the UK context being that it doesn't just look at black girls, it encompasses black children, which includes black boys as well. In the report, it found that often black girls have been overlooked. Yeah. Why is that? I feel that black girls are overlooked and have been overlooked as a result of a few different things. I think the first thing that we have to look at and admit is the stereotypes that people have around black girls and how this transitions into the experience of black womanhood.

I think that where notions of strength and notions of you're going to be all right and you've got this have affected black women for so long due to colloquialism, black girls being erased and not being looked at as children is quite normal to those who don't interact with them. It's obviously wrong. I think another thing is the fetishisation that society has with black boys.

I think that where we have a system that sees and recognises the issues around black boys, it fails to understand that black girls are their counterparts. Black girls are their counterparts black girls are their sisters their cousins their friends they are in the community but there's a fetishization and an obsession with black boys and all the stats around black boys but as you will read in girlhood unfiltered in a few of the essays and if you've ever heard my TEDx talk

on anything I've done before I always talk about for every black boy that has been injured or has gone to jail or he's always struggling at school there's a black girl who is helping mobilize him in her community without putting her first so essentially that's why we created Milk Honey Bees for black girls to have a space to put her first and that's why we intersect with the education system because I know and we know that the erasure that black girls face in the education system because I know and we know that the erasure that black girls face in the education system is detrimental to their well-being and actually to society as a whole um let's you you the collection of essays is really powerful thank you um and uh really kind of I was reading them and I had to put the book down a few times to really take in what was being said I think we should listen to some of the girls that have they've contributed to the book haven, haven't they? Okay, here's a clip of who we're going to hear from. We're going to hear from Faith, Evie, Jala and Talia. Have a listen.

I don't open up or trust as easily as I did. And I built a barrier between me and everyone else. I was labelled as the loud black girl. And eventually, because of me being that loud black girl, I was kicked out of school. At the time, they didn't know being that loud black girl I was kicked out of school. At the time they didn't know that that loud black girl was my ADHD. Moving schools I was just shoved in with no time to adjust or to settle in. I was in school for a year until I found Milk Honeybees which gave me a place where I felt like I belonged and I could be myself. I struggled with like how people were going to view me and my hair and my skin. My school really restricted hair colours at one point and if you wore like a red

or blue you'd be like put in a room and you had to rewrite lines upon lines saying I will not wear coloured hair, I will not like it was long. So to come to school around my friends and so-called teachers that were meant to care for me and then for them to suddenly be like you can't look like this, you can't dress like this, you can't be a certain way took such a toll on my mental health and I didn't feel heard and I didn't feel seen in any way. During year nine, I was kicked out of school for reacting to something that should have been dealt with by my school, you know? So that just led me to getting kicked out of school, my school not checking on me, me being alone with no one except for my mum for a year, which really caused me to just isolate myself, hate everyone, only trust myself. But then

I started school again in year 10 and I felt like I had to just learn everything again, learn how to trust again. Which around the time I also started Milk Honey Beers which made me understand that I needed to talk about what happened to me in order to heal. My experience with school has taught me to defend myself but also know when I am wrong. At one point I was down because I was getting in trouble daily and was being told negative things like I'm loud and aggressive. I think schools need to understand us more. We are more than our behaviour. And Benita, it's an emotional response. It's very powerful and very sad to hear that. Yeah, but they're the bravest girls that I know, you know?

Yeah, tell me more about them. Bravest girls you know. Yeah, bravest, most vibrant, most misunderstood, but you know what, the most caring, loving, hard-working girls that I've ever come across. And it's not just the ones that I work with I think they're they're just testament to what black girls and dual heritage girls can do and should do with the right support behind them like I always say Milk Honey Bees is a space that

we created for and with black girls I can't do this on my own I've never been able to do it on my own even the book as you can, is by Milk Honeybees and me, because I needed to give them space. And I think what black girls and dual heritage girls need, especially in the education system, is spaces that understand them as the authors of their own lives. So where is it failing them? It's failing them by not really understanding their experiences. Like if we look at adultification for example not being afforded the same innocence as another counterpart is detrimental it's not under it's kind of like not understanding their experience of showing up as a girl it's more we see you as bigger than you

are as stronger than you are and behavior is a form of communication and I'm not here sitting here saying that we should reward bad behavior but we should understand the communications that girls are displaying and also how they're judged to a different standard that a reaction that a young black girl could have and the white girl could have the same reaction but the black girl will be treated differently 100% and the white girl may get referred to anxiety support or she might get, because I've seen it in schools where a black girl is, she's emotional, she's crying, she's shouting, but she's deemed as aggressive and angry.

And then you've got a white girl who's probably doing the same thing, maybe not in the same kind of way, but she's then told that she's anxious or she's experiencing depression. And I just think that if we're going to use language around emotional outbursts or around young people, it should be afforded to black children and black girls the same way it's

afforded to other counterparts. And what's the impact of them having to deal? In one of the essays, I just wrote this down, she doesn't feel safe. She can't be herself in school, just this really powerful sentence where fundamentally this young girl doesn't feel safe in school and the only place she feels safe where she can truly express herself is in her bedroom yeah it broke my heart to read that but the the impact on mental health must be enormous yeah it is and i think that that's where we're also failing black and dual heritage girls in schools not understanding their mental health as an increased need i think that what needs to be done is people need to understand that they have feelings too and you have to listen to them really to understand how they feel and

it's not just about like i said rewarding good behavior or rewarding bad behavior it's about literally understanding that they have feelings too so what needs to happen to stop this what to change this experience what the agenda alliance asking for we need a better investment in research we need a better investment in funding projects such as milk honeybees and we actually just need to give black girls a voice and the space to be who they are and want to be ebonita you are doing just that thank you so much for coming and joining me on Woman's Hour to talk to me. So many of you getting in touch with the experiences and the stories of your grandmothers in World War II. Just very quickly, a couple before the show ends.

Dan says, my grandmother was Winston Churchill's nurse during World War II. She was seconded from St. Mary's in Paddington to live and work, firstly at number 10, then to Chequers. She nursed Churchill through the bout of pneumonia he contracted after flying in an unheated aeroplane in 1943. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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.