Woman's Hour - Sara Sharif, Netball, Disability stigma, 80s egg donors

Episode Date: December 12, 2024

The father and stepmother of 10-year-old Sara Sharif have been found guilty of her murder after subjecting her to "horrific suffering" for more than two years. Sara Sharif was described by her headteacher as a much loved pupil, a cheerful little soul who would sing to anyone who would listen. But the authorities failed to realise that she was being tortured by her father, Urfan Sharif, and suffered what the court heard was a daily living hell. Anita Rani talks to Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children's Commissioner for England and Wales, and Aisha Gill, Professor of Criminology at Bristol University, about why 15 opportunities to save Sara were missed.IVF is one of the great medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. Thanks to its invention, over 390,000 babies have been born in the UK since 1991. 70,000 of which used donor eggs, sperm, or embryos. Elaine Lee was one of the first women in the UK to donate her eggs. She tells Anita about the process then, and what it was like to be one of the first women to donate back in 1987.This morning it was announced that Baroness Sue Campbell will join England Netball as Chair of their Board. Previously she was credited with taking women's football from niche to mainstream. During her seven years as director of women's football at the Football Association, the number of women and girls playing football doubled, the number of people watching the game quadrupled and there has also been a significant increase in the number of women and girls taking up coaching and refereeing. Baroness Sue Campbell joins Anita to discuss her new role along with Fran Connolly, England Netball CEO. How do you tackle the stigma and violence faced globally by women with disabilities? Anita talks to Katrina Scior, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Stigma Studies at University College London, who this week is launching a self-reporting survey tool to help prevent discrimination. The project is led by UN Women and the UN Development programme in four places: Moldova, Pakistan, Gaza and West Bank and Samoa.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt

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 Woman's Hour. This morning we will go back to the early days of fertility treatment and hear a personal story about a woman who donated her eggs to help other women conceive in the early 80s. How many of you played, or maybe you still play, netball? I was a centre and then never quite had the growth spurt to pursue it further. But the question this morning is, will netball ever get

the glory that football receives? Well, it might, as Baroness Sue Campbell takes over as chair of the Board of England Netball. And how do you tackle the stigma, discrimination and violence faced globally by women with disabilities? We will be discussing this later in the programme. Do feel free to get in touch with us in the usual way. If you'd like to comment or share your opinion or experience about anything you hear on the programme, the text number is 84844. You can email us via our website or you can WhatsApp the programme on 03700 100 444. And if you'd

like to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. But I would like to begin this morning by talking about the face staring out at us from newspapers and websites, that of murdered 10-year-old Sara Sharif. Her smiling photograph tells nothing of the torture she went through during her short young life. Yesterday, her father, Irfan Sharif, and stepmother, Benesh Batul, were found guilty of her murder. Sara Sharif was described by her head teacher as a much-loved pupil, a cheerful little soul who would sing to anyone who would listen. But the authorities

failed to realise that she was being tortured by her father and suffered what the court heard was a daily living hell. As soon as she was born, a child protection plan was made as her father had been accused of attacking three women and biting and hitting children. Over the years, there was a catalogue of red flags, including a burn mark from an iron, a bite mark, reports of a knife waved around her home and many bruises. And yet in April last year, her family said they were homeschooling her. There were at least 15 opportunities to save her,

but she was found dead in August with more than 70 injuries on her body. The details are horrific and distressing, and we are all left wondering why this little girl's life wasn't saved by the services who should have protected her. Well, Dame Rachel D'Souza is the Children's Commissioner and Aisha Gill is a Professor of Criminology at Bristol University and has written about child sexual abuse in black and minoritised communities. I spoke to both of them earlier this morning

and I began by asking the Commissioner for her reaction to this awful case. Look, my reaction is one of absolute horror about the last days of that poor little girl, her thinking of her broken, battered body and what was done to her and the torture and the fact that the people who did that to her, the people who should have loved her most and cared for her most, her father and stepmother, you know, have been justly, you know, justly held up for murder, for her murder. But I'm also feeling deeply frustrated. I've been Children's Commissioner for three years. My role started 20 years ago after the death of Victoria Klimbie,

a little girl who died and was murdered in absolutely similar circumstances. All the services around her, the safety net that should have been there, was not there for her. And it's just the same with Zara. Here we are again. So what I'm not going to accept is lessons will be learned. We must go forward, multi-agency working. I want change and I want change now.

We also have to ask how this was allowed to happen. And you mentioned there how this is horribly reminiscent of the case of Victoria Columbia which happened 24 years ago that led to a new law the Children's Act in 2004 and and the Every Child Matters program of reforms it was supposed to bring institutions together and ensure safeguarding of children as you mentioned it also led to the first children's commissioner. So what were those changes supposed to achieve? So, I mean, a number of things. I mean, with my role, it's making sure that children's voices are listened to. And I really think in this case, Sarah's voice was not listened to. And it needs

to be a wake up call. Even before the inquest, because the inquest and the review will come, we can see that those services that should have worked together to support her, the safety net around her, did not do that. She was not heard. She was invisible. But it's not enough just to say that. We must be compelled. We've got a new government now. I've been for years, you know, three years in this role, telling the government what needs to happen to make this work, and they now need to act. The new government needs to act.

What should have happened? Because she wasn't heard, she wasn't seen, but she should have been. She should have been. From the minute she was born, Sarah was made the subject of a child protection plan at birth. I mean, that was from birth. And then there are a list of reasons

why she should have been on people's radars. Various, various catastrophic things have happened that meant that she fell through the net. Why was that allowed to happen? So, look, Sarah, as you say, was known by social services was was um uh before her birth which means she's six times more likely um to be killed we know that and yet look at her case when the school reported a couple of these when the school reported her abuse she was taken

into home education but also social care went round to her house didn't find her there and dropped the case in six days and there's out of that this it strikes me there are two things that need change now one no child who is at risk of abuse should be allowed to be home educators school is absolutely a protective factor it was a school that saw her bruises and her abuse and reported it. I've been calling for a home education register for three years. Five successive secretaries of state have told me they'll do it. I need this one, this government, this new government to do this. An elective home register register they've got a children and well-being bill coming up we need an elective home home education register and no child at risk of abuse should be allowed to be educated at home there are people who home educate it's absolutely fine

they you know they're legally allowed to do so it's not them i'm concerned about it's children at risk at risk that we're worried about should not be allowed to be educated at home secondly Mae plant yn risg, ac mae'n rhaid iddynt ddim gallu cael eu hyfforddi yn ysgol. Yn ail, er bod hi wedi cael ei wybod cyn i'w gael i'r gofal cymdeithasol, a'r holl rhai pwyntiau anoddol o'i bywyd, pan aeth hi i'r gofal ffoster, yn 6 diwrnod ar ôl bod yna sylwadau yn ei adroddiad, fe gafodd ei achos. Un o'r pethau sy'n digwydd yma yw nad yw'r data a gafodd y gwasanaethau wedi'u rhannu. Mae angen unigol ddiddordeb i bob plant.

Rhaid defnyddio un nifer ar hyn o bryd. Mae gennych chi nifer ysgol, nifer GIG, nifer o wahanol niferau, ac nid yw'r gwasanaethau'n siarad â'i gilydd. Yn ystod cyhoeddus llawr, o'r tu allan, a range of different numbers, and the services don't talk to each other within local authorities or beyond with other services and outside with other local authorities. In that Children and Wellbeing Bill, we need to get data sharing sorted out for children. It's always been in the too hard pile. That's not good enough. It's the 21st century. That could have saved Zara. What do you mean the too hard pile i constantly

constantly raise this as an issue the data sharing is an issue um and it's it's oh oh you know this service doesn't want to do it that service doesn't want to do it that's not good enough government now needs to lead or we will have other sarah sharif's i mean that we need a unique identifier for every child and services must share information and do it properly and work together. And you wonder why particularly Sarah Sharif was the one who fell through the cracks. So I'm going to bring in Aisha Gill here,

who's Professor of Criminology at the University of Bristol, who's written about child sexual abuse in black and minoritised communities. Aisha, thank you for joining us this morning. What are your initial thoughts reflecting on this case and the verdict? Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of this conversation. Devastating. I've been following the case since it was reported that the body of Sara Sharif was found. I think there's a lot of questions here and I want to take on some of the points that's been

made by the Commissioner. You raise a good point of why did it happen and i want to kind of lean into the too hard pile i mean what is absolutely clear for me when we look at the experiences of black and minoritized children particularly uh again and again they are failed by teachers, social services, the police to adequately protect. In this case, there were accumulative incidents, many of them in terms of visible signs of abuse that this young girl experienced. And what's really, really shocking that you just get a sense of this kind of silent bystanders i don't really want to hear about too hard pile that's not good enough a child died we have inexperienced ill-equipped public support services that are not responding through an intersectional lens to putting in safeguards asking the questions often essentialist racist islamophobic social cultural norms are used

as a basis to not to intervene and that has has real consequences. In what way, Aisha? Explain. Assumptions are made that that's normal. They discipline their children that way. So chastisement, for example, physical chastisement, in terms of considering the way in which parental control is practised in different communities, that may be a basis not to ask those key questions around harmful behavior my work in the communities i i've done is often that there are real barriers

of understandings not believing the nature of the injuries all these are contributing factors and all these speak to the way in which there were many bystanders who failed to intervene, who failed to disclose. You know, there were neighbours who heard the child scream the days before the murder. Now, it's really difficult to confront the fact that none of these neighbours intervene. What we need to understand is that there's some real questions about how many bystanders, particularly when it comes to children. We're not doing enough around preventing abuse. And I just don't think it's good enough. Well, let's go back to Rachel, because you are right, you brought up quite a lot of detail there, Aisha, that there were, and I'm sure lots of

people have been reading about the details of this tragedy, this horrific tragedy, have noticed that neighbours heard something and have questioned the idea of bystander apathy, which is one thing, members of the public, but you have institutions who should have been able to protect this young girl. So, Rachel, I'm going to come back to you to respond to what Aisha has just said there. Yeah, look, I mean, there isn't anything Aisha said that I disagree with. And I absolutely am horrified and I think the inquest will show all the failure points and there were many that failed this child and had there been proper intervention she would not be dead so it's really really serious but I want to pick up one point and I think this is

one of the things that Aisha raised you You know, the thing about, oh, a different culture might chastise their child differently. We have a law in this country. Children have fewer rights in assault laws, you know, in protection from assault than adults and animals. We have a law for legal defence, a reasonable chastisement that came in in the 19th century. We need that law changed and we need an understanding as a nation that nobody should be beating their children. And if you hear it, you must report it. Do you think, Rachel, that communities are treated differently by agencies, minority communities? Yeah, absolutely. I think the evidence shows that.

I think one of the things the Macpherson report told us was if you see a differential in outcomes for different groups, then that's it. That shows you that communities are treated differently. A child at risk of abuse is a child at risk of abuse. You know, whatever their background, whatever group they come from, an action must be taken. So Sarah spent time, Rachel, in foster care before being returned to her father.

Do you think there's now too much pressure on keeping families together? I talk to lots, you know, hundreds and thousands of children and survey like millions of them. So I've got children's answers to this, which is that when children are in abusive situations, they are relieved to be taken out of those situations. I think we have to accept there will always be wicked people who will abuse and beat and even kill their children. Children must not be left in those situations or put back in them. Everybody's talking about, oh oh let's keep families together not not if the child's rights have been completely overridden they've been

battered abused and treated like this the relief from children when they're in good familial situations cared for and familial like situations through fostering and other other models is just like palpable so no they shouldn't be left there can i just respond if i may one of the things that we need to really pay attention to is culture is always problematized in relation to black and minoritized communities and it's not done in in relation to white mainstream communities as if culture operates in a vacuum. And this is a really serious homogenising issue because it's harmful. It minimises child abuse in our communities. And I also want to just to kind of add that, you know, Commissioner D'Souza, you have a real opportunity here and we will be vigilant in in observing and taking action

because we will hold our policymakers to account because we are fed up really really fed up of tick box exercises in relation to child abuse domestic violence and other forms of gender-based violence in our communities. It is time to put those words into action around provision, safety, justice, because what we see in our communities in relation to child abuse and gender-based violence is injustice. Rachel, how do you respond to Arisha? Yeah, I mean, I totally agree. I totally agree she has my complete support. I am an independent of government advocate for children.

And the bit I do is take children's voices to government, make sure they're heard. I am pushing for reform, pushing government, pushing local authorities for reform, holding them to account. And it's not going fast enough. And it's not, you know, there is, what we cannot have from Sarah's death, and it's Sarah I'm focused on,

what we cannot have from her death is lessons will be learned, you know, we'll do a review, and then it all gets forgotten. This is the moment for change. It's the start of a new government. Big promises have been made. I've given some clear things that need to happen. So, as Aisha, we want to see change now. Otherwise, there will be more Sarah Sharif's.

I can guarantee you that. We said this 24 years ago in relation to the murder of victoria climbier the bottom line is this is that black and minoritized communities are less likely to trust to seek support there is systemic systemic discrimination that impacts and this is something that also needs to be unpacked, addressed. We are tired, we are tired and it is just too much. I mean a child died. Criminology Professor Aisha Gill and Dame Rachel D'Souza, the Children's Commissioner, speaking to me earlier this morning. And Rachel Wardell, Executive Director for Children, Families and Lifelong Learning at Surrey County Council, has sent a statement saying,

We cannot begin to comprehend the suffering that poor Sarah endured at the hands of members of her family who should have loved, protected and cared for her. The focus of the trial has been on the evidence needed to secure the convictions of those responsible for Sarah's death. This means that until the independent safeguarding review concludes, a complete picture cannot be understood or commented upon. What is clear from the evidence we've heard in court is that perpetrators went to extreme lengths to conceal the truth from everyone. We are resolute in our commitment to protecting children and we are determined to play a full and active part in the forthcoming review alongside partner agencies to thoroughly understand the wider circumstances surrounding Sarah's tragic death. And a Department

for Education spokesperson said, Sarah Sharif endured unimaginable abuse at the hands of those who should have been caring for her and it's right that her father and stepmother have been brought to justice nothing is more important than keeping children safe and we are already taking action to make sure no child falls through the cracks this includes overhauling children's social care and bringing in greater safeguards for children in home education so this can never be concealed that be used to conceal abuse. 84844 is the number to text. And after hearing that, we've had a message from someone saying, why not use the child's NHS number as the single identifier number?

Your thoughts and opinions are more than welcome this morning. You can also email me by going to our website. I've had another message that's come in saying, I'm a white British person. To my my shame i would be very wary of reporting someone from a different culture or ethnic background for fear of being accused of prejudice i was even wary of writing this message to women's hour for the same reason i hope i'm not a racist person but it's sometimes quite hard to speak up again um from people from other cultures or from ethnic minorities you can feel free to share with us any of your thoughts and opinions and remember you can remain anonymous it's a very important

conversation to have a difficult conversation but a very important conversation for us as a society to be having 84844 is the number now how do you tackle the stigma, discrimination and violence faced globally by women with disabilities? That's been the task of my next guest, who's been working on a project led by UN Women and the UN Development Programme in four places, Moldova, Pakistan, Gaza and West Bank and Samoa. Central to the work has been the development of a stigma tool,

which is being launched this week to aid the prevention of discrimination. Katrina Seal, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of University College London Unit for Stigma Research, joins me to discuss this further. Welcome to the programme. Good morning, Anita. Thank you for the invite. Oh, it's our pleasure to have you here. So let's begin by understanding how you tackle stigma, discrimination and violence faced globally. It's a huge topic. So what's your interest in this area? Well, the very first problem we have when we think about people with disabilities generally and women with disabilities that they're very often invisible in society. We

know very, very little about their lives because they're often a priori excluded, either not welcome in schools at all or educated in segregated environments. So we know very little about them and we have very little good reliable data. So that was the impetus between the United Nations inviting us in as researchers to develop this new detailed inventory or questionnaire to gather data about the situation of women with disabilities. So that's the tool I mentioned in my, the stigma tool, so it's a questionnaire. Yeah. And then who did you talk to? How did you decide where to go? So the UN chose four countries they were going to work with, all countries that were either low or middle income countries, and many of which had a history of conflict, humanitarian crisis. Importantly, we collected the data in the West Bank and Gaza before the conflict erupted. So this was in late 2022.

We worked with the UN teams and local organisations for people with disabilities and many women with disabilities in each of those countries. And I think one of the great advantages in some ways for us post-pandemic that people were very used meeting online through webinars, through having email conversations, quickly jumping on a Zoom call. So we were able actually to strike up very close relationships and constantly be talking to our partners in those countries. So let's start with looking at one of those places, Moldova. The research was carried out, as you mentioned, in 2022 to early 2023.

What did women say about their lives there so women we found quite a lot of variety in Moldova I think out of those four countries we we interviewed in detail if I say we it was our local partners in the country interviewed in detail very often for 45 minutes or up to an hour 110 women with with disabilities, in many ways, they were more likely to have been in education, to be in relationships, to be in employment than women in other countries. Having said that, still, only about a third of them were in any form of paid employment or either full-time or part-time employment. and they faced lots and lots of adversities in terms of meeting their potential,

a higher risk of sexual violence, a much higher risk of being abused by other people, being teased, bullied, or even physically abused in public and other people actively avoiding contact with them, which was a lot more pronounced in some of the other countries than in Moldova. Well, let's talk about how the experiences differ in each place. So at the moment, what we did is to, first of all, really, really make sure with our

field testing that this new tool or this new survey instrument can be used in lots and lots of very diverse countries with some minor adaptations in terms of the questions that are being asked. So that was the key focus of our work. The intention is to use this new instrument to collect data much more widely around the world. And then it could be used for? So it can be used, I think, really for two purposes. The first one is to really, really unpick what goes on for women with disabilities in different countries, and therefore decide whether there are general actions that should be taken, whether there's a need for new policies, laws, initiatives to challenge stigma and

discrimination to improve women's lives, or whether actually some of this work needs to be much more targeted, for example, say at women in rural areas or in particular parts of the country. The other very important aspect, and for me very much as a stigma researcher, is to really challenge these negative stereotypes and the invisibility and tell the stories of individual women in a lot of detail. So tell us, share some of the experiences, tell us some of the stories that you've unearthed and what women have been telling you. Yeah, so thinking about perhaps looking at Pakistan and a woman who experienced a lot of disadvantage over the course of her life, let's call no formal education whatsoever. So it was decided early on because she's a girl with a disability, it's not worth educating her. She's doing some

voluntary work, but obviously, therefore also has no access to money, is entirely dependent on her husband. And due to a childhood illness at the age of eight, she started having problems with her vision, her memory, and she's unable to walk unaided. But she's able to do many, many other things. So really, she should have been, and she has a human right to be in education and to be employed. Now, she said to her interviewer that people always avoid contact with her because her disabilities are visible to others, that she's very commonly laughed at, taunted by other people, physically used by both members of her family, but also by strangers in the street. And she was forced to marry, so she's not in a consensual relationship.

I think her family, either for cultural reasons or due to poverty, was very keen to have somebody else being responsible for her. And when she was asked whether she thought all these negative experiences in her life were due to her being a woman or disabilities. This is us trying to unpick this intersection. She thought it was very much due to both, her being a woman and having a disability. Whereas interesting, across our entire sample of almost 670 women, about a quarter of the women thought all their negative experiences, abuse, exclusion they'd experienced,

was due to their gender, whereas about 60%, so two-thirds of the women thought this was due to their disability. And did that differ depending on which country you spoke to them? The percentages differed, but the general pattern was exactly the same, that women thought the most likely reason for all their negative experiences was being out and being

excluded because of their disability. But obviously, being a woman on top placed them at much greater risk of negative experiences. One of the things that you wanted to highlight is not seeing them as victims. So what else did these women tell you about how they see themselves and their disability? Yeah. So very interesting. We also asked women whether to what extent what we refer to in the research world as resilience or resistance to stigma, to what extent can they maintain a positive view of themselves,

even though they may be viewed very, very negatively by others, and to what extent they are involved in any actions to speak up for their rights or for the rights of other women with disabilities. And despite all of their negative experiences, around 25% of the women across the countries were in some way engaged in speaking up for their own rights, trying to become engaged in some form of advocacy, campaigning.

So really importantly... A force for change. Yeah, we really, really want to stress two things, that people with disabilities and women with disabilities are very often cast as victims and vulnerable. And that's, I think, a really unhelpful conception because it yet again buys into negative stereotypes of them as incapable. And actually, as long as we ensure that women with disabilities have a voice,

that they are empowered, that they are engaged in actions, they can have a lot of agency and they are the experts on their own lives and really should be involved. So with your questionnaire, you've gathered this really important information, speaking to women directly and then ideally roll this out across the globe. Then what could then happen with that information? What needs to be done to tackle the situation? Okay, so the United Nations are very keen to use this tool across countries

to gather data to really inform their policies and also to evaluate whether they are meeting all sorts of international obligations around the rights of women to be protected from violence, around the rights of persons with disabilities. For us as researchers, it'll be really, really helpful to think about what actions are needed right across the globe, but also specifically in individual countries to really challenge negative stereotypes, to challenge prejudices and to challenge sources of discrimination and to really get a much more targeted sense. Including Britain. Including Britain.

Absolutely. I think it's very easy for us to point the finger at other countries. Sure. There's huge amounts of marginalisation, bullying, exclusion going on in Britain. And while we have the Equality Act and accessibility is becoming much more a principle, it very often is still an afterthought, really making sure that people with disabilities can be part or full part of society. It's been fascinating speaking to you this morning, Professor Katrina Seal. Thank you very much for coming along to speak to us about that

84844 is the number to text lots of you getting in touch with your reaction to the Sarah Sharif story I'm a GP and the lead for safeguarding in our practice we share information readily with social services

but they are extremely reluctant to give us anything back failure to share info is always one of the outcomes of the serious case reviews but my experience is that it isn't for want of trying social services always quotes confidentiality as the reason for not sharing information yet we don't have any problems with police education and other health agencies um david says i would rather be called a racist than not speak out and have the death of a child on my conscience. And Val says, I completely support your first speaker on the child abuse topic. An assistant principal at a sixth form college for a number of years, we had to meet targets from the 2004 Children Act.

I remember saying to a full time staff member that if adding these targets to all our lesson plans could stop another baby pee, I would have worked through the night. But it won't. It hasn't. And schools get more blame than they deserve in this deplorable case. And that's from Val, who's a retired assistant principal. Please keep your thoughts coming in. That text number again, 84844. 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. But now, Baroness Sue Campbell has been credited with taking women's football from niche to mainstream. During her time at the Football Association, where she was the director of women's football for seven years, the number of women and girls playing football doubled and the number of people watching the game quadrupled. There's also been a significant increase in the number of women and girls taking up coaching and refereeing. The sport, many feel, is in rude health. But not happy with having conquered one sport,

Baroness Campbell, it's been announced in the last couple of hours, is turning her attention to another sport loved by many women, netball. This morning, it's been announced that Baroness Sue Campbell will be joining England Netball as chair of their board. And she joins me now along as does Fran Connolly, England Netball CEO. Good morning and welcome to Women's Hour. Baroness Sue, congratulations on your appointment. You started life as a netball player yourself, so you've turned your attention back to the sport you started out in. Yes, well, good morning. Thank you for that introduction.

Yes, I feel like I'm coming home, actually, if that makes sense. I started off very much as a player in netball, and I coached, I umpired, I was fortunate enough to represent my country. And, yeah, it feels like a really good moment. The sport is in a good place. And I'm going to be working obviously with Fran to see if we can build on that and take it to an even better place over the next few years. So what will your role actually entail as chair of the board?

Well, working with the board members, we've got a very the board members we've got a very good board we've got a very talented board with with a good set of skills i'll be working with them to see how we can support fran and the executive team to drive the game forward that's about increasing participation it's about increasing the number of women entering umpiring and coaching. But it's also about having big ambitions for our England team and trying to make sure that we give the players every opportunity to be the best in the world. Now, Sue, you could have just, you know, bowed out in a blaze of glory, sat back, but here you are again taking on another challenge.

Yes, mad. back but here you are again taking on another challenge yes mad um no i was busy polishing the golf clubs when um when fran actually got hold of me okay let's cue fran yeah cue fran so why did you want to get sue on board and did you have to do a convincing job or did she instantly say yes oh good morning um a little bit of convincing but um we're just delighted we're delighted we're excited to return Sue to netball we've watched her blaze the trail across sport transform other sports other sporting organizations so to be able to return that knowledge that passion for women's sport and that inspiration to netball is brilliant so it did take a couple of conversations and some long dog walks on Sue's behalf but in truth not too long and she's already

full of energy and ideas so we've certainly made the right decision. Now it might surprise listeners to know given all the attention that women's football has received in recent years that netball remains the number one team sport for women in england with more than three million playing annually so what is your assessment right now sue of where the sport is i i think the sport is is doing extremely well but you will know if you look at the general statistics girls activity levels are dropping and they're way below that of boys. And just to pick up on your previous interview, you know, anyone with disabilities often not having the opportunities to play sport.

So we're certainly not satisfied with where we are. We're pleased with where we are, but we want to drive on and we want to make sure that girls get an opportunity to be active. And if they choose netball that's great we want it to be a fun enjoyable experience whether they want to play competitively or just for fun but we want to work with the other sports too it's important that we all work together we're not in competition we need to make a big difference to girls and women's sport and physical activity not just because we want them to be sports people.

We want them to be healthy, happy people. And we believe sport can play a huge part in that. I'm going to pick up on that three million figure, Fran, because that number is particularly high. Is that because of the amount of girls who are still playing netball at school? And if we're being honest, they might not be that happy having to play in the first place. We hope they are.

And we've worked really hard to design programmes. So whether whether they're 5 or 95 there's a place in netball for for them so from being netball at primary school all the way through to back to netball we're just shy of 200 000 women that come through that program now and now walking netball is one of our first fastest growing categories and products so we work really hard to make sure we listen to what women and girls want from their sporting experiences, tailor those experiences and deliver what they want on the court, but also what they want beyond the court. So we care passionately about women's lives away from the court. We've introduced recently our netball hair programme that really looks at female health and providing education at every life stage so we remove some of those barriers around pubes around menopause around pre and postnatal and educate women about their bodies and how important it is to keep exercising

during those crucial life transitions yeah so has football's success been netball's downfall with more girls taking up football because of the success of the Lionesses, which is fantastic, but has it left netball behind somewhat? No, I don't think so. And I'm really keen that we don't set ourselves up in some way in a sort of competition. I think the more girls playing sport, the better. And in the end, girls and women will choose the sport that gives

them what they want our job is to make sure what we're offering is attractive no matter what level they play at or what their aspirations are some women just want to come an opportunity to be with other women and have a community of friends who get active physically active together some girls will have a twinkle in their eye and want to play for England in the future and we want to make that possible. So no, I don't think we need to see it competitively. I think football has done a very good job

getting football into schools. And one of the reasons we drove it so hard was, again, linking into your previous conversation, we believe in equality. We believe in giving every girl an opportunity to be physically active and to play whatever sport they want. And there should be no barriers to that. So let's turn our attention to the elite game.

And it's not about competition. It's about that comparison because we've seen such huge growth with the Lionesses. Some players now household names teams selling out it's amazing huge success stories selling out 90 000 uh capacity stadiums you could say that netball pales in into insignificance when you look at at that level why do you think that is um well i think to be to be completely honest I think women's football has benefited from football being our national game and traditionally understood by the media, by the commercial partners. And also because we've worked very hard with our professional infrastructure, the Women's Super League and Championship.

And Fran's been leading a change for netball. So netball Super Leagueball super league uh will be launched in march so this is a new super league which will have high profile it'll be on television i won't name the the channels but it'll be on television uh we believe we've got to get more of our personalities understood so you're right you know you know, a lot of women follow personalities, they don't necessarily follow sports. I've seen youngsters with, let's say, a Tottenham shirt on, who are big fans of Leah Williamson, who plays for Arsenal. They're not quite as tribal as the men's game. They tend to like personalities and they follow personalities. So we know we've got

to work with the players raise their profile make them more visible make them much more household names and you know we want to succeed and and there's no question that prior to the euros we were doing well winning the euros turbocharged everything yeah and we know in netball we've got the commonwealth games fortunately we're in the commonwealth games which is now in glasgow and we've got the world championships all within the next few years uh we have to be you know absolutely aiming to win those and to build to build off that to inspire yet more girls to want to play our game so so fran you you made the phone calls you went on the dog walks you convinced sue to to come and join you and

what are you hoping uh what lessons are you hoping to borrow from the success of women's football and what knowledge do you hope Sue can bring to the elite game oh a tremendous amount of knowledge whether that's at the elite game or at the grassroots game um and as I said earlier that the energy the inspiration the absolute passion for women's sport is already showing through in bucket loads. And just to touch on this point that Sue just made, the relaunch of our Super League International Women's Day, March next year, is a big moment for us. We've been growing that league for a number of years. We're selling out some of the biggest arenas and we're now moving into the big iconic arenas across the country. So we're on the same trajectory. And I think borrowing some of that learning from wsl that's a couple of years ahead of us will be hugely beneficial not just for us as a sport or as for a league but also for those investors that have put their hands in their

pockets and back to local club a local franchise and are coming with us as part of that journey and that platform we hope will power england the roses to number one in and provide many more careers both on and beyond the court in the years to come well yeah and it being televised is very important to that as well since we just had a message and i'd like to read this out my daughter tells me that the playground is dominated by football a sport which at an early age favors the single talented people who play for glory i would love it if the school enforced one day a week netball at playtime a sport where teamwork is paramount and removes the star player as you can't run and need to pass. So Sue, what will success look like for you? Well, in fact, both of you. What's the plan? What's the vision? I'll let Fran go first and I'll top it off. Like it, teamwork, you're passing nicely.

You just said it was teamwork well our absolute aspiration is to win that world cup in 2027 um to catapult the sport as we did after um the home world cup that we hosted here in birmingham back into the limelight and following that um gold coast gold medal just a couple of years ago. We know that that will grow the grassroots game. We want to see this 50% uplift that we've earmarked in our strategy, but we also want this professional game to power these careers off the court. And alongside that, as I said earlier, just this really, really educational aspect of empowering women

with the knowledge about their bodies so they can stay active whether they want to be a grassroots netballer or a future rose we'll be driving that agenda forward and championing championing and asking for change over the coming years so yeah well for me um i just want every little girl to have an opportunity to be healthy happy and live out their dreams. And if we can provide that opportunity through netball, like Fran says, whether it's pulling on that England shirt, which is probably one of the most special things you ever do in your life, or it's just playing and making good friends, growing your confidence, feeling better about who you are, feeling mentally well, That's what I want us to do. I want us to be really at the front of all of that to make sure young girls grow up healthy, happy,

and those who want to have sporting success. Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Baroness Sue Campbell, the new chair of the board at England Netball, and Fran Connolly, the CEO. If you are one of the three million who play football and get into netball, then get in touch and tell us about why you enjoy playing the game so much. 84844 is the number to text. Now, IVF is one of the great medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. Since 1991, over 390,000 babies have been born in the UK thanks to its intervention invention 70,000 of

which use donor eggs sperm or embryos you might have heard about or even watched the recent Netflix film joy it tells the true story of how the process was invented by three scientists embryologist gene purdy biologist professor um robert edwards and surgeon patricktoe. In fact, we had Thomasin McKenzie, the actress who plays Jean Purdy on the programme a few weeks ago. Well, together they were responsible for the birth of Louise Brown, the first test tube baby born in 1977. It was whilst watching this film that Elaine Lee recalled her own meeting with Patrick Steptoe.

She wrote on social media about being one of the first women in the uk to donate donate her eggs in 1980s we saw her post and wanted to hear more about her experience and i'm delighted to say that she's here to tell us all about it in the studio welcome elaine thank you anita um so talk us back to the 1980s take us take us back in time so where did you first hear about the IVF process? At a Tupperware party. Could it be more 80s? Yeah, I was at a Tupperware party in late 87 with a friend. And we were in a discussion about a mutual friend who wanted a second baby and couldn't have a second baby

and I was musing on the fact that if you needed sperm for IVF that was fairly easy to get hold of but what would happen to women who needed who couldn't use their own eggs and needed eggs as I was leaving a lady at the Tupperware party that I had not spoken to, didn't know, came up to me and said she knew that Patrick Steptoe at Bourne Hall would take eggs. So I literally went home and wrote to him. You had to write in those days, there wasn't any email. I got a letter back from him almost by return and very, very quickly I found myself sitting in front of him in the early 88, yeah, offering to donate my eggs. Why did you want to do it?

I just felt that it would be calmer really that if I gave something to the process then people like my friend might get an opportunity somewhere down the line. I couldn't have given my eggs to a friend and watch a baby that I knew was genetically related to me grow up. But I thought it would just like give to the wider, the wider effort. You know, I didn't really think about it too hard it was something that I knew I could do um yeah it was easy and your husband and you had three boys at the time what did they think of your decision what did your husband think of it he wasn't super keen

to start with and I discussed that with him on the way here this morning and he said he was more worried about me going through the process than the ethics and the implications of it um my boys were too little they were eight six and two so although I did explain it to them I know they fully didn't understand it um so it was something that we discussed later but really we don't talk about it. I forget about it from years to years, if you see what I mean. Until you posted this tweet and now here you are telling... The programme sort of brought it home to me because the process was so familiar because it was very different back then. It involved stays in the clinic and taking drugs at home.

It was very, very different. So you did it because you wanted to help. You wanted to help women who were infertile. And then you went to, as you mentioned, the Bourne Hall Clinic in Cambridge that was co-founded by Jean Purdy, Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards. Yeah, so I was lucky enough to meet him. Yeah, what was he like?

I think that Bill Nighy did a really good job of him or in the film because i thought he was very business-like very brisk but but kind he was he was a very kind man so i just met him the once and then i got passed obviously over to the rest of his team to do all the medical checks and the chat of you know the counselling basically yeah what was the process like what happened um well obviously after I'd seen him we got the counsellors talked to both of us about whether we'd really understood what was going to happen which I did um I was I'd done my research so that was fine so yeah we just chatted they took a medical history I think the really big thing was that I had to have a clear AIDS test they made me do an AIDS test and that took a long while to come back just because of the process of doing it and I had to do that three times I mean it's the early 80s yeah yeah yeah it was an important part of it. Of course.

There was some secrecy as well. There was, yes. Why was that? I took drugs at home to start stimulating my ovaries and then I had to go into Pornhole for about seven days for blood tests and things like that. But they didn't want me to tell the other women that were there that I already had children.

They felt that it would cause some bad feeling. But I found that really stressful, being with women that were asking me questions such as, you know, have you done this before? What drugs are you taking? I couldn't answer their questions and I felt that it was it wasn't fair on me and it wasn't fair on them so I had a discussion with the staff at Bourne Hall and I said look I can't do this and obviously by that time I was carrying eggs for somebody and they didn't want me to walk and I didn't want to walk so they said okay well you can tell them and without fail those women were lovely because I was giving something back to the

wider cause and I think after that they stopped the secrecy thing yeah because women to women having an honest conversation it was hard to be in a be in that situation with all those women and not tell the truth. I felt it was just dishonest. So you made this decision to donate your eggs, like I said, very early stages of IVF. Yeah, very early. And then you got an anonymous letter from the family receiving your eggs. The second lot, yeah, I did it three times. I did it in March, June and November.

What did the letter say? The letter said that they had a profoundly disabled son and they wanted the opportunity to have a child that didn't have disabilities. That's as much information really as I had. And it said that they were very grateful. And they were happy that I'd done it even though it didn't work out and when they said it didn't work out it was because the first time I produced 19 eggs the second time which was the eggs going to them for some reason

my body didn't respond in the same way and they only got three eggs which obviously is a very small chance so I don't know whether they were lucky enough or not I just don't know but but the letter was nice because it just made me feel that I was doing something useful what you set out to do yeah now in 2008 the law changed so children born from donor eggs were allowed to find the identity of the donor when they were 18 years old yeah very scary moment for me yeah but that was different when you donated it was i'm still anonymous yes supposedly but had that been in place when you were donated would you have donated i would have but i would have had to have discussed that really with the rest of my family because I don't think they would have been so keen because obviously the chances of somebody finding me are greater.

And that has implications not only for me, but my whole family. And I feel they've supported me and I wouldn't want to do something that might mean they would be put in a different position you know my children my three boys would you know there would be another one somewhere so I probably if I'd have been on my own yes but probably not because interesting for for the rest of my family you like you just says I'm you're anonymous still supposedly. Supposedly I'm aware that these days there are DNA databases and if somebody

in my wider family put their DNA on there then it is potentially possible that somebody could trace me I will cross that bridge when we, if and when we come to it. We won't, but I'm not worried about it.

And you said you haven't really thought about it until you watched the film, and here we are discussing it. But there have been times when things have happened. Yes. For instance, when you've changed your will. We did change our will. I don't know. It was just really fore foresight I suppose that

we thought okay so in the future if somebody does find us I I wanted our my family my family that are born from me and my husband to you know own our house have whatever money we've got so yes we changed our will very early on and it includes children that belong to me and my husband that was that is now stipulated in in our will that it has to be children of both of us and it's obviously there in the back of your mind somewhere because tell us the slightly, the story about when your son brought up. Yeah, you know, the first time. Without naming anything. Yeah, the first time I saw girlfriends,

they had to have a polite second degree. I had to find a moment where I could ask them where they'd come from. One of the girlfriends said that her parents weren't her real parents and my brain was like, oh, no, no. So it's there somewhere. Yes. Yeah, I mean, things crop up and I think about it. But on a general day-to-day basis, I don't think about it.

It's such a long time ago. So how do you feel about the whole thing now? And how did it make you watch that film? Honestly, I'm fine with it. The film brought back memories for me because of the processes that were shown there. You know, the urine collection in that film brought back really big memories

because they did a lot of tests in the clinic. You know, there were scans, there were blood tests, there were four-hour urine tests, but they weren't just produce a bit of urine and we'll test it it was like you've got to produce a certain amount not too much not too little otherwise the hormone level was so we were all constantly watching what we were drinking so we would produce the right amount of urine it was weird things like that that don't happen now and would you ever go looking for any children conceived with your eggs no I wouldn't because I know that it would affect my family I wouldn't look if if somebody finds us then fair enough you know as I said I'll deal with that and did you talk to family and friends about it or did

you keep it to yourself um because it's one of those things that I did talk to my friends about it originally but there's a there until I wrote that social media post there were a lot of my friends that knew nothing about it I had a lot of texts like oh we didn't know um but everybody's supportive um and I don't regret I don't regret it for one minute I'd do it again if I was you know a lot younger obviously younger, obviously. Well, thank you, Elaine, for coming in and sharing your story with us. And thanks to all of you who've been getting in touch about commenting on various things

we've talked about today. On netball, we've had a message in from Scylla in Cheshire. I've just started walking netball at my local leisure centre, last played at school decades ago. Walking netball is good fun, is a ready-made social group, great exercise and easier on my old ago. Walking netball is good fun. It's a ready-made social group. Great exercise and easier on my old knees than normal netball.

Coach Annette makes even the drills and warm-up fun. Great. Thank you for getting in touch. Do join me tomorrow when I'll be speaking to Hollywood actress Kerry Washington. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. The Reef Lectures 2024, hosted by me, Anita Arnand. Join us again next time. psychiatrist Dr Gwen Adshead. By listening to perpetrators we can learn more about the genesis of violence and perhaps particularly where we might be able to intervene to reduce the risk of violence happening in the future. The Reith Lectures from BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds.

I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.