Woman's Hour - Saoirse Ronan’s viral moment, Mother on hunger strike, Donna Ockendon and her daughter Phoebe

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Saoirse Ronan’s comments on the Graham Norton Show last week when she interjected in a conversation about self-defence and highlighted the issue of women’s safety are continuing to make headlines. She was applauded by the audience, but how much courage does it take to call something out like this? Joining Anita Rani to discuss are the journalist Ash Sarkar and counselling psychologist Dr Elaine Kasket. British-Egyptian activist and maths professor Laila Soueif has been on hunger strike for the past month to protest her son Alaa’s incarceration in Egypt. He is the country’s most high profile political prisoner. Laila and her daughter Sanaa – who has faced arrest and imprisonment herself – join Anita to talk about why they won’t stop fighting for Alaa’s release.Donna Ockenden, the midwife best known for leading independent investigations into shocking maternity scandals says she's 'disgusted' at the experience her disabled daughter, Phoebe, had in A&E recently. Phoebe and Donna join Anita for their first broadcast interview to explain what went wrong and what they want to change.It’s not uncommon to see young children using a tablet or a video game, but how much time on these devices is too much? A new UK study has explored how children under three engage with digital technology at home. The research reveals the significant extent of toddlers’ access to various devices, and highlights how these devices can support their early language and literacy development. Anita is joined by Professor Rosie Flewitt who led the study.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Maryam Maruf Editor: Sarah Crawley Studio Manager: Sue Maillot

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to Friday's Woman's Hour. Think about all the tech that surrounds you in your home, your TV, tablet, camera, Alexa. This is the world children are now born into. We're going to discuss the negative aspects. No, we always discuss the negative aspects of tech on the programme, but a new study suggests that for up to three-year-olds, this exposure is not necessarily a bad thing and may support

their early development. Also on the programme this morning, we'll be hearing from two mothers, both taking a stand for their children. Leila Suif is currently on hunger strike for her son who's a political prisoner in Egypt. She'll be talking to me along with her daughter Sana and Donna Ockenden. You may recognise the name. She's the midwife best known for leading the independent investigations into shocking maternity care scandals. She's called out the NHS based on the treatment her daughter received who has learning disabilities in A&E. We'll be discussing that with her later.

And talking of calling things out, did you see Saoirse Ronan on Graham Norton last week? This clip has been doing the rounds. It's been making headlines all week and it seems we still can't stop talking about the comments. Saoirse was a guest alongside actors Paul Muskell, Eddie Redmayne and Denzel Washington. When Eddie Redmayne explained he'd been taught how to use a phone as a weapon while training for his role as an assassin in

The Day of the Jackal. In response, Paul Muskell questioned whether anyone would realistically have time to take their phone out when being attacked. You can see Sir Sharonan looking a bit uncomfortable and trying to interject. Here's the clip. Have a listen. I find some of the techniques, though, that you learn, like some of the things Paul taught us, is how you can use your phone if someone's attacking you, the butt of your phone to go around the neck.

Who's actually going to think about that, though? If someone attacks me, I'm not going to go, phone. I think him. One second. One second. Sorry, not one second. That's a very good point. That's what girls have to think about all the time.

Am I right, ladies? It's so interesting. It's actually more revealing when you just listen to it rather than watching it. Anyway, here on Woman's Hour, we are very aware of what women need to think about when it comes to our own safety. However, what struck us was the courage it takes to actually call something out like Saoirse did. And she did it on such a public platform. Did that make it easier or harder? We're going to be discussing that in just a moment. But we'd also like to hear from you this

morning about your experiences of calling things out when you've mustered up the courage to say it how did it go down did it work out well for you because it doesn't always has there been a situation when you didn't say anything and it chewed you up afterwards analyzing what you should have actually said and why you didn't say it we've all been there this could be calling out sexism racism homophobia simply correcting an assumption or revealing someone's privilege get in touch with your experiences in the usual way the text number is 84844 you can email me by going to our website or the whatsapp number is 03700100444 and of, if you want to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour.

We're going to jump straight into this with my guest, Ash Sarkar, a journalist and contributing editor at Navarra Media and Dr Elaine Casket, who's a counselling psychologist. Welcome, Ash. Welcome, Elaine. So interesting. I'm going to come to you first, Ash, to tell me what you thought about it, especially hearing that clip, because I think it's so revealing, isn't it? Yeah, it absolutely is.

What really struck me when I was watching that clip when it went viral is that it didn't resemble the kind of confront that I'll have with men in my life, which is they'll be talking about something which to me seems very rooted in their experience of gender. And then if me or another woman says, hey, that's really not how it is for us. Like, we experience it this way. The thing that you hear is a deafening silence. And I don't think that it's a silence of aggression or disapproval necessarily. It's like sometimes when men are confronted by some of the unpalatable aspects of gender, it's like they go, well, I'm not really qualified to talk about this or think about this. I'm just going to disappear inside myself until the conversation is over. And I think that that's one of the things that women find difficult. They're not necessarily so worried that they're going to be shouted down but that they're going to be greeted by silence and a kind of social withdrawal. Interesting. Elaine, what did you make of that moment?

Because actually what Ash is saying is spot on, isn't it? Because there was silence as soon as she said it. But you can hear her trying to muster up the courage to even say it in the first place, can't you? Absolutely, you can. And I can really relate. Actually, when your producer called me to be on this program, I was calling something out that had happened to me the day after the Graham Norton show for the first time ever on social media and felt really nervous about it, not just because people might come for me, but because there might be silence which is another kind of shame or in another kind of invalidation in a way that we risk experiencing if we speak out and describe our experience um do you want to tell us what you've what you've tweeted yeah well absolutely

i put it on instagram because i hadn't seen the clip actually so that was coincidence i was coming home on the central line and i had two separate incidents of molestation on the central line within a quarter of an hour of one another and I realized a week later that I was still upset about it not just because it happened but because of the reactions that I got from people certain people including women that I was disappointed in. Did you say anything at the time? Did you say anything when it happened? My threat response was to freeze. And so in a situation like that, I would have thought that I would have fought back, that I would have used whatever was available to me, including my phone, to do something. And I froze.

Yeah, that's the thing that kind of spins you out, isn't it? Like, why did I react like that in the moment? You of spins you out, isn't it? Like, why did I react like that in the moment? You're a therapist. Why did you? What went on? Well, I mean, in a situation like that, just in a social situation where you might be describing it to someone afterwards, we experience a number of different threat responses and it could be fighting or it could be freezing or it could be fleeing. But there's also another one that comes into it in social situations, the lesser known threat response of fawning, of, oh, laughing along or going along with her, acting like it's not important or just not, you know, or just she could have just laughed along with everybody on that program. And she didn't. She gathered herself and

she decided to say something that was very clear and very distilled, but it was a fight response. Yeah, it's really interesting watching it because you could feel what she was going through. But then she got she had to get the validation from the audience as well. Am I right, ladies? What was that? Exactly. You know, and I think that I'm so glad that the audience responded as it did, because that's very important. You know, if she just sat there and they went into that deafening silence, that's exactly what they did. And that's another kind of feeling of, as I said, invalidation or embarrassment, humiliation and shame. And so she looked to her allies. When I looked to my allies after my incidents, some of my allies, including my own

mother, disappointed me, asked me questions like, well, what were you wearing? Or what were you doing on the tube at night? And so it's also sometimes taking a risk to try to get support or validation, even from those people from whom we expect support, like other women, because we are so socially and physically and historically conditioned to accept and to not speak up. And I think that we really have to be compassionate with both ourselves and other people, other women about how powerful that conditioning is. Did you report what happened to you, by the way, Elaine? There is the one incident, I don't know, actually, if there's CCTV on the central line train, but I know the time that one particular man got off and at what station and at what time. And so,

yeah, that's something. And I don't know why I'm still wrestling with that. I'm not sure what that's about. It's something, again, that I would have expected myself to do before now. But it's something that I'm not beating myself up about because I feel like I'm understanding my reaction to it in the context of everything that we're talking about here. And I'm taking my time. So. So yeah perfect timing to get you on to talk about it. Ash you are not afraid to say what you think. What goes on in your mind before you decide to speak up? Well it's funny that you should say that because how I am in my personal life and how I am in my professional life are just completely wildly different. In my professional

life I feel so able to like go in studs up sliding tackle every time and in my personal life, I feel so able to like go in, studs up, sliding tackle every time. And in my personal life, I'm so conflict averse. I'm like a dead fish, right? I've got such an overactive freeze response that even something as simple as, you know, my husband saying like, okay, but how do you really feel about this? I'm like, sorry, I've got to go into a medically induced coma now. There's no way I can have this conversation so there's a real real divide there and I think that that speaks to the way in which I think it's sometimes easier to feel like you're speaking up on behalf of other people and then when you're doing it for yourself you doubt yourself and there's of course a healthy level of self-doubt right you do want to think through am I right but

that can become paralyzing I think particularly women. I think you worry about the social consequences because you feel responsible for managing other people's responses as well as managing how you say something. And then I also think that there is this third element, which is I think women are used to taking on psychological burdens. That you just sort of go, well, isn't it easier if I just keep this inside? And as I was listening to you, Elaine, I was thinking about that psychological burden. And it's, I think, what Saoirse was alluding to as well. It's not necessarily that every woman goes to like a jujitsu class to learn how to use her phone as a weapon. It's just that we're thinking about it.

We're thinking about how to keep ourselves safe from harm, but also how to keep ourselves safe from blame. And this thought process that you carry around, which is like, well, if something does happen, how can I make sure that I'm the most perfect victim, right? And of course, if you are a perfect victim and you take every step possible to keep yourself safe, you would do nothing in life. You'd enter into no relationships. You'd go nowhere, you'd do nothing. So part of the psychological burden isn't just, how am I responsible for my own safety? It's how do I put those fears in a box so I can live? And I think that that's the, that's the, am I right ladies bit of it, which is how often we're thinking about it. Elaine? Yeah, absolutely. I was resonating so hard with everything that Ash was saying and

I was thinking about on all those psychological burdens that you named I absolutely agree with and sometimes I find that I'm being more protective of other people's experience and I don't want to embarrass somebody else by speaking up about my own experience and the fact that I'm prioritizing in that way is fascinating to me in 2024 but you know i my mother's reaction or the reaction of certain other women when i talked to them about it afterwards i recognized that they weren't actually trying to blame me and i was realizing with a kind of horror that that's what resignation looks like that's what learned helplessness looks like that's an that's another kind of defense mechanism against the kind of experience that none of us can quite believe is still happening in October 2024.

You know, 15 minutes of each other, two incidents on the central line. I'm 54 years old and have been dealing with this for four decades. And so I think that really transcending some of that fatigue and that learned helplessness is really important, but it can take a lot of strength and a lot of like marshalling of the will to go once more into the breach to talk about your experience. But it takes so much, doesn't it? Like you say, your mother, their experience is so different because they, how they navigated life through the culture that they were in, in those decades was so different. And it doesn't always play out to your advantage when you call things out. I'm thinking about people that actually, let's read out some of the messages

because we're getting so many in. 84844 is the number to text. Tell me what's happened when you have called it out, particularly, you know, could be a social environment, could be work. I once asked my husband, who is a fit, strong rugby player, if he'd ever been scared out in public. He was so shocked when I told him I was frequently scared and was always on high alert. He was genuinely so shocked and it opened up a wonderful conversation.

OK, another one here says, you're not taking into account how many young men change their behaviour because of women's fears. My son regularly crosses the road so he isn't following a woman on her own and at other times has turned off the street when going home and taken a longer route because he doesn't want to worry a woman on her own who's on the same route what do you think about that elaine well i mean you know that shows a lot of empathy and and sensitivity to a woman's situation for sure i mean yeah i mean i you know i wish that were on one hand i want to i wanted to say I wish that more men would be aware of that. But then I just oh, my God, if more men were aware of that, we wouldn't be in the situation that we're we're in. So, I mean, I'm glad that young man has that kind of empathy and that kind of sensitivity. I want to discuss intersectionality when it's played out and you have to call out sexism or racism or both is one

easier than the other um they are equally as rubbish um is what i would say and i think that that response of going quiet that's something which i have experienced from you know people who don't experience racism regardless of their gender when you're saying hey this thing happens either to me or to someone else there's also a third element which I'd like to talk about which is class so I'm a middle class woman I speak in you know something approaching received pronunciation although sometimes I drop my t's it's easy for me to be listened to and taken seriously if you're a working class woman maybe a working class migrant woman and not only are you having to deal with these psychological burdens but also the burdens of survival who is it that's going to

listen to you and take you seriously and I think that then when particularly women who are from working class backgrounds articulate themselves in anger it then becomes so easy to dismiss this person as like hysterical or crazy so I think that there's something about the way in which we conduct these conversations and the way in which it can, I think, exclude the nuances of those experiences by class, which I think is really important to add in there. Absolutely. Does it get easier with age, Elaine? Or are we just waiting for society to catch up?

Oh, my God. does what get easier with calling things out well it didn't it didn't get easier for me at the time of the incidents the other week and like i said i've got four decades of experience of this sort of thing and so i you know i don't know that it ever gets easier because whatever you're dealing with a disempowering situation and there may be loads of levels of that disempowerment, as Ash is talking about, I'm not sure that that experience of having your power taken away and your boundaries transgressed in that kind of way in a situation where there were lots of people in that tube train who could have done something that didn't do something um i don't know that that kind of disempowerment ever wears off no matter how old you are i was hoping you might be able to give us a solution it's interesting that you've gone through it this week no in that you know when you don't react and you don't call it out and then afterwards you think why didn't i just say this thing but then we beat ourselves up about

it yeah yeah i mean and i think that you know I don't have much time for that kind of beating. And I think that even though I'm curious about the fact that I didn't do more, I am not beating myself up about it because I think that really understanding our experience in context and part of really honoring our experience is being compassionate about the fact that we are dealing with exceptionally powerful, longstanding forces and our body's natural physiological responses to threats. And those are very strong and can supersede what our retrospective woulda, coulda, shoulda minds are able to do. That's not the situation that we are in in these moments. And I think that we really need to understand our brains and body's responses, that they are our body trying to protect ourselves. Ash, is it a surprise that we're still talking

about this Saoirse Ronan incident a week later? Not really. I think that it chimed with a lot of people. I think I was just listening to you speak and I was thinking about, well, what are the mechanisms that we have available to us to, I think, deal with that sense of shock or violation or disempowerment. And I really do believe that it's connection with other people. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't escape me that like, later on in the show, you're going to be

talking to the relatives of someone who's being detained by, you know, the Egyptian state, someone who's going on hunger strike, and the importance of people joining you in your experience and fighting for you so sometimes you're not always going to speak up at the right time sometimes you're not always going to call something out but you can fight for someone else right it doesn't have to always be on you to stand up for yourself you can fight for other people and other people can fight for you and that's I think the problem with that silence that greeted Saoirse Ronan like I don't think there was anything malicious in it but within that silence is a profound loneliness and just thinking about your upcoming guests I don't want to put words in their mouth in any way

but it is such a profound act of solidarity and there are ways in which acts of solidarity big and small I think is just so central to dealing dealing with the experience of suffering and to stopping it and preventing it and changing society for the better. Thank you so much, Ash Sarkar and Elaine Casket for speaking to me on this topic this morning. 84844 is the number to text. Fascinating stuff. Lots of you getting in touch about calling things out. Emma says, what's being said today is how i've dealt with racism as well as misogyny most of my life the fawn response is my go-to and i hate it but don't want to embarrass the person or ruin the mood of the night and someone else has said here calling out something during a meeting when i was a naive intern 30 years ago

i got a kick under the table from my male director. Needless to say, I suffered from claustrophobia and panic attacks in meetings for the next 25 years. Sal, thank you very much for that message. Shocking. And another one here said, I noted that Sir Ronan kept a closed smile on her face before speaking, trying to remain friendly and polite, not wanting to rock the boat. But once she had spoken out, she looked calmly furious.

What a victory, says Liz. Keep your thoughts and text messages coming in. Now, what extremes would you go to to stand up for your children? For the last month, 68-year-old Leila Saouef has been on hunger strike. She's been doing it for her son, Ale. He's a British-Egyptian writer and pro-democracy activist who's been in

jail for most of the past decade. Ale has become a symbol of the 60,000 political prisoners believed by human rights groups to be in Egyptian jails. He's completed his current five-year sentence for allegedly spreading false news when he shared a Facebook post about someone who had died in prison in Egypt, but he still hasn't been released. Leila began her hunger strike the day after Ale was supposed to be free. She joins me now from Cairo, as well as her daughter Sana, who's in London. Leila and Sana, thank you for joining us. Leila, I'm going to come to you first.

A month on from your hunger strike, first of all, how are you doing physically and psychologically? How are you? Physically, I'm still well. You know, when you go on hunger strike, there is five or six horrible days where you're hungry and feeling faint and stuff like that. And then the body sort of kicks in and acclimatizes and starts burning extra fat. And that can last. I mean, it depends on each body how long that can last.

All I can say is that I'm still in that stage. So I can, you know, act naturally, go on with my life. I conserve energy, of course. Everyone around me, you know, keeps carrying things for me and giving me rides and so on. But I still feel normal. How long that will last, when the body doesn't find that much fats, it starts burning muscle and then you're really in trouble. I expect that will happen eventually, but at the moment I'm still all right.

Which is good to hear. Going on hunger strike, Lila, is a sign of complete desperation. It's also quite dangerous. No one would ever recommend that they put their body through this. Why this decision? Well, first, I think most mothers would do anything for their children. This is a basic instinctive survival mechanism of all mammals, let alone human beings. I think every mother would, not every, but most mothers would be willing to do what I'm doing now. Most mothers of prisoners would be willing to do this for their sons or daughters if they could be sure of having my visibility and my ability to garner support

and to put pressure on whatever government is concerned. What are you hoping to achieve? I'm hoping to achieve Alaa's release and that's the ultimate hope and if I can't achieve that I can at least give both the

Egyptian and the British government a very big headache. At least they will not be holding my son and, you know, living their life in tranquility. Sana, I'm going to bring you in here. You were there for the conversation when your mother told Ale that this is the decision

she was taking to go on hunger strike. What's your understanding of how he took it? And what's your reaction to what your mum is doing? My mother told us before that this was her plan. I told Ale in the visit before the date of the 29th of September came that this is what we expect. And he was expect and he was shocked and he was worried for her

but then he told me I mean my mother is a very strong character so he was like she's going to do whatever she wants to do so yeah we're all scared for her but I kind of I mean Ale is more scared So, yeah, we're all scared for her.

But I kind of, I mean, Ale is more scared for her. I am too, but I kind of understand her. I kind of, I'm also fed up with this. Like the sentence was unjust to begin with, but he served it in full. And so, you know, I'm confused between being scared for her, but also I feel proud and I feel like she's giving us a way to fight back this injustice. And I get it. We need him back. The question is, Leila, how long do you expect to go on for?

I expect to go on until either Alaa is released or I collapse. And I can't guess when I collapse because, as I said, it differs from body to body. I hope I have a bit longer than most people because I was quite overweight when I started this. So I hope I have a bit longer, but I really do not mean to stop until Allah is released. I can't take another two years

or three years or whatever of what we've been. He's already been in prison for five years, and before that he was only released for six months under probation. He had to spend every night in a police jail. And before that, he was doing another five years. I can't go on. It cannot go on.

Senna, you and Leila have just been to see Ale in the past few days how was he? He's mostly consumed with my mother which is in a way better because he's like distracted from thinking about himself but I know I am worried for him he doesn't say anything but he just speaks

less it's mostly us speaking his letters are have now become very short just small paragraphs about the cats uh outside his cell um he's not sharing much and he's not reading as much so that's all i mean is that you know he's barely holding up um um the interview that i've just my previous interview ash uh sarah car just mentioned the power of solidarity and there's been a lot of high profile support for alay's release including from people like dame judy dench riz Ahmed olivia colman uh nazanin, Zaghari Ratcliffe. Do you feel, Sana, the British government is fully engaged on Ali's behalf? Is it in their power to secure his release? It's absolutely in their power. Egypt is not an enemy country. Egypt is an ally country. It could

even happen as a, you know, like calling your friend and asking for a favor. And the Foreign Secretary, David Lamy, when he was shadow Foreign Secretary, he relayed to the Tories very specific steps that they could take to release my brother. Now that he's in power, he has the power to do those steps. I find the solidarity heartwarming, and this is what empowers us, and this is what gives us hope. But to be fair, everyone except for the government is doing their best the media is doing their best uh mps are doing their best cross party um but the government is not doing much uh i'm still hopeful with the labor government especially because david lani was

was vocal about this case when he was in opposition, so I will hold him to his word. It's not hard and there has been precedence with dual citizens, Americans, Canadians, Irish, who were prisoners, political prisoners in Egypt and their other government managed to secure their release and their safe passage to their other country. We contacted the UK Foreign Office for comments and they say, our priority remains securing consular access to Mr El Fattah and his release so he can be reunited with his family.

We continue to raise his case at the highest levels of the Egyptian government and the Foreign Secretary has raised Mr El Del Fata's case with Egyptian foreign minister every time they have met. Leila, you're allowed to visit your son once a month, I think. Are you able to spend any meaningful time with him? Can you hug him? 20 minutes and the visit is behind glass, so I can't hug him.

We talk through a mouthpiece. He was born in 1981. That was also when the dictator, Hosni Mubarak, came to power in Egypt. And you and your husband, Ahmed, who was a lawyer, he would be jailed

for his human rights work. You've been activists since the 70s. What kind of future were you hoping for your family? The kind of future I hoped for differed from time to time. The height of our hopes was during

2011 when we really thought that we would be able to turn Egypt into a democratic country where we could do good work, where we could make education better, health services better, things like that. Our revolution was defeated. And we are living in the aftermath of that defeat. So now, I don't know what I hope for.

I hope that they can have a reasonable family life, probably outside Egypt. It looks like we can't really have a reasonable family life in Egypt, which is sad. But again, they're educated enough to make a future for themselves anywhere. And certainly they know, they've been British citizens for a while. They know England well. They can settle there.

One of my other daughters, one who's not on the daughter, who is now settled in England, so it should work for them. As for me, I'm too old to bother, I just want them to be safe. Sana, I want to talk about your life as well, because you transformed from a typical teenager into a passionate activist, and this happened when you were 16 years old. In fact, tell me what happened on January the 25th. I participated in the revolution but it was kind of by coincidence. I was supposed to meet my mother. My mother teaches in Cairo University. She teaches mathematics. I was meeting

her to get some cash because I wanted to go to a party, something like that. And I had been aware of the politics but I wasn't really looking to change it. I didn't have much hope. You're a 16 year old. More interested in parties than

politics. Exactly. But there was this very big case of a boy who was tortured to death when he was playing by the police in an internet cafe. He was playing video games and they raided the internet cafe. And the news of this and photos of the boy were very spread out in my school and so I was a bit angry already about police brutality in Egypt um Khalid Zaid so I participated and that changed kind of the course of my life. I, yeah, I mean, I bought into hope that this country could change.

I felt all of a sudden a different feeling towards society as a woman, as a, I've never been that, you know, empowered. And I never imagined that I could be in the streets, talk to all kinds of people, all classes. And you've been in some frightening situations yourself. With the defeat, Alain got arrested and I

started campaigning for his release and I also got arrested and I was imprisoned for campaigning for my brother's release. And for the past 8 to 10 years, I've been just trying to get out of this, go back to my old life.

I'm also a filmmaker, but it's not really giving us the chance while they have one of us, they have my brother. How do you reconcile that, Leila? You're prepared to put your life on the line, but what about when your children do the same? Of course, during 2011, I was worried about all of them. There were all these street fights where the police shot people, and they were in the forefront. So I was truly worried. But you can't hold people, you can't hold your children back once they are grown up and once they are fighting for something they believe in.

You can't hold them back. The most you'll do, you know, during 2011 in Tahrir and afterwards in the different struggles and things that happened, I met any amount of girls who are out there without telling their parents, who are out there and even boys. We once took a boy to hospital who had been shot by the police and he was answering his mother on the phone and telling her, no, no, no, mama, what are you talking about? I'm with my friends at the cafe. I'm not at anywhere. You know, he was more afraid.

He was more afraid of his mother than the police. And he was still doing what he wanted to do anyway. So there's no point. You just have to let your children go and, you know, help them, support them. Try and protect them if you can. Take a bullet for them if you can. But you cannot tell them, stop doing this. It's useless.

It doesn't work. And it just puts an extra burden on them. I read this description of you, Leila, and I'm hearing it in your voice. It says, Leila is known on the streets as brash and courageous and has on numerous occasions facedown baton-wielding policemen with nothing but her scolding, scathing, booming voice and steely eyes. Sana, you recognise your mother in that description? Yeah, absolutely. Leila, what gives you hope? Sana mentioned the word hope there. You're really putting your body through it, but there seems to be an optimism about you. Where does that come from?

It comes, first it comes from all the solidarity. I've really, I've really got so many messages and signs of solidarity, some from quarters where I expected it, some from quarters which are completely unexpected. know how to put this. It's a very personal belief that inside most human beings, except the most evil, there is a bit of humanity that can be touched and that will be touched if you're sincere. Leila Soif and Sana Saif, thank you so much for joining me this morning to speak to me. Thank you. We did contact the Egyptian authorities for comment, but they have not responded. They have previously insisted there are no political prisoners in the country. They also deny any human rights abuses. 84844. We've been discussing at the beginning of the programme the ability to call things out.

You've been getting in touch. Lisa says, I've tried calling in as opposed to calling it out. It shows empathy and kindness and is a slave for learning. Jane says, I went to collect an online purchase

for someone's home, a woman, on the way I commented to my husband that I was surprised that she gave her address rather than maybe a supermarket car park. He is an absolute ally and totally supportive of women's rights but he was baffled by my comment. I had to explain. Now he understands more. They are all still living. 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. S settle in. Available now. Now, the midwife best known for leading independent investigations into shocking maternity care scandals at hospitals in Shropshire and now in Nottingham says she's disgusted at the experience her disabled daughter has had in A&E.

Donna Ockenden's 20-year-old daughter Phoebe has a learning disability and epilepsy. Donna says she's Phoebe's key advocate, supporting her with all her medical appointments. But last weekend, when Phoebe was rushed to hospital for the third time in three weeks, having seizures, Donna was away. But Phoebe and Donna join me now

for their first broadcast interview to explain why they're speaking out. Phoebe, I'm going to come to you first. What happened? Yeah, go on, you want to talk, please? So I... Yeah, you went into A&E, didn't you? Mum was away and mum was going to do it because...

Okay, no problem. You're together. Nice to see you both, by the way. Welcome to women's hair. Thank you. So Pheebs went into A&E. I was away. I was out of the country.

And even though she went in, you know, via ambulance on a trolley, she was dispatched onto a chair and left in a waiting room on her own. Which wasn't nice at all. No, it wasn't nice at all. You say how it was, Phoebe. It wasn't nice at all because basically I was still having seizures and I told the reception staff at the hospital and they didn't do anything to help.

And how long were you waiting? So you were on your own about an hour until we managed to get some help for you. That's about right, isn't it? Yeah. And then you spent seven hours in a chair? Yeah. It was very uncomfortable.

So, yeah, she didn't get any rest at all. And then I think it was around seven hours until she got medical assessment um and they wouldn't give any treatment until she was medically assessed even you know so um yeah that was i think uh the story and you tweeted about it on x saying you were disgusted not about specific staff but about the overall system why were you so worried about phoebe tell me what happened when you heard about what happened. What made you essentially call it out? You went on social media.

It's what we're talking about. Absolutely. So Phoebs and I discussed it. I mean, Phoebs has had three admissions or transfers, 999 transfers into hospital now in three weeks. The previous two, I was there. And I felt safer as well. You felt safer because mum was there for you.

Yeah, because you advocate for Phoebe, don't you? And it was only because you're away. Yeah, I was away and I couldn't believe that with their knowledge of Phoebe's learning disabilities, that it was OK to put her into a waiting room. You know, it was a Saturday night going into Sunday morning. A&E is busy. She asked for help and she didn't get it. And so we spoke about it and we felt that we should raise this together. I wouldn't have done it without, you know, Phoebe's engagement and agreement. Exactly.

And basically, you know, it's on behalf of Phoebe, but it's on behalf of every other vulnerable person who comes into A&E and finds themselves in an unsafe situation. You're a very, you're very high profile, Donna, leading a massive investigation into maternity care scandals. Why speak out about this so publicly and with so much anger? Because Phoebs wasn't safe. We did two previous transfers in where I was very aware that throughout the night I had to advocate for her and I was involved in giving basic care to other vulnerable people who were on trolleys. Like there was one lady who wanted some water and there was one person,

one male, older gentleman. He was wandering. He was wandering. Because he needed to go to the toilet. Yeah. So we got involved in helping with that. And I just think that in terms of Phoebe and her safety, I continually have to advocate. And the one time I wasn't there,

the system, so we're not talking about, you know, specific members of staff, the system let her down and put her at risk. Yes, I mean, you don't want to name the trust, but we did approach them. And but they didn't want to comment. However, the Department of Health and Social Care have given us a statement and they say, Phobe phoebe's experience is unacceptable and is symptomatic of our broken nhs the chancellor has announced a 22.6 billion pound injection into the nhs to get it back onto its feet so it can be there for all of us when we need it once again i mean the government also say and i know you're aware of this donna there are many protocols in place to support people with learning disabilities or who are autistic when they're in hospital or in medical settings. Some examples of these are people with learning disabilities should have a

reasonable adjustment digital flag in their health records. All hospitals should have a learning disability liaison nurse to support patients and since June patients with learning disability and autistic people should have a health passport. Have you come across any of these support mechanisms whilst you've been in hospital? No, well, absolutely not in the trust where we've had five transfers in this year. Phoebs did have surgery in another trust about 18 months ago and the learning disability nurse was absolutely key and central to a very successful surgical pathway and recovery. But in the trust where we attend for emergency help, absolutely not, nothing at all. Would they be helpful?

Oh, yeah, definitely. So I am now in touch with the trust. I've said to them, I do not, we've agreed, we don't want to write a letter of complaint. And what we want want first of all is safe care for phoebe um at all times and when we've put that multidisciplinary plan together then we are happy to help um to ensure that other people are vulnerable people like the people who were next to us on trolleys on occasion one and two um you know can also receive the level of

care they deserve. But Phoebs has to be my priority. Talking about vulnerable people, do you see any similarity between what you say happened to Phoebe and the stories you're hearing from mothers in your maternity care investigations? Well, absolutely. I think, you know, I was chatting to some colleagues on the ground yesterday and they were saying how what is referred to as Ockenden principles of, you know, putting the patient at the heart of everything you do, putting families at the heart of everything you do, listening, amplifying voices. And, you know, that's something that has been, you know, my modus operandi for as long as I can remember.

And yet that is exactly what didn't happen to Pheebs on the occasion when I wasn't with her. How are you now Phoebe? I'm doing good but it wasn't a nice experience at all. Yeah you actually tweeted Wes Streeting didn't you the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. I'm going to read out your tweet if that's okay. You say the NHS is broken now you must fix it. I've going to read out your tweet, if that's OK. You say, the NHS is broken. Now you must fix it. I've been to ED three times in the last four weeks with seizures, always on a trolley. This time, a chair for seven hours without mum. I'm not safe. Meet me, please, to make sure this gets sorted.

I'm waiting. What do you want him to do? I want him, I'd like to speak to him and to discuss the things that happened and stuff and see what he can sort out because it's completely unacceptable and stuff because it wasn't good at all. Chip off the old block, Donna. Oh yeah, like mother, like daughter.

I mean, she wrote that tweet by herself she said mum look what I've done I've tweeted where's treating and I went oh Phoebe okay you've mentioned a few times that it's normally you um with Phoebe what do you have to do what do you do when you're with her what how do you have to advocate for her to make sure she's having her needs met? So she has to be quite stern. I have to be quite stern. Yeah. I mean, basically, Phoebs is at the heart of everything. So I will say, look, we know what's happening. We know, you know, we need medical review. We know the treatment she needs. I mean, on the second occasion, two weeks ago,

she was put in a chair and we were in a chair for about an hour and a half. And I said to a nurse, Phoebe is tired. She's still having seizures. She needs a trolley. And the reply was, we don't have any trolleys. And I was not rude. I was just firm. I said, this is a hospital.

Bring me a trolley now. Within five minutes, a trolley appeared. Phoebe was helped onto it and she was able to sleep you know in between very difficult because of because mum had to roll up blankets from it and it was very hard. Yeah there were no pillows there was nothing I mean it was literally make do and

mend have we got any pillows no there are no pillows in the hospital so I was rolling blankets and whatever to try and give her something to put under her head but you know I will go out every half an hour. I will go out and say, how much longer to the doctor? You know, she needs to be seen. She needs treatment. We know what the treatment is and then we can get her home.

And you're someone who's used to that setting, you know, and you have a voice, you have authority. It's your place. It was your place of work. So you can handle yourself in that situation. Yeah, absolutely. But of course, what we did see, and Phoebe's referred to it just a few minutes ago, we were providing drinks. Once I established that this elderly lady could safely swallow, I was sitting with her and giving her a drink of water.

Phoebe's dad was with us on the second occasion. And there was a gentleman trying to climb off his trolley to go to toilet because he was falling out. And I said to Phoebe's dad, you're going to have to take him. You're going to have to stand outside. Otherwise, he's going to he's going to clamber off or fall off that trolley. We saw him wandering later where he put his hat and coat on and he was going home unknown to the staff and you know Phoebe's dad had to go out and say um that gentleman he's come off that trolley we don't think he should be going out the door and he shouldn't have been you know so it's yeah so many vulnerable people with different vulnerabilities are being failed by our NHS

with you know from my perspective and I think Pheebs is what you do yeah yeah and also in the hospital the waiting room is not is not a nice no and you're not nice and you called it out Phoebe and because of Donna who you are and the profile that you have we are here discussing. What would you like to see happen? I think, you know, it's been said enough that the NHS is broken. First of all, I would like to pay tribute to so many thousands of colleagues on the ground who are going in every day and giving their all. And, you know, we've seen so many exhausted staff just in our visits. But it's got to be sorted.

I think social care, as was said yesterday, is a huge issue and that is inextricably linked with delivery of acute hospital care, workforce. Yeah, our Secretary of State has been left with an appalling legacy, you know, and I wish him well in all his efforts, but I am dreading the winter for the NHS. Phoebe and Donna Ockenden, thank you both very much indeed for coming on to speak to me this morning. 84844, that number to text. Now, it's not uncommon to see young children using a

tablet or a video game, but how much time on these devices is too much? A new UK study, the first of its kind, has explored how children under three engage with digital technology at home. The Thank you very much. I'm joined by Rosie Fluitt, Professor of Early Childhood Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University, who led the study. Welcome to Women's Hour, Rosie. Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Why did you want to undertake this research and particularly focus on those early years, zero to three? OK, so one reason why we decided to focus on under three is because this is an area of research that has really been neglected over the years so most studies of digital usage at home cover the you know three year and above age range and people tend to assume that children under three don't do tech but they do so we felt there was a gap there and we needed to fill it with some knowledge.

It's really it's fascinating because when we were discussing this in the office, we instantly, our minds go to, when we think tech, we go to phones, but actually tech in the home, there's so much tech when you really think about it. What are we talking about exactly? Well, sort of in a nutshell, what we found out was that, you know, digital tech and online communication are just completely integrated into everyday life at home in many, many different ways. So tech is kind of like within the family and it's difficult to separate tech out from everyday life. And it's not just phones. There are many, many different devices that are used in the home, some with screens and some without screens. And you did lots of research, you went into people's home,

and I believe one home had up to 40 devices? Yes, and actually it kind of depends what you count as a device. So, for example, like you were saying, when you think about screens, you often think about, you know, smartphones, tablets, laptops. You know, some homes still have desktop computers, but we also have a range of other devices that we use all the time, such as smart speakers, which might not have a phone, Alexa and Google, smart home devices like that,

which may or may not have a screen, but most don't. Also, there are digital components in many children's toys, like interactive books, interactive toys that have voice activated response mechanisms in them. So there's just a whole range of things that we have. And what did you find? Well, we found many, many things. It's kind of difficult to of everyday life. And it's part of how families live nowadays. So from birth, children see tech being used and they naturally seek to imitate this. So one thing we did find was that there were and so we did a survey followed up by interviews, followed up by working with families at home.

So we had a three pronged approach to find things out, check them out in more detail, and then go into more detail again. And so there were great disparities between families in terms of what tech is available at home. And those do correlate with income, but also with other demographic things like parent age as well. And then you looked at specific things. I guess what I want to get at is, you know, how we presume that keeping children away from tech is what we should be doing.

But give me some examples of how you saw devices contribute to children's language development and literacy. In so many different ways. So first of all, in the early years, literacy includes like a range of ways of communicating. So it's not just talk and it's not just writing or reading. When young children are growing up, they have to learn to be effective communicators. And so their communication includes movement, gesture, dance, song, drawing, painting, drawing. And now they're also learning about expressing meaning through modes in digital media, like they learn about icons, they learn those meanings.

And that's all learning symbolic representation, which are the first steps towards learning about language and written language. So children learn about literacy, listening to stories, being read to in person, but also listening to digital audio books. We found that digital devices like Yoto players and Tony boxes are very popular. They don't have screens, but many children aged under three own their own device and are able to use those devices independently to listen to a story, which is a great activity for a child to do. And so other things is that, I mean, the first, almost the most important thing is that children from babies, they see their parents, you know, at home using these devices. Increasingly, we have parents working from home as well. And that amplifies children's awareness of the presence

and the importance of tech in contemporary life. So children will want to do the same. But I think some parents listening might be slightly confused because obviously they might feel, they're made to feel quite great shame when they hand over devices to children. Given the ongoing debate about screen time, what recommendations do you have for parents regarding technology,

especially for the under threes? Well, first of all, I think that screen time is, it no longer adequately describes how tech features in everyday life because so many forms of tech don't have screens. So, yes, I mean, some do, and children learn a lot of words and phrases from those. But also, there are many other forms of tech. And so, what we need to do is to look at what children can do with the different forms of tech for

their own good. So, for example, video calls are a brilliant way for children to use language. And if they don't yet have language to convey meaning through their actions with family members who live a long way away. For multilingual families, they're a brilliant way for young children to learn in authentic context the languages of their family's heritage and the culture of that heritage as well. Absolutely. My own niece watching cartoons in Hindi. Rosie, thank you very much for speaking to me this morning. It's fascinating stuff. It's sort of still the early days, isn't it,

where we've got so much tech, just understanding how we interact with it and the pros, the cons, as well as the pros of all of it. 844, so many of you have been getting in touch, but we are about to run out of time. But earlier, we heard from one of our guests, Elaine, about an incident on the Central Line in London when she alleges she was molested.

We have asked Transport for London for a response and they told us, we're appalled to hear of this incident. We have a zero tolerance to all forms of sexual harassment and sexual violence on London's public transport. No one should ever have to fear or experience harassment when travelling. We urge anyone who experiences or witnesses sexual harassment

to report it to police immediately. We work closely with the police on any investigation into this incident. We've run out of time. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for your comments. Join me again tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

Hey, friend. I'm Randy Feltface, the world's most entertaining non-human comedian. And if you like stand-up, sitcom and sketch comedy, you're my kind of person. For a different episode every single week from a vast range of your favourite comedians and freshest comedy talent, then listen to Comedy of the Week on BBC Sounds from BBC Radio 4. Do it

now! I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who'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.