Woman's Hour - Losing your possessions, Defining honour abuse, Foster caring

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

What’s like to start again with nothing? On New Year's Eve of 2018, journalist Helen Chandler-Wilde lost everything she owned in a storage unit fire in Croydon, where she'd stowed all her possessions. She has written about it in the book, Lost & Found - 9 life-changing lessons about stuff from someone who lost everything. She joins Hayley Hassall to describe her experience and explain why we get so emotionally attached to our belongings.The BBC Series I Kissed a Girl started over the weekend... it's the first UK dating show for gay women. Dannii Minogue hosts the show where ten single women are matched up with a partner to see if sparks will fly and the women will find love. In the first episode, all the women are matched with a partner and start getting to know each other. Comedian Catherine Bohart and TV critic Daisy Jones discuss.The number of children in care is continuing to rise each year, and every year thousands of new foster carers are needed. The comedian and writer Kiri Pritchard-McLean has done just that. During lockdown, Kiri and her partner embarked on a journey to become foster carers in north Wales and she’s ‘evangelical’ about the role. It’s the subject of her new seven-month comedy tour, Peacock.The charity Karma Nirvana has today written to the victims and safeguarding minister Laura Farris, calling for the government to introduce a statutory definition of honour abuse. The charity’s executive director Natasha Rattu explains why, alongside a woman we are calling ‘Dana’ who is a victim of this abuse, who describes her experiences and what a statutory definition would mean to her.Presenter: Hayley Hassall Producer: Kirsty Starkey Studio Manager: Duncan Hannant

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 Hayley Hassel and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello there and welcome to the programme. Today, many women who have all had experience of honour-based abuse have signed a letter and they've sent it to the Victims and Safeguarding Minister, Laura Ferris, asking for there to be a statutory definition of honour-based abuse in our law. Now, this comes after a call from the Women's and Equalities Committee was rejected by the government last year in September.

Well, I'll be speaking to Dana. It's not her real name, but she's coming to talk to me about the real and terrifying experiences she was subjected to by her family and how she feels that making honour-based abuse a statutory legal definition is imperative in getting the abuse women like her suffer heard and acted upon before it's too late. And imagine putting all our worldly belongings away into a storage container for safekeeping. I'm talking your everything, your furniture, your clothes, your photos, your jewellery, even your childhood toys and your qualification certificates, everything. And when you thought they were all safe,

all locked up well, they all go up in flames. I know, it's something that nightmares are made of. But for my guest, Helen Chandler-Wild, that is exactly what happened to her. And she'll be here to tell me all about it, how it was devastating, but also formative. And this got us thinking here in the Woman's Hour office. If you could save just one thing from a fire, what would it be? I always love to hear from you on Woman's Hour, but I'm massively intrigued by your answer to this question. Because what is it that you feel you just couldn't live without? Maybe it's your wedding dress or photos of your family. Maybe it's a family heirloom or some really expensive piece of jewellery. Maybe it's

your phone or your passport. I know I just couldn't live without them. But what is the one thing that you just couldn't live without? You can of course text the show on 84844. You can send a voicemail to 03700 100 444. I cannot wait to hear all about those. But I'll also be joined later in the show by comedian and writer Kiri Pritchard-McLean, who's using her humorous tales to not just entertain us, but to allow us to take a peek into her life of foster caring. She became a respite foster carer three years ago and she's had some ups and some downs and she wants to tell us all about her journey. So she'll be on the show, I'm sure, making us giggle along the way

but telling us about that very fulfilling journey she's been on. And of course, please get in touch with all the topics on this morning's show. You can text the programme, the number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at Woman's Hour. And you can email us through our website as well. Or you can send a WhatsApp message or a voice note using that number 03700 100 444. Data charges may of course apply depending on your provider. So you might want to use Wi-Fi if you can all the terms and conditions can be found on our website but first this morning have you seen it the new bbc series i kissed a girl started over the weekend it's the first uk dating show for gay women danny minogue is the host and 10 single women are matched up with a partner to see if

sparks will fly and if the women find love in the first episode all the women are matched up with a partner to see if sparks will fly and if the women find love. In the first episode, all the women are matched with a partner and they start getting to know each other quite quickly. Here are the contestants chatting about how they describe themselves. How do you guys feel about the word lesbian? I don't mind it, really and truly. I use it. I don't know why people shy away from that word. I just say i'm gay like i don't like using the word yeah i've never used the term queer either i just say like oh i'm into girls yeah or i'll say i'm queer yeah i feel like i've always identified like as gay as opposed to saying i'm a lesbian i think like in my head or like for me

like lesbians been used in quite a negative way it's just a word that has been taken and made negative growing up it was used in a way to sort of suggest that there was something wrong with you do you guys know why the l is the first letter in the lgbtq plus i remember you know like back with the like hiv and the aids like epidemic obviously that was it was like gay men so like nobody wanted to really help them it was lesbians that were helping them and like nursing them because it was like stop that's giving me I'm gonna cry well you can tell from that clip it's sparking quite a lot of debate and conversation well I'm joined by comedian Catherine Bohart and TV critic Daisy Jones Catherine let me come to you because I know it gets deep, as you can tell there,

but it's also bright and it's fun and it's beautifully shot. You see, what's it like? Yeah, I do feel like I really want to stress with a queer show that the beauty of this one, I think, is that it is largely frivolous and fun and we don't have to do a lot of staring or dying which is usually lesbian representation on television and it's mainly like 22 year olds flirting by pools and um and I support it and it's a joy to see because I don't think we get to be light and silly and normalized very often and it's yeah so I think that is mainly what it is is a lot of drama in the way that drama can be high stakes when you are 22. Everything everyone says matters. And I absolutely live for it.

But also, is it secondarily important? Absolutely. Of course it is. It's important to watch and to be involved in that drama as well. You feel like you've got some take home from it. But is it surprising that it's taken so long to get to this stage to basically have a dating show for lesbians yes it's surprising it's also not at all surprising on the one hand when I say the year to myself I'm like wow that's shocking but on the other hand when I look at like the progression of lesbian representation on television I'm not shocked part of me wonders as well if like how dicey would it have been if there was a lesbian dating show in the

90s I don't know if I I don't know if that would have aged well part of me wonders if it's maybe not not the worst thing that it took us to a place of um getting I'm glad we're at a place where we can do it well uh but yeah it's pretty gutting that it takes so long and also that like things like other shows have resisted the inclusion of um women have they i've heard that i've heard that love island were perhaps approached to do it and they said no there i think their take officially was that logistically it was difficult um i don't know if that means that women would bring too many suitcases or i don't know what their issue was but the shoes budget is not enough yeah yeah exactly, exactly. Daisy, can I come to you now?

Because you're obviously an entertainment critic, review lots of these shows. Where does this one stand up? I think I love it because it's like, like Catherine said, it's as fun as all the other reality shows as well. It's not this sort of niche thing. It's just like it's given all the same treatment as a lot of the other sort of sparkly reality shows.

It's got a great soundtrack. It's just like fun to watch. And I think we so rarely see that. Well, like you said, I didn't actually realize it was the first UK queer dating show for women. Like, that's quite shocking. I mean, I had a bit of a Google. There have been others on Netflix and ones in Canada. But yeah, UK and especially primetime UK. Remember, this is a primetime slot and it's high budget. And I think that is a first. Yeah, 100%. It's like I remember in the 2000s having to sort of try and illegally download certain shows that just weren't available because we were so desperate to find something on TV that was like that. So it's quite amazing that now it's sort of, yeah, on primetime, BBC, 9pm.

Yeah, so how important is it? I mean, you're talking about how important it is to see representation there, but how important is a show like this to the LGBTQ plus community? I think it's just, I think many reasons. I think one, it's sort of, it sounds like we should be past this conversation, but it continues to normalise queer relationships. And I think as well, like pop culture should reflect the world we live in. And I remember seeing a statistic that was like one in five young people

in the UK identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. And when you consider that one in five young people identify that way, there should be pop culture that reflects the world we're in. I think it's just that simple. It's sort of seeing people on TV that have lives like yours or relationships like yours. It's fun. It is fun.

I think it's fun for anyone to watch as well. It's not niche. And I think that's what makes this one different. And Catherine, I know you hosted a Q&A about this programme with Dani Minogue. So what are the sort of things being raised about this? And how important was it for you to be involved in that? I think it's interesting that we talked about it being niche or otherwise. I think insofar as it is niche I think the show

insofar as there are elements that you might not necessarily intuitively understand as a straight person who doesn't have huge exposure to queer culture the thing I really like about it is that the show does a really good job of both making it feel very queer and translating the sort of inside baseball um language that lesbians use to describe their own culture which i think is quite fun to make it accessible and actually i think i watched it with quite a lot of gay men and with straight people and i think they quite liked learning what all of the lingo meant i mean i'm 35 so i was also learning but pretending i wasn't because uh the 22 year olds have new phrases it turns out and i was like yeah that's what we all say I'm totally down with it I'm totally down with it yeah yeah yeah but I think that with the Q&A

what was interesting was watching it matter to a room full of queer people that it was um that it was true to queer experience I think like the thing that it does I think quite clearly differentiated from other reality TV shows and I don't know if this was intentional or not, is there's a diversity of people and of queer representation and slightly more diversity of body type and of gender expression. And that's pretty important, too. But I think mostly people were giddy that we got to be silly. That they got to be silly. and it is fun to watch but it's interesting you watched it with a load of blokes because there aren't actually any men on the show presenter wise or sort of a visual do you think that has had an impact on the show is the show different because of that

um I don't with all due respect I'm not sure what they'd be up to i mean those there's footballers in the space there's people to carry the bags there's people to lift the heavy stuff i do love that there's a real queer gaze there's not really a male gaze to the show i i think like whoever has been clever enough to edit the cutaways to the footballers lifting weights knows what the lesbians want to see completely but i think i think it's probably truer to have no gay no men no perspective from them yeah I like that and and Daisy do you think we're on the way to more diverse dating programs you know on our on our tv sets and on prime time as well I really hope so I think with tv it's like when something is successful then they make more tv like that

and i think i kiss the girl is successful in the sense that people are already completely obsessed with it um it always takes a little while for for mainstream tv to catch up to what i think what people want but i mean hopefully when um the success of this show is plain to see then hopefully more tv shows like that will be made. And I think it's like an example to, that there is no logistical difficulties that Love Island claimed that there would be. Yeah, they've done it, they've made it work,

and everyone it seems is watching it. But there's still another eight episodes to come. Thank you both so much for your comments on that. I can't wait to see the rest of it. And you can catch up with I Kissed a Girl on BBC iPlayer. The next episode will air on BBC3 every Sunday and Monday night at nine o'clock. And please keep your comments coming in.

We want to know if there is anything that you just can't live without. If you're about to lose everything, what was the one thing you'd save? Please text or call in the show. I'd love to hear that. Because my next item is all about that very thing. On New Year's Eve in 2018, journalist Helen Chandler-Wild lost everything

she owned in a storage unit fire in Croydon, where she'd stowed all her possessions. Well, she's written about it in the book Lost and Found, nine life-changing lessons about stuff from someone who lost everything. It's a part memoir but it also includes interviews with scientists and psychologists who explain why we get so emotionally attached to our things. So what has it been like to start again with nothing? Helen, thank you so much for coming in the studio and talking to me about this. First of all, it must have been horrific. I'm just imagining now all those things that I would all of a sudden just not have anymore. It must have been quite a traumatic experience for you. How did you react when you first heard the news?

Well, my first reaction was just total shock. And it was my parents who told me. So I genuinely just thought that they were doing some weird sort of prank. But then it dawned on me it was real and it was kind of too much to take in to be honest I was I just cried non-stop for about a week um and then after that I just became unbelievably cross because I was only 25 when it happened which is such an insecure part of your life anyway and had an insecure job insecure relationships and it was like the only solid thing I had was taken away so yeah and also just to kind of bring the audience up to date here because it was following a relationship breakup you'd had to leave your home and so you'd put all your belongings in a storage container you'd moved back temporarily with your parents yeah and then everything you had went up

in flames so what were you left with so because yeah so I'd moved out of the house I shared with my ex and I was living with my parents so I'd only taken a few suitcases of clothes with me and one box which was I wasn't sure what was inside but I thought it might have been papers my passport and stuff this is the random box that was actually quite a page turner actually because you mentioned it at the beginning but then do not open it to the very end of the book and I was on the edge of my seat but we'll'll come to that in a minute. Go back to me about what you were left with and what you'd like. So I quite literally just had two suitcases of clothes.

So I had literally the shirt on my back and some other pieces of paper. And that was basically it. So everything I lost, like my furniture, all of my kitchen stuff, my curtains, the paintings I had on the walls, my birth certificate, like every single sentimental thing I'd ever owned, about like hundreds and hundreds of books, like truly everything else was gone. So what were the things you missed the most? Can you pinpoint any of them? I think it changed so much over time. But the thing that made me feel the most sad was I had this purple kind of shoebox,

which was full of old bits of sentimental stuff like ticket stubs from gigs and like love letters and photos and I had some letters from my uncle who died and we were very close so that was all gone and that made me that was almost too much to think about how sad and dreadful that was so I instead started focusing on like really petty stuff that just made me feel really cross one thing that got me so badly was losing my nutribullet which was just like my really good blender and I honestly that made me so like livid because it was like a small manageable thing that I could focus on how cross I was rather than like how devastated I was to lose some of the other stuff but you're right those sentimental things are just the worst because you cannot get them back and it's so sad you did have this box

marked random which you didn't unopen you didn't open for years and it was stuck in the bottom of your wardrobe for a long time and when I read the book I was just desperate to find out what was inside but why did you not open it why was that yeah so it's it's a difficult thing to explain because it's so based on this weird context I was in where I had just two suitcases of clothes and then this one box which was like a smallish moving box that just had random on it and when you kind of shook it around it sounded like papers were inside and I'd taken it with me in case it had something important I needed and then once everything else had burnt down I was just like wow what is in there that is the only things that I have left and it was kind of I was so curious to know what I had and to be able to

like you were so curious you didn't open it exactly that's what blows my mind but I suppose because it's the only thing left you didn't want to ruin the exactly so I was like living this weird level of magical suspense where like anything could have been in it it was like Schrodinger's cat it was like this could exist or this could not exist but as soon as i open the box then i'll find out and then like the heartbreak will be final so i kind of decided to just keep it shut and i had this like magical talisman of everything i'd ever owned which i kept for such a long time now you interviewed scientists and psychologists throughout the whole process of writing this book and it was quite interesting to hear about how we get so emotionally attached to our belongings what were the some of the interesting things you learned well obviously

so much of it is based on memory and our sense of like time passing so I interviewed an expert on nostalgia who was so interesting and she talked about how obviously time constantly moves our lives are constantly moving we move houses we have different friends we have different jobs and our stuff is like so physical and solid it feels like the only thing you can hold on to and so keeping a lot of stuff does give us a false sense of control that you're able to control your life and time passing which is just not true um and also the longer that you've owned something the more difficult it is to get rid of it and even you see that in a really silly way which is if you're selling something on like ebay or vinted or whatever often i look on there and i see someone's

old trainers and they're like 100 pounds and you just think what are you doing is it not worth 100 pounds but if you've had those trainings for a long time and you're really attached to them and you yeah they've got that nice out then to you they are worth £100. But it's not necessarily objectively worth that much. It's just the more, the longer you've owned something, the more attached you can get to it. And there was some interesting research as well that you found that women's mental health is affected more by clutter than men's is. Yeah, that's a very interesting study which have been done on that, which found high levels of cortisol in women who lived in cluttered homes but their husbands had absolutely no similar effect and the theory goes is that when a woman looks around and sees her home and there's like loads of stuff everywhere

you just see oh my gosh I can't relax tonight I've got to do all of this tidying up whereas when her husband looks at it he thinks cool I'm gonna watch tv so yeah I get that but also it's the it's the interesting things that people value throughout the book because it wasn't just about you there were other people in this fire that you of course yeah and there were people abroad as well like who were involved in the California fires yeah um what were the sort of interesting things that you found other people found sentimentality of or missed I think the thing is is that every single person has such a different thing that they find sentimental that sometimes when people would come up to me and I've had people come up to me since saying oh um oh I've had a fire uh blah blah I've lost this and this and you just think that

they expect you to understand but I could never possibly understand because it's so woven in with your life and the friendships you've had and everything well your story has really sparked something in our listeners today because we've already got comments coming through. I can imagine. Listen to this one. They say, this is possibly the most ridiculous answer you will ever receive to the question,

what one item would you rescue from a fire? They say, I'm always giggling as I type it as I know it sounds so silly, but here it is. The ashes of my three long loved cats. They say, I know, I know, who rescues ashes from a fire? But I just know. That would be my first thought. If you let me go back a second time,

I'd probably get something sensible like my folder of documents on my wallet. But the first thing would be the ashes of their cats. And someone else from, well, Dominie Barrett says, the item I just wouldn't want to live without is my girl guiding camp blanket. I have had my blanket since I was 10 years old. I'm now in my 50s and it charts my history of adventure and fun through those cloth badges both from home and abroad. I love to use it when I go to camp and someone else would save their mum's letters from when I was 18 and left home. We wrote to each other twice a week until she died 10 years later so there's a real

mixture there but you can tell once you get to think about those things that you always have around you the fact that they're gone it really affects people's emotions what did you learn going through this because I know it actually made you a bit more robust I I agree yeah I think um because as I said it was like that solidness of my possessions which was kind of like this ongoing reminder of like where my life had been and who I was and then that was taken away and you do have to be a lot more like self-directed and think I need to have all those things within me because I can't store them in the external world and I definitely have become much more wary of owning a lot of things because I do feel that constant like low

level worry that they'll be taken away or. Yeah and I know you found it quite hard to spend money on stuff because I suppose it's gone and it puts more value on those things as well. An interesting thing I read in your book is that we only use about five percent of the things we buy and I think on average people in the UK buy 33 new pieces of clothing a year. Yeah. So I recently went through two years of buying nothing new. Did you? I bought everything secondhand. Yeah, yeah. Which was difficult.

Yeah. But actually I did it quite easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's something about it that you just all of a sudden realise what a wasted culture we are in. Yeah. And I think especially it's those things, what's so weird about it is how normal we think it is

to like be buying all this stuff. It's like a total historical and geographical anomaly like no one outside of like the rich west in this century is doing that like no one in the past needed to buy that much no one in other countries needs to buy that much and it is one of those things where once you turn it off you realize oh I am I can just live without my things in a much more free way although I'm definitely not a minimalist now which does surprise people I do have trinkets in my home I have paperbacks like I think I've tried to create my home to be a place that looks individual and unique to me but also like not being pressured to buy things just for the sake of it or to feel

that I need to yeah and go on then we've waited this long what was finally in the box marked random um I won't say too much but it was it made me laugh more than it made me cry and cry not in a good way so I laugh in a good way yeah yeah yeah and by then you must have gone on such a journey I was yeah I definitely felt a lot more stable about it and I'd my home was back to normal you know my it no longer echoed when I walked around my flat because I actually had some stuff in there so I think yeah I was back on my own two feet by that point so I was able to kind of just take it in my stride and laugh. Well I'm going to leave you with this final comment because this person has texted in to say in a fire the one thing I would save is my little sausage dog Colin and I was like of course of, we'd all run in for Colin. Yeah, I would. Thank you so much,

Helen. It's been lovely to have you. And your book is out now, Lost and Found, nine life changing lessons about stuff from someone who lost everything. Thank you so much. Thank you. Now moving on to our top story today. The charity Karma Nirvana has today written a letter, which is first been seen by Woman's Hour this morning, to the Victims and Safeguarding Minister, Laura Farris, calling for the government to introduce a statutory definition of honour abuse. That's the type of abuse that is committed to defend the so-called honour of a family or community. Now, describing survivors' experiences of this abuse,

Carmen Ivana says it is like being in a vicious cycle of continually being misunderstood without a definition. The government rejected the introduction of a statutory definition just last September. But in a minute, I'll be joined by Natasha Ratu from the Carmen Havana charity, who can tell us more about the letter and why a definition is important. But first, let's hear from Dana. Not her real name, but she's a survivor of honour-based abuse. And I began by asking her about her experience. I was raised in a very, very conservative Islamic household. And I guess in hindsight, I would describe a lot of the views and the experiences and kind of outlook on the world

as being extreme, although I didn't see that at the time because I was only a child. Growing up, our nuclear family was relatively isolated from the wider extended family in the community. And I remember as a child believing that what I was hearing at home was kind of the, I guess, the widespread view, the collective view. So I was taught from a very young age that certain celebrities who got things like breast cancer were being punished by God for wearing revealing clothing. And that's why they were ill. And even things like terrorist attacks and nightclub shootings, that was described as being awesome or amazing. And so many times I've asked myself, why didn't you stand up and say, you know, you're wrong or that can't be the case?

You know, as I got a little bit older, you know, I'm talking kind of eight, nine, 10 years old. And I think it's a few things. I think one, it was a real culture of fear at home. There was a lot of emotional abuse and coercive control and any kind of dissent or any kind of challenge was just not tolerated. And there was some physical abuse as well. But also there was a bit of cognitive dissonance. So I convinced myself that because we were first generation migrants, that they were mistranslating certain words. They didn't really mean to say it was awesome. They just said, you know, wasn't that shocking or wasn't something out of the ordinary. But in terms of what that looked like for me, when I was 11, I was forced to wear the hijab, the Islamic headscarf. And again, the word forced is a difficult one, isn't it?

Because no one ever held a gun to my head and said, you must wear this or we will shoot you. But there was a huge amount of coercive control because I learned that the way to survive in our household, and I don't use that word lightly, it really was a case of survival, was to not only comply and to do what you're told, but to kind of go that extra mile to impress people, to people please. Therefore, I went around believing that this had been my choice, this had been my decision, but it really, really wasn't. And actually, later in life, I started wearing the scarf selectively. So I would wear it in some context in front of my family, essentially, and take it off in other contexts. And when my family found out about this, I was in my early 20s. And the exact words were, we should kill you right now. And we would be heroes. And I think so strong was the coercive control or the way this played out that I believed them. I backed them up. I believed I was shameful and I was disgusting and I was all of these terrible things we've got to remember you were a child at that time and you talk about maybe you should

have stood up to them maybe you should have fought more but you were a child and perhaps that was all you knew as a child going through that what was your life like it was a life of a lot of fear it was all about making sure that I didn't put a toe out of line but but I became very good at learning how to navigate it so for instance I knew that a way to secure you know a peaceful week or a peaceful month was to do really well at school so I performed really really well at school I was very academic um and that was a way of impressing people. But if I if I challenge anything, even as I grew older into my teenage years, I started to say, you know, is that really the case or is that? And again, it was it was shut down. We were we were really taught. And because I'm the eldest daughter, I think I carried a lot of the family's reputation on my shoulders. And how I behaved was the the yardstick by which we

were judged well that's at least what I was what I was taught and that emotional forbearing is is so heavy on the shoulders of the child as well as you grew up how did that start to impact on you as you got older what happened was I started dating outside my culture and my religion. And I started to normalize this. I thought that this was something that I could live with. I became very good at living essentially a double life. But I thought it was just me. I moved away for university. I put up a fight, but I managed to move away from university and experiment a bit more with with just life and friendships and relationships and I remember really distinctly getting the train back from the university town to my family's town and and knowing I was going to be picked up from the station um I'd have to come home every you know two to three weeks that was the rule and I remember having my my hijab in my handbag and looking for somewhere

on the railway platform where I could put it back on again before I was going to be picked up without kind of rousing suspicion that hyper vigilance that am I going to get caught but also I'm living this really deceptive life that is out of kilter with how I want to be I want to be an open honest kind of transparent person but I couldn't I just felt like I absolutely couldn't because the the threats I received the you know things like being threatened with a knife I was burnt all of those were my childhood experiences but you learn to compartmentalise your life until it all came to a head later on. And I know you're sort of building up to that because the coercive control must have been so difficult for you. You've already mentioned that pressure and that guilt that you felt, but you've talked about physical abuse as well.

Can you tell me more about that? Things like being hit. I've since learned that even as a very young child, things like food being withdrawn from me in certain situations, I actually developed an eating disorder later in life. And I think it's part of kind of these food issues where, you know, they run really deep. But the most part of the abuse and the thing that I think I found most difficult to process and heal from has been the coercive control. But it actually took you into your adulthood. And actually when you became pregnant, it took that moment, probably because you were worried for the safety of your children,

for you to pull away from your family and actually do something about it. Why? What was the catalyst there? When I became pregnant, I was married. I'd kind of come to a place where I was no longer religious. And my husband and I were essentially living a relatively happy life, really, apart from all the times when we'd have to interact. We deliberately moved away from the family home and the family community to be able to live freely. But I knew that I couldn't share that with the family.

I knew that that would be absolutely no way that that would be accepted or tolerated um and when I became pregnant um I really really and this sounds awful when I even voice it um if I'm talking about my my children but I really didn't want a boy um because I knew that there would be a pressure to circumcise boy and that was something that we weren't prepared to do and I learned that you can pretend to do a lot of things you can almost switch something on and off but that's something that you can't you can't pretend to do you can't fake so I remember going to my ultrasound scan and saying please don't be a boy please don't be a boy um because I don't know how I'm going to

navigate that and then I was pregnant and um it was two boys because I was pregnant twin boys wow but at the same time that joyous moment must have been tainted for you it really was I mean I felt as if this big house of cards that I'd really carefully built up um we just came crashing down my mental health was was very poor and what was your fear what was your biggest fear we would tell them that we weren't going to be circumcising the children. And as a consequence, there would be threats to our physical threats to our safety. And that's exactly what happened. That's what happened. You got death threats, essentially.

Death threats. There were real fears to what would happen to the children. There were threats along the lines of we're going to send people to your home. And it was very, very scary. And the children were little. They were a few months old at this point. So there was a lot going on at the same time. What did you decide to do? We sought out safeguarding advice from our health visitor, from some charities. The police also gave us some advice, although I've never made a police report against anything that I've described today. It was very much, we're really worried, we're receiving these threats and I don't know how to keep us safe. It was terrifying. And we decided to leave our family home and to relocate.

That must have been so difficult to go through and go through that reporting process and such a big move for you. Do you think having a statutory definition of honour based abuse would change anything for you? What would that mean for you and other people like you? A statutory definition equips professionals who have a duty to safeguard with an actual understanding of what the experience of honour based abuse looks like. Because there were many professionals around me who observed things and I felt as if they didn't really know what they were looking for and didn't really safeguard me properly. But I think more than that, it's about validating an experience. So many of us continue to question, is it actually something that I did? Did this really happen in

the way that I'm imagining it? Am I exaggerating? Because so much of this behaviour is normalised by wider communities. So I think it's tremendously important. Thank you, Dana. Thank you for sharing that such brave story. Now I'm joined by Natasha Rattou from the charity Karma Nirvana. Natasha, obviously it's quite difficult to hear a story like that from someone who's gone through it personally but what is your reaction to what you've heard? Well I think our survivor really shows why it's so crucial to have a definition this isn't just a matter of words

this is about having a legal definition that recognises this really unique and complex experience that our survivor has shared this morning. And sadly, her experiences are reflective of thousands of people that we support every year on our national helpline. So I think she's really summed up very well as to why a definition is crucial to reflect these very unique experiences that people like her have. Well, today, Carmen of Arna have written to the Victims and Safeguarding Minister, Laura Ferris. I've got the letter in front of me, actually. But just to sum up, what is it you say? What is it you want? So essentially, as a sector that deals with this issue, Carmen of Arna and many other charities have come together on the back of the Women and Equality Committee, making the recommendation for a statutory definition.

And that definition being rejected by the government, we came together to look at what a statutory definition could look like so that we could propose that to the government when the opportunity arose. And I have to say that the current minister that we have in safeguarding, Laura Farris, is really open to the idea. So the fact that the sector have come together with a definition, what we're asking her to do is to introduce this sooner than later. We're really concerned that, you know, Carmen Havana have been around for 31 years and progress on this issue has been so slow that we need to do this today, we need to do this as soon as possible so that survivors are understood. And also really importantly that professionals who have duties to safeguard, like our survivor said earlier on, lots of professionals were around her at that time that could have made all the difference

to validating that experience that she had. And the definition is that starting point. What it enables professionals to do is have this universal, one definition that we're all relying upon to really get to understand what this is, but also the training that fundamentally lots of professionals are lacking to know how to respond when victims do come forward and have the courage to speak. It's that recognition of a definition as well, isn't it? Because what is the difference between a statutory definition and a non-statutory definition? I mean, the government would say that honour abuse comes in different forms, but those crimes within it are already statutory

definitions like rape, domestic violence, kidnapping. So what is the difference between a non-statutory definition and a statutory one? So the statutory definition gives a legal framework. It gives a legal starting point for this issue to be understood. I think if we do have non-statutory definitions and we have various ones, people are calling this so-called honor-based abuse honor-based violence cultural traditional harmful practice we need to have that one single statutory definition that everybody is using so that we can collate data against that really understand how prevalent this is because despite karma nirvana being around for over 30 years people still don't know how

prevalent this issue is we know that there are 12 to 15 honour killings that take place in the UK every year, but we just don't know the scope and scale of the problem. So the statutory definition will give us that starting point, but also embeds this into safeguarding frameworks so that your touch points, as we like to call them, your police officers, your teachers, health care professionals can all rely upon this definition and embed it into their policies so that when they do come to sadly a scenario where they are in front of a victim of honor-based abuse they've got that clear guidance because that's the other thing having a statutory definition will be supported by statutory guidance that we don't have for honor-based abuse, which means that all your professionals are dealing with this in different ways.

Some people, for example, so on our National Health Plan, we hear from social workers that have mediated with a victim and their family and have shared information that's critically put them at even more risk by sharing information like, you know, this person's got a secret boyfriend and they said that you have said X, Y and Z. So we need the statutory framework so that everybody knows what to do, because really it can be a matter of life and death if you don't know how to appropriately safeguard and protect. Well, we approached the Home Office for a statement before this letter

was sent to us this morning, and the spokesperson said, we're committed to ending all forms of honour-based abuse. We've taken significant action to tackle this crime, such as introducing a forced marriage offence, providing funding for the National Honour-Based Abuse Helpline and giving support for victims. It is crucial that professionals recognise and understand these crimes, which is why we have a clear non-statutory definition of honour-based abuse, which we are constantly keeping under review and as you alluded to there there has been an increase in these numbers hasn't there

what are the numbers of cases we're talking about here I know you have an abuse helpline but what are you seeing? So Carmen Havana delivered the Home Office Commission helpline and we had almost 10,000 contacts to the helpline last year from the UK alone. Many of those people, you know, sharing experiences like our survivor has, reaching out to professionals who just simply don't know how to react or respond and sometimes put them at more risk. We have had in the last year, so in the last year, we've had new law that's come in on ending child marriage. So we've had a real increase in the number of victims of child marriage, children as young as 10 or 11 affected by these issues. So some real vulnerable people within our society. I think, you know, the government are taking collective strides, but it's just not enough to really address this issue because this is a real complex issue and it does really require that statutory framework to give practitioners that confidence and clear

understanding of what the expectations are and what the procedures are for when a victim comes forward for support and help. And of course like we heard from Dana earlier, she described the difficulty in coming forward and reporting this as an offence. How much goes unreported, do you think? And do you think making it statutory, the definition, would change that? Definitely. I mean, there's so much on the basis of abuse that's underreported because the shame and the stigma silences victims from speaking out. It really disempowers you because, as Dana said, she felt guilty, she felt

bad for not doing these things or not living up to her family's expectations. So again, having that statutory definition will be massive in terms of improving reporting because what it also gives is not only the victim confidence to recognise that this is legally understood, you know, this is actually framed in that way. But professionals who are a little bit fearful will have that professional confidence to tackle the issue for what it is. It's not some sort of tradition, you know, harmful practices.

This is a legally recognised harm and abuse. So I think, you know, you're absolutely right. It will increase reporting across the board. Well, thank you. Thank you both from Dana and Natasha Rattu, Executive Director of the charity Karma Nirvana. Now, if you have been affected by anything you've heard today, you can find support links on the Woman's Hour website.

Please do go and check that out. And of course, we're talking today about those things that you would not want to lose in a fire. We've had some amazing texts come in from all of you. I knew you would send me some absolute bangers. Emma in Oxfordshire says, the thing I would save is a recipe book that belonged to my grandma, including her handwritten Christmas recipes, which she gave to my mum. I helped my mum make this pudding every year until I took over when my mum became too ill to make it

when she had cancer. I now make it every year with my daughter and she knows that one day she'll have the book and pass the recipe book on. Someone else says, just listening to Helen and particularly her losing her love letters. My lovely wife, Debbie, died of cancer seven years ago, but she saved all our love letters. They were such a comfort to me after she died. After hearing what Helen said, I'm now going to scan all of our letters. Great idea. And of course, we're talking theoretical fire here. I just want to point out that it is important that should you be faced with this as a reality, we must make sure we get out and that we save ourselves before our belongings and we don't run back for our blender. But theoretically talking, this is a great topic and thank you so much. Keep those comments coming

in. I am absolutely loving hearing about it. And you may have missed our special programme yesterday on how to age well, where Anita spoke to a panel of guests, including Dr Sharon Blackie, author and psychologist. She wrote her book, Haggitude, remaining the second half, sorry, reimagining the second half of life in 2022, where she explored stories of little known

but powerful elder women in European myth and folklore with the hope of inspiring women now. Well, Sharon explained why she thinks women should see themselves as elders, not elderly. Have a listen. We have a culture that tells us that we are elderly by the time we get through menopause and everything begins to sag a little bit. And really what the old stories tell us is how older women back in the day used to be elders, and so they used to have a particular form of wisdom that it was believed kind of came in,

post-menopause, came in with menopause, and then kind of grew in the rest of their lives. And so it seemed to me that if we have a culture that hasn't got any good stories to tell about aging as women, maybe we could go back and look at some of the older stories, because our ancestors were very wise about some things, about the environment and about women. And it's not to say that, you know, there was social equality back in the day, but there was a respect for certain ways of being a woman and certain characteristics. And so those old stories have been a really great source of inspiration to me. A lot of women say as they get older, they become less visible. And a lot of women find that difficult.

I think a lot of my friends actually find it very, very easy to become invisible. It takes the pressure off you. You don't have to please all the time as you did when you were younger. I think that whole narrative about getting older, being able to tell your own truth, being able to be authentic, not having to please all of the people around you, again, not to be unpleasant to people, that's a really important thing. And that can make for many of us this kind of second half of our lives, really very, very, very revelatory. Well, Dr. Sharon Blackie there. Anita also spoke to writer and content creator Pippa Stacey, NHS GP, Dr. Radha and comedian Callie Beaton. You can listen to the full programme on BBC Sounds and it's the episode from the 6th of May.

But now I want to move on this morning because the number of children in care is continuing to rise each year and every year thousands of new foster carers are needed. Well, my next guest, the comedian and writer Kiri Pritchard-McLean, has done just that. During lockdown, Kiri and her partner embarked on a journey to become foster carers in North Wales. And she's evangelical about the role.

It's the subject of her new seven-month comedy tour, Peacock. And she joins me now. Lovely to have you in the studio, Kiri. Thanks so much for having me. Now, I know it was during lockdown that you started this incredible journey. How has it been? Oh, it's been wonderful Oh it's been it's been wonderful it's been really um I always worry I'm too cheesy and I sound a bit Disney but it's been fantastic obviously like anyone who goes into any form of parenthood

certainly my version of it that you know you can do all the training you can read all the books but until you start doing it the actual it's a bit like passing your driving test isn't it you really learn how to drive when you're driving the car on your own afterwards. But it's been incredibly edifying. And I think it's really broadened my horizons in ways I hadn't expected. Yeah, I imagine no matter how many books you read, nothing can prepare you for a real life human child. They are outside of the books. But I know you provide respite fostering care via your local authority. What exactly is that? and what does it mean for you in your life? Yeah, well, it basically means that we take young people for anywhere between a couple of hours and a couple of weeks.

And that means that we can kind of support other foster carers as well or families that might need extra support. So we're kind of like, how I colloquially put it, it's like floating babysitters, but incredibly well-trained with all the paperwork. And it really works for us as well because we're both really passionate about young people, but having a biological family is not really clicked and felt like it's the right thing for either of us. But that doesn't mean that we don't have a huge capacity to care and to support and to nurture.

And I feel by doing this, having these young people in our lives, that we get to have that brilliant edifying experience and we get to take the pressure off very busy families or foster families and allow them a bit of breathing space as well. And also, you're obviously incredibly busy. You're about to start your tour. Tell me how, well, how, one one you've incorporated this experience into your comedy

routine and how are you making life all fit together well the first because we've been doing it now for three years i did another tour in the first year so people were very surprised that that i've been doing it sort of secretly and managing to juggle it all and the key is just like any other kind of form parenting no days off that's the key to it but it's it's it's brilliant and it's a bit like any other job because it is you know a job um where you send your availability and then you slot in the gaps around it and it's brilliant to be and very liberating to be able to talk about it on stage because it has been transformational um you know as a journey for for us personally and i'm so used to as a stand-up

comedian as soon as anything big happens in my life i take it on stage that's and not in a cynical way but it's also how i process things how do you make that funny that's what i don't get um well do you know what it's actually been the easiest show to write it's been um because i don't talk about i don't talk about the young people. It's about the journey through, you know, to get being approved, the vetting process, if you like. And so there's lots of observational humour in there about, you know, first aid courses and icebreakers and training on Zoom and things like that. But I'm also telling you...

Yeah, and the interviewing you as a person, which is different to any other job interview, is actually seeing whether you would be a good enough parent for these people, which I imagine is terrifying. Yeah, and it's not sure either that's about 60 hours, that part of it, the assessment, with a very experienced social worker sort of drilling into every part of your personal life, which I think other people would struggle with, but I make a living from it, babe, so I'm absolutely fine. And has this experience of looking after children altered your view in any way?

Do you feel like the sketch that you're doing now is very different from what you started I think that I I have I have a renewed respect for anyone who works in sort of social care um because I think I had like lots of us who don't encounter it an idea of what social workers are and what they do and now I have an actual understanding of what the system is and I'm very blessed to have a brilliant brilliant social worker who i just feel is like absolutely at my side um and that has sort of changed my view on on yeah social care in general and also i think it creates i think it's very easy when you work in the media like us to forget um what the real world is

actually like because you speak to lots of people with privilege you become a person with privilege and when you see how lots of people actually live and what they're doing to keep their head above water and what they're dealing with you can't help but be imbued with a sense of I think empathy and understanding which I feel very lucky to have that perspective. And it's tough isn't it it's tough for them but it must be tough for you as well I know last year the Children's Commissioner for England said that 71% of people who complete a fostering form subsequently drop out because I think the process is so long and difficult. And it's something you talk about in your act. How did you find it? And what do you make of those figures? Is that

surprising to you? It is surprising to me because I think my partner and I went in with our eyes eyes open in terms of what we wanted from it and what we thought we could bring to the table so I think when you have people who have their own families already strangely us not having our own biological children I think has proved to be an advantage because people can go into it and go well you know they might have an empty nest or something and have an expectation of what it is to be a parent but being a professional parent being a foster care is a different a similar but different set of skills and you need to sort of change how you view things and I think some people find that very very jarring whereas us we're sort of blank canvases and and you know what it reminded me of when I was sort of auditioning to try and get in drama

schools never happened by the way I went to Salford, very blessed for that, but they would say, you're not going to make it, you'll never do anything and that made me more determined and the more things that came up that should sort of put us off about fostering, we were arrogant as performers enough to turn around and go, yeah, we think this is right for us. Well, you obviously love a challenge because I can't imagine it's easy. I mean, you may laugh about it

and joke about it on the stage, but it must be quite taxing as well. How have you found the experience for caring for all these different children? Because as you say, you can't read about it in a book. Yeah. Well, I actually think

that's one of the freeing things is that you, you know, you've done your training, you've got that, that's in your brain. And once you understand that, like that there are obviously transferable skills, but when that young person rocks up, and we have teenagers, you're taking that young person, you're meeting them on their terms,

and you just go with it and you let them sort of lead things. I think that has been a brilliant thing that we've sort of unlocked in our learning. Don't go in there with preconceptions. You get a referral about this young person. You know a lot about them. don't bring that to the table unless it becomes useful like meet this young person where they are in that moment and that has been uh if for someone who's quite controlling that has been a really good thing to me to go right let's relax and go with this i think that's such a good tip for all parents actually i'm taking notes

but they must be quite emotional as well say say you've had these children for a week or a weekend or two weeks what's that like saying goodbye well I think we're very fortunate in that goodbyes aren't really goodbyes in that lots of the young most of the young people if they stay in the area want to come back which is so lovely because you get a bond and they come back and yeah it feels fantastic and there has been there have been people who move on to you know perhaps they're going to independent living or things like that and I just do this is where I side especially Disney but I do feel genuinely honored to play any kind of part in these young people's lives and even if it's to be a footnote because I know the impact of adults who took an interest in me with a brilliant teacher at school

who has you know put me on the path to getting to perform when you grew up in rural wales like that is special and if you can hopefully be that person and it can just be a phrase you know there'll be things that your parents said to you good and bad that stay with you forever or that you know the adults in your life and if you can be that thing to a young person that person says you know you're brilliant you can do whatever you want or you're absolutely fantastic at art have you ever thought about doing that if you can play that part be that moment then what an honor that's how I just think about it and is that one of the reasons you decided to speak about it so publicly because I know you're 37 which is a lot younger than the average foster carer and there is a massive shortage at the moment so

was that one of the reasons you decided to shout about it well there's sort of two things going on one is that I was having these conversations privately with my friends lots of us of the reasons you decided to shout about it well there's sort of two things going on one is that I was having these conversations privately with my friends lots of us of the similar age some most of my friends are mams and the other side are in this position that I was in that was like I don't know if I want a family but maybe I do and so I was having these conversations privately and then people were going oh I didn't realize that about foster care I didn't realize it could be flexible I didn't realize that you it was okay if you hadn't had your own children that you can be single doing all these things. And it was the same misconceptions that I had.

So I thought, there's a more efficient way to do this than doing this one-to-one at house parties. That maybe, because I have this wonderful platform, I can go and talk about it. And what has the response been to your act and to people who have listened to your story? Well, it's the first last weekend at Macintyre Comedy Festival where I kicked off the tour.

And I'm really taken aback by the messages I've had. What's beautiful is from people who are care experience themselves. So who grew up with foster parents, people who are social workers, people who went, oh, I wish I bought my partner. We've been talking about it and we don't know where to go. And I think this is exactly right for me. So I yeah, I feel like I'm a-woman recruitment drive and I'm absolutely thrilled but I know it was only recently that you've been able to tell the children your real name you weren't allowed to let them know your name or that you were a comedian yeah why well because I think it's an unusual situation having a stand-up comedian with you know with a very small profile but a profile nonetheless who wants to you know have young people in their lives and

I think the local authority was sort of trying to damage control ahead of time and go is it going to complicate things if they know they're a comedian and my name is very distinct and unique does it make me too googleable does that make the young person vulnerable me vulnerable so yes but now now I finally get to be Kiri the comedian to the young people and let me tell you teenage lads couldn't care less yeah and that must have been because you actually had to perform your comedy act to the social workers before they gave you approval for the act so does it feel a bit like you're vetted now you can't be as free as you'd like to no if anything the other way I've got all the confidence of someone touring the only stand-up comedy show that's been signed off by you know a load of social workers and a vicar as it goes so yeah i'm i'm absolutely thrilled and you know

what i i credit to them that this my local authority i sat them down i did the show to basically a group of very small group of social workers pretty much count on one hand and there's bits in it where i really sort of push push the process and dig into it and talk about how difficult it was and they and they got it and they absolutely see why I'm doing it and see the value of it. And they have been amazingly supportive, which has always been my experience of my local authority fostering. And I know you've had your ups and downs

and you talk about that more in your show, but is there a piece of advice you can give anyone who's thinking about this, started, maybe it's just on the cusp of imagining it? Yes, I would say if you're going to have teenage boys, you think you'll have enough food. You never do. Always get more food.

It's been lovely having you. Thank you so much, Kiri. And your tour, Peacock, runs for the next seven months. That's all from us, but we'll be with you tomorrow. Bye bye. Well, thanks for listening.

There's plenty more from Woman's Hour on BBC Sounds. I'm Alex Kretosky. And I'm Kevin Fong. How do you feel about AI? Does it scare you? Very quickly that question comes up, you know, is it going to think for us? Does it excite you? I say, how is the AI going to help us to think better? Do you worry about how it'll change your life, your job, your kids? AI is built into many of the software applications that we now use in schools every day.

In every episode of The Artificial Human from BBC Radio 4, Kevin and I are here to help. We will chart a course through the world of AI and we will answer your questions. It doesn't just lie, but it lies in an incredibly enthusiastic, convincing way. That ability to be able to kind of think critically is just going to be so important as we move forward. The Artificial Human with me, Alex Kretosky. And me, Kevin Fong. Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who 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.