Woman's Hour - O'Hooley & Tidow and Gentleman Jack

Episode Date: July 4, 2019

A new report by the Children’s Commissioner for England estimates that there are 2.3 million children in England growing up with a vulnerable family background and half of these children receive patchy or no support at all. What needs to change to improve the lives of vulnerable children and have children fallen down the political agenda? Jenni speaks to Rachel Dickinson, President of the Association for Directors of Children’s Services, Alka Dass, a mother fighting cuts to children’s services in her area and to Neera Sharma, Head of Policy from the children’s charity Barnardos.O'Hooley & Tidow are an English folk music duo from Yorkshire, consisting of Heidi Tidow and Belinda O'Hooley. They have been performing together for ten years, and have released seven albums. Their track ‘Gentleman Jack’ features as the closing music on the BBC’s drama series of the same name. They'll be talking about their music and performing live in the studio. According to UN data an estimated 200 million girls and women worldwide have undergone Female Genital Mutilation. The internationally condemned ritual, which typically involves the partial or total removal of the external genitalia, is most often associated with a swathe of African countries, as well as parts of the Middle East and Asia. In the United States more than half a million girls and women from diaspora communities have had or are at risk of FGM. But in the last couple of years several women from conservative white communities the US have gone public with their stories of having this done to them. We hear from two of them.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Rachel Dickinson Interviewed Guest: Alka Dass Interviewed Guest: Neera Sharma Interviewed Guest: Heidi Tidow Interviewed Guest: Belinda O'Hooley Interviewed Guest: Dr Renee Bergstrom Interviewed Guest: Shelby Quast

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Thursday the 4th of July. In today's programme, the revelations made in the United States of the practice of female genital mutilation. Women from conservative Christian white communities describe what happened to them. And the folk duo Ohuli and Tido, responsible for the music over the closing titles of the drama serial Gentleman Jack.

As you may have heard in the news, Anne Longfield, the Children's Commissioner for England, has launched her annual vulnerability report alongside a detailed analysis of how much local authorities spend on children. The report estimates there are 2.3 million children growing up with a vulnerable family background, and half of them receive patchy or no support at all. She describes more than 800,000 of those children as invisible to services. The Commissioner says she will call on the next Prime Minister to put the billions promised for tax cuts towards mending what she describes as broken childhoods. To what extent does this report suggest that children have fallen down the political agenda? Well, earlier this morning I spoke to Al-Qadas who's one of the founders of

the national campaign to save children's centres, Neera Sharma head of policy at Barnardo's and Rachel Dickinson president of the Association for Directors of Children's Services. What was her response to the commissioner's report? The ADCS has long called for more investment in children, their families and the services that they rely on. We're really concerned that children have absolutely fallen down the political agenda, with Brexit consuming all of the focus and attention in Westminster and beyond, at the expense of some serious social domestic policy issues. What kind of things are worrying you? Well we're really concerned that local authorities have never been adequately resourced to identify, safeguard, protect and

support children and families in need and this must change. Local authorities must fund such a child protection service where need exists even if there's no money in the budget. But we know that rising demand for our services and reducing budgets means that we're having to divert funding away from the very services that help children and families earlier as need arise and reduce future demand. What kinds of services are you referring to there? I'm referring to early help services like children's centres, youth services, the sorts of services that get in early when families first begin to experience difficulties. And they're the services that very often can have the most impact on children's lives and the most quickly.

Nira, we're talking here about what are described as vulnerable children. How would you define vulnerable when it comes to the needs of children? Barnardo's works with the most vulnerable children in the UK and these are children who've got multiple needs. So many of our services work with children who've been affected by domestic abuse, with children who are involved in criminal activity, children who are coerced or controlled into breaking the law, such as being involved in

gangs and youth violence. So what we are seeing is that children are coming to us later for help and at a point where they're in crisis because early intervention services are not there and initially lots of children and young people are turned away because they don't meet the increasing thresholds that are set by local authorities and by the health service for that help that they need early on. What is that threshold? That threshold keeps increasing and it's different according to where you live. So there's a geographical postcode lottery going on. So if you take mental health services, for example, many more of the young people we work with have to reach crisis point, meaning they present at A&E before they get any help,

where they should have had help much, much earlier on, and it would have been more effective, and it would have been more cost-effective as well. Okay, I know you've been campaigning to save a children's centre in your area what for you is important about children's centres? For me they've been a massive support my mother passed away literally two weeks before my son was born and we then moved into the Bucks area and I didn't know anybody either so I was going through grief very little family support as they were obviously going through grief as well and they were a massive lifeline I was signposted by my half-sister for the healthy mind service which helps with

grief for example postnatal depression I didn't even know I had it really at the time they also had a creche facility through that service really I met other mothers i also my son had help with speech and language therapy they're a massive massive lifeline to so many families because the 360 service it's not just about we'll just treat the child or we'll just treat the mother it's about looking at the needs of the whole family you know i have mothers that have gone through domestic violence and domestic abuse they are then targeting those families to provide support to the mother to perhaps leave the situation. So it's not just about looking at one aspect of it.

This is a 360 service which basically targets those which we would classify as being vulnerable, but it is for early help. That's what we actually need, this preventative service. And what's happening now is councils obviously lack of funding, are causing them to try and build new models, which is more about crisis management, and that's where our children are being failed.

We've got 35 children's centres here in Bucks, and in September they're going to be closing down 19 of our children's centres. So we've been able to be campaigning to try and get extra funding, but also keeping those centres open. Nira, it takes a huge amount of work, time, effort to try and work on behalf of children. How much harder is it if you're a vulnerable parent as well? Well, if you're a vulnerable parent, you don't have the resources and the energy to fight for your child because you're going to be probably living in poverty,

dealing with your own physical or mental health well-being. You may be living in poor housing. And to be an advocate for your child will take a huge, huge amount of energy. And that is why those services which are universal, such as children's centres, are so important because they're non-stigmatising, they don't judge and anyone can walk in through the doors. Lots of parents need that trust with someone over a period of a few months before they'll open up

about what is really bothering them. With issues such as mental health or domestic abuse, people do feel that there's a level of stigma attached to that. What we do in Barnardo is through our services. We are working in a model of family hubs which provide that early intervention, universal services, along with targeted services when people need them. And these are going from pre-birth up to 19 and in some cases to 25, and we're finding that those are effective in providing that balance of early prevention, intervention, but also targeted support for those families that need it.

Rachel, I know you're speaking to us from the annual conference of the Association of Directors of Children's Services. Now the Children's Commissioner is calling on the next Prime Minister, whoever that is going to be, to put the billions promised for income and corporation tax cuts towards children's services. What do you and your fellow directors think needs to be done? We have long said that the rising demand for services and reducing budgets means that local authorities are having to divert funding away from the very services that helped children and families earlier. We've continuously warned that these cuts are counter-intuitive and the Treasury must recognise that this is neither a sensible nor sustainable fiscal approach. It's only storing up significant human and financial costs for the future.

It's something that the new Prime Minister and Cabinet must pay urgent attention to. Now we asked of course for a response from the government, and a spokesperson said, it's a measure of a strong society how we support the most vulnerable people in this country. We're making record investments in education and in children's services to help improve outcomes and support young people to overcome the challenges they face. That's why we're providing £2.4 billion each year to support disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium and gathering as much evidence as possible

on what works to support those most in need ahead of the spending review. Is £2.4 billion each year enough, Rachel? No, it's not enough. Members of the Association of Directors of Children's Services and indeed school leaders would say it's absolutely not enough. We're having to cut the very services that get support to children and families early when things begin to go wrong and we know that schools are having to cut vital pastoral services that also enable

them to provide support to children. It's not enough. But the Children's Commissioner believes about £10 billion a year by 2024-25. That's a lot of money. Yes, it's challenging, isn't it? We all come at this through different pieces of work. Our own calculations are that we will need £3.1 billion in the next few years just to stand still. And we need a further £2.5 billion to start putting investment back into the very services that help children and their families achieve good outcomes. Aika, I know you're involved in a really big national campaign to save children's centres.

How optimistic are you that you can save them? I believe we can. We've been battling locally for two years and we've managed to keep our centres open, all 35 of them. And obviously nationally we're doing that as well. We've been approaching our MPs, central government, working with Action for Children as well. I am very, very confident that if you do not give up, you can achieve this. We've got so far with it. But it's a long-term thing here. That money is needed. We've had, you know, over 1,000 children's centres lost. We've got two things here. You've got this nought to five-year-olds and their families that need support. You've got a separate issue, which is obviously youth

services. And it's all just about the integration of communities helping people making sure that we're all on an even platform because our children deserve the best start in life because otherwise it's a very short-sighted approach we've got i think nearly 200 000 pounds spent on long-term costs for residential placements for children rachel the children's commissioners report talks about children who are invisible to services. Who are these invisible groups? They may well be children who are not in school, children who are moving with their families because of local housing policies.

It's difficult particularly to identify how she's calculated that specific number, but they are children who are dropping out of the system because of the pressures within society generally. Neera, who are they from your perspective? So they are children who are refugee, asylum-seeking children. We know that there are a lot of children who are not documented because their parents might have arrived illegally and they just fall through the radar of social services and local authorities.

So, Niru, what reform is needed? Or is spending more money going to be enough? So, Barnardo's, along with other children's charities, is calling for an additional £3.1 billion investment to enable councils to meet the needs of children and young people but also longer term we do need to look at what models of delivery are needed so obviously we've lost 1,000 children centres since 2010 but there are other models that the commissioner points to in her report such as family hubs. And some councils are

investing in different models of delivery, which go from pre-birth up to 25, and are an integrated system of universal and targeted services. So along with that additional investment, which is absolutely needed, we also need to use that investment to look at different models of delivery with a focus on early intervention and prevention to stop children and young people reaching crisis point before they get a service. Rachel on the question of reform as opposed to spending lots more money what reform would you say should be looked at? I do think that different models of supporting children and their families early are helpful and models that Bernardos have just outlined, those services that are holistic, wrapped around families and are not age-specific,

our families tell us that they are much more helpful to them enabling early access to services and targeted support in the same place dealing with children of a range of ages within the family but it's really important that those services are provided by the key agencies who have a responsibility to support children local authorities and health agencies too. I was talking to Rachel Dickinson, Neera Sharma and Alka Das. Now still to come in today's programme, revelations of female genital mutilation in the United States and the white Christian communities where it's happened. And the serial, episode four of Daphne of Fire in Malta. Now, you may remember last week I spoke to Vicky Knight, who had 33% burns to her body as a child,

and who's now starring in the film Dirty God. You can watch a video with Vicky on the Woman's Hour website and hear how the film helped her to accept her scars. And then we need your help as well on Monday. If you can remember how you felt when you said goodbye to your primary school years and went to secondary for the first time, we'd like to hear from

you on Monday. It's a phone in about school transfer. Do send us your experiences and questions or of course you can call in on the morning. Now if you're a fan of Gentleman Jack and Who Isn't, Sally Wainwright's Sunday night series

about the Halifax industrialist Anne Lister, final episode this coming Sunday, you'll be familiar with the music that's played and sung over the closing credits. Behind her back she's Gentleman Jack The Yorkshire lady of renown Never so fine, won't toe the line, speak her name, Gentleman Frown It shipped and all, she had them all, the fairest sex fell under her spell

Dapper and bright, she held them tight, handsome and seduced them well Gentleman Jack, oh Gentleman Jack, watch your back, you're under attack Her husband's a-coming, you'd better start running for nobody likes a Jack the Last. Jack the Last, Jack the Last, no one likes a Jack the Last. The code is cracked, your back's a-packed, the knives are out for Gentleman Jack.

Well, the music is written and performed by Ohuli and Tido. That's Belinda Ohuli and Heidi Tido, who've been working together as a folk duo for the past ten years. They wrote Gentleman Jack, the song, long before the television series came to the screen. So how, Heidi, did you come to write the song? Yeah, well, it was a friend of ours, Viviana,

that told us the story of Anne Lister about eight years ago. And it was during the time that there was a documentary hosted by Sue Perkins. And we had just gone round for lunch and said, you know, what are you up to? And she said, I've been interviewed about Anne Lister. And she said she was this really formidable woman from the 1800s. She was a real character and she told us all about her diaries and the fact that she was, in essence, the first modern lesbian and our ears pricked up.

And then she said that behind her back, the disapproving residents of Halifax used to call her Gentleman Jack. And that's where we both got shivers and thought, we've got to write a song about her. And it just all went from there, really. So, Belinda, how did it come to be used for the serial? Well, it's always been a really popular song with our audiences. And we made a silly video in a dressing room years ago.

I think it was Salisbury Arts Centre. And we were just messing about of Gentleman Jack, the song. And just so happens, Sally Wainwright must have been doing a bit of research on Anne Lister and maybe put in Gentleman Jack. And our video popped up. So we were doing a gig in Hebden Bridge. And in the interval where we sell our CDs, Sally Wainwright came up to Heidi and she said, Hi, I'm Sally. Can I use your song for my new drama? And Heidi thought about it for about a millisecond. Maybe a second.

And said, yeah, all right. Yeah, all right. Come on then. So what impact has it had on you and your music? I mean, it must have made you huge. It's been mind-blowing, to be honest. We can't take it all in. We're in a bit of a whirlwind at the moment.

I mean, we've been doing this for 10 years and, you know, I've got quite a nice thing going already. But this is just like nothing we've ever experienced. Gigs are selling out six months in advance. Our online shop has gone crazy. So we're spending most of our time packaging envelopes belinda i know you describe your music as contemporary folk i also know that people sometimes get a bit funny about you playing the keyboard why is that well i think it's sometimes

when we go to a folk club not all of them i hasten to add but some are run by maybe more traditionalist kind of people who believe that the electric keyboard shouldn't be in folk music but I would argue that the piano was a very much in many people's houses had a piano and traditional music was accompanied by piano and the problem is going into a folk club I can't bring my piano because it's too heavy and we can't get it in the car so we have to bring an electric keyboard and I really hope that we've shown that we can still do I suppose we call it modern folk music music for the times we live in and um and that we we feel that we're doing something that should be as acceptable as bringing in a hurdy-gurdy or

whatever else and of course the folk music you would have heard in pubs as well where they would have also had a piano in in the pub is it the plugging in of it that people object to do you think yeah i mean i've tried not plugging it in but it just doesn't sound as good you know how belinda did you come to perform together? Because you worked separately for a long time. Well, we were both on the Huddersfield music scene doing solo things, basically. And we kind of got to know each other's music through that. And it was through the music that we forged a friendship.

And the first time that we sang together, we kind of knew something special was happening because our voices seemed to blend really well together. And then also we fell in love. So it was kind of falling in love, making music, wanting to be together, feeling very inspired by each other. And we are really a partnership for everything really but Heidi I mean you both live in Huddersfield you're now married and Heidi you're expecting a baby I think in about three

months time yeah that's right three months for having a little boy how easy is it to live and work together so closely um on the whole um we get on well, we really really do, we're best friends and we have a really good laugh first and foremost and as Belinda said we do inspire each other and I think that really comes into the songwriting and we spend a lot of time actually just trying to make each other laugh and I think

if you've got humour you can kind of you know get through anything Now you share a passion for tattoos, and because it's a warm, sunny day outside, I can see them because you're wearing short sleeves. There's a very interesting one, Heidi, on your arm. Yeah.

It's a bird carrying a fox. What's the significance of that? Yeah, it's a blue tit. I see it as a blue tit rescuing a fox and for me it symbolizes strength and vulnerability and that the small bird is powerful and is carrying the fox and i think it really for me says something about the strength of women and you know and how close together strength and vulnerability are and you bel, I suppose unsurprisingly, have Anne Lister on your arm. I have, yes.

How did that come about? Well, I think it was actually Heidi that was meant to have Anne Lister on her arm, but then she got pregnant and then I said, well, can I have Anne Lister on my arm? So, yeah, a really great tattooist in Derby called Ben Stone designed it. And it's basically Anne Lister with Jack the Lass sort of emblazoned below her. And then quite a lot of the code in her diaries. And it was very painful, Jenny. It was probably my most painful tattoo.

But I feel like it gives me strength whenever I look at it. I think, what would Anne Lister do? And it gives me a bit of, you know, a bit of a drive. Was it extra painful because it's on the inside of your wrist? Is it more painful to have it there than on the outside of your arms? Yeah, I think it's quite a soft, sensitive part of the skin, basically. But I don't regret it at all. Now, there's a new album in versions.

You're going to do some events with Sally Wainwright. What are they going to consist of? Well, the gigs with Sally, they're Gentleman Jack themed gigs where Sally's going to do a Q&A and Anne Chomer, the writer of the book that accompanies the series, is going to do some chatting as well. And we're going to sing songs Q&A and Anne Chomer, the writer of the book that accompanies the series, is going to

do some chatting as well and we're going to sing songs about extraordinary women. And there's another extraordinary woman that you wrote about some time ago, that's Beryl, another formidable Yorkshire woman. How did she inspire you? Well we learned about her through Maxine Peake's fantastic play and when we came out of the theatre we were we were blown away by her story her courage and how she was a champion cyclist that had been born into now really with health problems and no money and we had to write about her and also because we just very strongly felt that there weren't enough songs in the world about people called Beryl. Shall we hear Beryl?

Away you go. Great stuff. Love it. Love it when people write ginnel in their songs. You don't get that very often. Thank you so much, Heidi and Belinda. I know there's going to be a second series of The Gentleman.

Yes. I hope you'll be writing for that as well. Thank you both very much indeed. Good luck with everything, especially be writing for that as well. Thank you both very much indeed. Good luck with everything, especially the baby. Thanks, Jenny. Thank you. Now we're all too familiar with the practice of female genital mutilation and the efforts to stop it happening to young girls. It's most common in parts of the Middle East and Asia and the United Nations estimates 200 million girls worldwide have had their external genitalia partially or totally removed. Well, in the UK, it's illegal, as it is in most

other Western countries. In the United States, it's illegal in 33 of the 50 states. But in the past two years, a number of American women have come forward to say it was done to them. They're from white, conservative, Christian communities. Well, earlier I spoke very frankly with Dr. Renee Bergstrom, who's an FGM survivor and advocate for ending the practice, and Shelby Quast, America's Director of Equality Now. How frequently does FGM happen in the United States? Well, I think it's an issue we don't have good data on, but we do know that there was a recent study that estimated 513,000 women and girls were either living with FGM or were

at risk of FGM in the United States. And we have seen many, many more survivors speaking out about their experience across communities, across states, and we expect that the numbers are actually quite larger than anything that we know. In which communities is it practiced? Well, I think we're finding that it reaches across many different communities. We're seeing it happen in different groups in different states. More recently, we've seen young people coming up from different parts of the world who are now living in the United States, as well as women and girls that were born in the United States being subjected to FGM.

We've seen some women speaking out from more Christian, white communities of people who have been raised in the United States. So again, I don't know that we know the full extent of the issue, but we do know that a lot more people are speaking out about their experience. It's illegal in 33 states. Why is it not illegal in all 50? We had a federal law since 1996 making it illegal to perform female genital mutilation. And we amended that law in 2015, saying you also can't take a girl outside the country for purposes of FGM. And the movement to get laws at the state level has really been much more active over the last several years as civil society organizations

and survivors and people are pushing for protections at both the state level and the federal level. We also have seen our federal laws being challenged, questioning the constitutionality of Congress's ability in the way they passed the law, having nothing to do with female gender mutilation itself, but the technicality in the way the law was passed. Renee, as a white woman now in your 70s, what happened to you when you were a little girl? My mother noticed that my face was turning red when I touched my clitoris. So she took me to a doctor who said, I can fix that, and sliced off my clitoris, the visible portion of it. I remember seeing my mother at the end of the table, and whatever sense of betrayal a three-year-old would have, I felt it then, that somehow she should have been keeping me from this pain.

What do you remember of the pain? Not a lot. I do know that my mom said that she held me and walked the floors of, I don't know if it was a clinic or a hospital where it was done, until I quit crying and then took me home. So apparently I cried for a long time. How did she explain to you her reason for having it done? All she said was that she was concerned because my face was turning red. But later she told me she really didn't think that masturbation was a sin, but she had also read that it could make you insane. And there was a lot of literature out there, especially promoted by the Seventh-day Adventist, Kellogg. And he was one who promoted all of the problems that could come from masturbation.

And that's the Kellogg of Cornflake. Right. It's the Cornflake person. And another Seventh-day Adventist, Dr. Harold Shryock, wrote a book on becoming a woman where he also was saying, you know, masturbation in women saps some of their energy and makes life miserable. And in his book, which is still published, recommends female circumcision. How did it affect you as you began to grow up? Of course, there was the sense that what am I missing? And I also had a very uncomfortable tugging sensation from where part of my sensitive tissue fused to my inner labia.

And when I was 15 years old and first got my driver's license, I drove to a clinic, not knowing that this is where it had occurred, and said to the doctor, "'Some stupid doctor cut me, "'and now I have this uncomfortable sensation. And he did not do anything except give me a brochure on the sin of self-pleasuring.

What have been the consequences for you as a woman? Besides the tugging sensation, which lasted for 50 years until my scar broke apart when I was going through menopause, the worst thing that occurred was giving birth to my first child. My scar did not stretch and the doctor didn't know what to do and so gave me a really extensive episiotomy that took months to heal. Shelby, why did the practice start in white Christian communities where there doesn't seem to have been a long history of it? I think it's what we see is in any community that practices female genital mutilation, that it's about control of women's bodies, about control of girls, about control of sexuality.

And I would expect that that's the same thing that happened here. Listening to Renee's story and the fear of the child touching her genitalia and possibly getting pleasure from that was to be repressed. And I think that we see really around the world and across communities that, again, it's just based in that idea of wanting to control women. And we're still seeing that now. I think that the repression and the attack on women's bodies, on the decisions they can make

around their bodies, on sexuality, on sexual pleasure. All of those issues still exist today. And we see that this is just one way that that has been expressed. Well, we spoke to a woman called Jennifer, who's now in her early 40s, about her experience of FGM. Her testimony is graphic and her words are spoken by an actor. I was five when I underwent female genital mutilation. I was told that a lady I didn't know was going to take my sisters and I on a special trip. We went on an airplane without my parents. The morning after I arrived, I was laid down on a cold table. I had no idea what was going to happen and nobody explained anything to

me. They took off my panties and lifted my dress. I felt very exposed and bare. I began to fight and cry. Someone held me down and covered my mouth and eyes with their hands. Then I felt the cold metal and the first cut. The pain in that moment was unbearable. No other pain in my life has ever compared. I grew up in Midwest America. My father was a church minister and my parents had very strict conservative beliefs. They lived by Old Testament laws and I thought that was the way everyone lived. There was a lot of focus on making women be submissive. Men were the leader of the household, and girls were taught it was our job to serve them, to be a slave, I guess. The church leadership group, the inner core of deacons and pastors, believed we were all paying a debt to God, and he was an angry God. And if we failed him, we'd be punished. We were always given the impression that God didn't love women the way

he did men. Women had a greater debt to pay because we were bad. We did whatever men told us to do, and as far as sex was concerned, our job was to pleasure them. But sex for pleasure was wrong for women. It was a sin against God. And if you said anything or talked about sex, that was a sin. The way it was explained to us at that age was sometimes girls' bodies do things they shouldn't. And this makes God upset because it's a sin for women to have pleasure from sex. Now, disability has been taken away. Our bodies were pure and God would be pleased with what we had done. I remember my sister and I weeping in each other's arms knowing we had this terrible secret to keep.

Apart from that time, we never talked about being cut. And when I was growing up, I thought it happened to all girls. It was only when I studied biology in college that I realized I wasn't like everyone else. As a child, I was taught that just thinking about things was sinful, never mind actually doing it. So even the idea of telling someone about what I've been through was a sin that could send me to hell. I didn't want to go against God's will, so it stopped me from seeking help. Our church can't be the only one that makes women and girls feel like this. I've been contacted by two other women that have had this happen, and one had it done to her daughters, thinking it was normal. They are, where I was a couple of years ago, shocked to find this is not

normal for everyone and wondering what else is not true. I think it is important for people to understand just because so few Americans have spoken up, it does not mean it is not happening here. We have to remove the shame, make it a subject safe to talk about. Renee, how did what happened to you affect your relationship with your sibling and indeed with your mother? With my siblings, my mother told me not to talk about it. So I did not share this with my siblings until I was in my mid-30s. And as far as my mother, I think even at age three, we had a reversal of roles because I became her protector by being silent.

And she often talked to me as if I were her older sister. So in effect, I somehow lost the mother-daughter relationship as a child. As an adult, it was much better. But as a child, I didn't feel that she was protecting me. Shelby, we've heard a lot about silence from both Renee and Jennifer. How silent would you say most women to whom this has happened have remained? Well, I think that's one of the reasons that it's reached so many different people

across communities, across all of the lines that Renee mentioned, is this idea of being silent about it. If it was something that was public and that was seen, if it was somebody's nose that was being cut off, people would, I think, be outraged. But because it involves genitalia, because it involves girls' genitalia, it's been able to be protected and silenced and just perpetuated. We had a summit on violence against children, but specifically looking at female genital mutilation at the end of 2016. And we had one day where survivors from across the United States came together, along with survivors from around the world. And it was fascinating. And once somebody

shared their story and had the courage to use their voice to share what happened to them, even though it was very personal and had been quiet for a long time, that others would start to stand up. And we're seeing that now, I think, around the world, that a lot of youth are also speaking out now and saying, I'm going to make a different decision for my children. I understand I'm hearing the effect that this has had not just on me, but of other women. And understanding that some of those health implications actually are a result of female genital mutilation that took one day, but had a lifetime of consequences. How did the practice originate in the white Christian communities? How did it come to the United States?

It was the British doctor Isaac Brown Baker in 1866 had an article in the American Medical Journal about treating epilepsy by excising the clitoris. And he was discredited in England, but came to America where people bought into this. And a clitoridectomy was used for supposedly curing all kinds of ailments for a while, and even showed up in textbooks until 1925 and others in 1936 that talked about circumcision and cauterization for girls. And I read in Janet Heimlich's Breaking Their Will, Shedding Light on Religious Malt Treatment, that the Blue Cross health insurance covered female

clitoridectomies until 1977. Why, Renee, having spoken out, do you continue to campaign? Well, I always knew that someday I would be speaking out, But I didn't know how, because I don't believe that it's something that should be hidden. And if my telling my story helps other women who are trying to end this throughout the world, it's worth exposing this very private part of my life. I was talking to Dr. Renée Bergstrom and Shelby Quast, and you heard Jennifer's words spoken by Catherine Cusack. Lots of response to the discussion about children's needs falling down the political agenda. Alan wrote,

The tragedy is the loss of universal and therefore non-stigmatising services for young children. Sure Start was a brilliant idea and successful and it's pretty much been destroyed. Margaret said, after months of dithering and worrying, I got up the courage this morning and rang social services to report my concerns about a vulnerable child living near me. After 20 minutes of music on hold to a number designated specifically for concerns about children, I gave up. I don't blame the council, I blame Tory cuts. If I can once again overcome my fear of being labelled a busybody, I may try again later.

In the meantime, the problems continue for the child I'm worried about. On a Hooli and Tido, lots of response again. You loved their music, Chris said. Really looking forward to seeing these two at Thorganby next Friday. They are fantastic, Leslie said. Singing along to Beryl in my kitchen. What a great, natural, funny interview. Anna said, brilliant job, galvanising and glorious. So looking forward to your triumphant return to the Bristol Old Vic.

And then on FGM in white US Christian community, someone who didn't want to be named said, my dear mother, who was a child of missionaries, was born in the Belgian Congo. Her life was complex and hard. When I came to the tender times of supporting her through her dementia journey, I discovered she was a victim of FGM. It explained so much, but until this morning, I've had many times thinking I'd imagined what I saw and what we dealt with. Truth, understanding and clarity are a wonderful balm for confusion and pain. Well thank you for all your responses to today's program. Do join me tomorrow when we'll be discussing the two women

who are going to lead the European Union. They are Ursula von der Leyen and Christine Lagarde. Why are their appointments controversial? Join me tomorrow, two minutes past 10, if you can. Bye-bye. Is the daily grind getting you down? Fancy taking a break and going out into nature this summer? Then look for Go Wild and BBC Sounds, a place for some of the best nature programmes from Radio 4. Get some inspiration for your next adventure, no matter how big or small. Just search for Go Wild and BBC Sounds and set out on your next adventure today. Somebody out there who's 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.