Woman's Hour - Stoning of Women in Afghanistan, Jazz with Zara McFarlane, AI job losses & women

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

The leader of the Taliban has declared on state television that women who commit adultery will be stoned to death. Nuala McGovern speaks to the former deputy speaker of the Afghan Parliament, Fawzia Koofi. We look at the legacy of children's TV executive Kay Benbow, hailed as “Queen of the Beebies”, who has died with historian Dr Emily Baughan and producer Anne Wood.Our reporter Jo Morris talks to the mum of a young man who got into serious trouble with drugs in the third in our series Breaking The Cycle about SHiFT a new approach to helping young people at risk of going off the rails. A new report by the Institute for Public Policy Research warns of an AI "jobs apocalypse" which will have the greatest impact on women and young people. We talk to Carsten Jung from the IPPR and to AI Expert Prof. Gina Neff.And live music from Zara McFarlane who's appearing at this year’s Cheltenham Jazz Festival. Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Steve Greenwood

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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Did you see this headline this morning? Up to 8 million UK jobs are at risk from the rise of artificial intelligence or AI. It's according to a report that has the warning that women and young people will be the most affected. Well, we're going to drill down into the details of that in a moment. Also, over the weekend, the Taliban's supreme leader

called for women to be stoned to death for adultery. We're going to hear why this pronouncement has come now, and we will speak to the woman who was the first female deputy speaker of Afghanistan's parliament. She has fled the country, like so many others. You'll also hear about the impact of Kay Benbow's career.

She was a trailblazer in children's TV. Sadly, Kay died yesterday at the age of 63. So we'll hear about the significance of what she achieved. And we're also asking you, what role does or did children's TV play in your life? Was it an educator? Was it a nanny? Was it a companion? Was it something else?

And I wonder, you know, how it plays with screens now, other types of screens that are in our world. So I want your messages on that. 84844 is how you text the programme. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. For WhatsApp and voice notes, that number is 03700 100 444. But for old-fashioned texts, 84844. Now, we also have a beautiful performance coming up for you later this hour. I was sitting in on part of the soundcheck of the jazz singer Zara McFarlane.

She is celebrating the centenary of the legendary jazz singer Sarah Vaughan. So we're going to speak about Sarah. We're also going to speak about Zara. I think you'll enjoy that. It's coming up a little later. But shall we begin with AI? Are you worried about AI taking your job? Well, it was the Institute for Public Policy Research,

the IPPR, which published that report that says almost 8 million UK jobs could be lost to AI in a jobs apocalypse. That is a warning also that women and younger workers could be most at risk from automation. But is it really all doom and gloom, as those figures might suggest? I'm joined now by Karsten Young, one of the authors and an IPP or senior economist. Also back with us, Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Mindrew Centre for Technology and Democracy.

She's based at the University of Cambridge. Welcome to both of you to Woman's Hour. Let me begin with you, Carsten. This 8 million jobs, is that worst case scenario? And how did you come up with that figure? So the 8 million jobs figure is looking a few years down the line where current AI technology that already exists is deeply integrated in the technology, where current AI technology that already exists is deeply integrated in the technology, in the economy, but it's also a worst case scenario. And we make very clear that,

you know, if we do the right things now, government, unions, employers, then we can completely avoid this and actually boost the economy without losing jobs. So let me turn to Gina for a moment. When you saw that headline, you're like, yes, that could happen or likely to happen. What was your reaction? Well, yes and, right. What we welcome about this report is that it lays out what could happen

and what we need to do to prepare society to make sure it doesn't happen. We are hearing a lot of fear mongering and a lot of crazy headlines around AI and work. And what I appreciate about this study that has just come out is that it lays out three pathways. And yes, the headline gripping one is the worst case scenario, but the report lays out what we can do to make sure we don't get there. So let's get into that. Karsten, what do you think through what this technology could do to their business and make strategies for making sure that we don't blindly automate people away, even if the technology would theoretically allow it and really think about how can we adopt this technology in a way that that aids work, that aids employees to do their job better. So I think, first of all, I think this will be a new era of relevance for unions because they will they will be key in helping manage this transition on the ground. And I'll say one other thing is that, you know, we have a lot of need for work in the economy that goes unaddressed. You know, in the healthcare system, in the social care system,

people are rationing the amount of time they have with patients and with people that are being cared for. Actually using this technology to free up people to have more time for customers, for people they look after, that would be a fantastic thing. So really steering the use of technology and freeing up work for those important tasks, I think that's really a positive vision. It's interesting you say that, Carsten. We were hearing in the headlines just a few minutes ago

about the levels of dissatisfaction when it came to healthcare services within the country. But with this, this is Woman's Hour, and in the report, it says that women and young people are most likely to be affected. Gina, how do you see that?

Or for somebody listening to that, that perhaps thinks, my job could probably be automated. How do you st that? Or for somebody listening to that, that perhaps thinks my job could probably be automated. How do you stave that off? The unions is one thing, says Karsten. Well, absolutely. Listen, there's there's the best economic research we have suggests that there will be net job gains from this wave of AI. But that doesn't mean that some people won't lose their jobs. And what we know for certain is that tasks, the kinds of work we do in a job is going to really change, and that's going to affect lots of us. What I think is important for women to remember is that we have to make sure of two things.

One, that we're not increasing today's existing digital gaps. So we absolutely have to make sure that we're increasing lifelong learning. We're working on supporting women and others and upskilling and reskilling. And that we're thinking about these changes through the whole life cycle of jobs. So one of the reasons why we worry about young workers is, are we automating away some of the tasks that new entrants into labor markets have been doing? And so we need to make sure that we're doing appropriate job training and job skills so that we don't completely pull up those job ladders, keeping young people off. So I think for listeners, we need to make sure that people are aware that there are

things that they can individually do to make sure that they are more employable as these waves come. We outlined those in a study two years ago for International Women's Day in a study that my team did with UNESCO, OECD and the Inter-America Development Bank. And we took a global approach. And so this isn't a problem that's just in the UK. We really need to be thinking about women around the world, young people around the world and how we're going to make sure that we've got good jobs going forward. So can you give us some concrete examples of the sort of jobs that might be at risk and what way a person could upskill?

Well, for example, and to be completely fair, this is from the company that the funder, the philanthropy that backs my research at Cambridge, the Minduru Foundation, the funder works in mining, in heavy mining. And they automated much of the trucking that takes ore from very far away to local centers where it can be processed. And by putting ore on these automated vehicles, they actually created women's work. So they took jobs that had been dirty, messy, and you had to fly far away from your family in order to drive these vehicles. It was not appealing to women, to jobs that were actually office jobs, controlling and operating these vehicles. we worry about things that, as Karsten said, that have high rates of mundane and routine tasks that are easily automatable. But on the other hand, when we free that work up, we create new opportunities. For example, in construction, an industry that I studied very closely, more people have gotten, more women have

gotten involved in the construction planning work that now can happen not on construction sites, but it happens in office-based work. So that planning work, we automated some tasks, but we freed up work to allow people to create new products and services that they sold to the buyers of building services. I'd be curious for your thoughts on this, both of you. Gemma from Paisley got in touch. She's been thinking about AI and she's written a book on it actually for teachers, how to lighten the workload. She says, I don't think anyone will be replaced by AI, but people may be replaced by people who know how to use AI. You're nodding your head, Gina. I think that's spot on. We know in the economy

at this moment, skilled trades workers who understand how to work with digital systems are highly in demand. That's not going to change. We also know that a lot of the kinds of caring work that have traditionally attracted women into positions, we know that many of those jobs aren't going to disappear. We're not going to get rid of the human touch, so to speak. So what we need to make sure is that women have the skills to be able to go into the positions with confidence and security that they can work with those systems and that they can be the human in the loop that many of that will just supercharge many of these kinds of jobs coming forward. Just taking another part off Gemma's point,

she says teachers especially need to understand AI as young people will use it and it'll be a fast changing landscape to keep up with. And we do know, of course, some of the industries that women can be employed in more than men. Back to you though, Carson, what have you seen? What areas do you think are already effective that we begin to see that change taking place, certain jobs gone and others coming in perhaps?

So, you know, unlike past waves of automation where, you know, we think of robots in factories and they've tended to affect men a little bit more. At this time, I think it's likely more back office jobs and office type jobs because the new technology that we're seeing is quite good at reading texts, drafting emails, working with databases, working in compliance. So some of the jobs we see could be affected in the very near term are things like customer service, professional jobs. There's already, you know, examples of companies that successfully deployed AI for about 700 customer engagement employees instead of them in their work, responding to customer queries. So these kind of jobs where basically you sit on a computer and you respond to things,

you enter things in databases, AI is probably going to be quite good at deploying that. But one thing I think connecting to the teaching example, I think that's one we talk about as well, is that we can make decisions about what we want to be automated or not. We could automate education and just have students play with chatbots. And we know that they're actually quite good, these chatbots. But we can also go for a different scenario where we say, let's have AI, say, help teachers grade multiple choice tests or simple tests by students and then free up teacher time to think more about student needs and engage more directly. So interesting. Almost a parallel there, perhaps, Karsten, with health care systems as well. Very briefly, Gina, you've been working on a parliamentary bill on AI and employment to be introduced on April 10th.

Also thinking back to Karsten's comments about the unions kind of gearing up for this AI shift. What can you tell us about the potential impact of that bill? Yes. So April 18th, a campaign to push for AI and employment. So watch the space. We will be talking about it more. An AI and employment bill essentially would help us think through how do we make existing labor law fit for purpose? Right now, we know there's a lot of issues and challenges of discrimination and bias in AI systems. These can really affect women and young entrants into the labor market if they're not used appropriately? Who has the liability and responsibility when these systems don't work fairly and appropriately?

We want to make sure that we address that in UK law. Interesting. We'll continue talking. Professor Gina Neff, Executive Director of the Mindrew Centre for Technology and Democracy at the University of Cambridge. Also, Karsten Young, one of the authors of that report from the IPPR. Thanks very much. In a way, perhaps a tangent, we're talking about children's TV

a little bit later in the programme. Lots of you getting in touch already about how you use it. Lee says, children's TV was one of the wonders to me as a child. A treat when it was pelting down at the break during school. An education after school. The things I learned to make

with my sticky back plastic and an entertainment meted out on a weekly basis. I love Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and irritated my family with my fake Aussie accent. 84844. We're going to be speaking about the life of Kate Bembo who had a massive impact on children's television

and also how do you use it? And you know, let's be honest here, right? Do you plonk the kids down in front of it as a babysitter when you're trying to get on with something else or you just need a little break? Has the tablet or the laptop or the phone taken over where the TV used to be? I want to hear it all.

8-4-8-4-4. Right, I want to turn to Afghanistan next, where the leader of the Taliban has been defending flogging and the whipping of women in front of crowds, even going as far as saying stoning should take place if, in fact wives who commit adultery will face public execution in this manner. It also coincides with the 900-day mark since girls were first banned from attending school. So we're asking what sort of future do women of Afghanistan have? Earlier today, I spoke to Fazia Koufi. She is the former deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament.

She was the first woman to hold that position. And she came to the UK, like so many others, when the Taliban took over back in 2021. I started by asking her about this latest announcement from the Taliban's Supreme Leader. Mullah Haibatullah has been relatively very vocal on his position about women. So if you listen to every statement he has made or every appearance, we haven't had his face public appearance so far, but every voice appearance he had, the two things that he attacked and continuously put pressure is the relationship of Taliban with international community

and their measures against women. So in the last audio recording also, he emphasized on the fact that they fought for 20 years with international community. They will continue to fight if the international community try to pressurize them to change their principles. And their principles, we know, is very unique to them. What they do, especially on women's rights and human rights, is not very common in other or not common at all in other Muslim countries. He went on to say, you know, now nobody can pressurize them. If they publicly execute women, they will continue to publicly stone women

and, you know, enforce death penalty and death punishment. My worry is, and the fear that women of Afghanistan have been sharing with me since the last three days, is that the foot soldiers on the ground, they will actually be even further repressive on their measures. And in the absence of any protection for women, any laws that protect women, this could be really affecting women, even with minor, you know, crime or irregularities. And do we know what sort of crimes, I mean, I mentioned adultery there,

but is that the sort of crime that is expected to be quoted in the use of this sort of punishment of stoning? So according to Islamic principles, two crimes could get the punishment, adultery. And then if you commit murder of somebody and the family does not pardon you. But in general, the laws in Afghanistan, like the civil code, the law on violence against women that we tabled in the parliament in 2014 and 2013, all of that protects women, protects human beings, because the whole purpose of the law is to bring regularities. But since the Taliban came to power, they abolished the laws that protect women. They abolished the law on violence against women. They abolished the Ministry of Homeland Affairs.

They abolished Human Rights Commission. There are no or very little women lawyers. So women who actually are even victim of, you know, anything, they don't feel safe to go to the courts. And even if they are victim, they are regarded as guilty because every woman in Afghanistan is guilty for Taliban. Even if it's a small crime, they can get that punishment, especially my concern is for women protesters, women activists. You know, that is very difficult to prove who has committed adultery and they can misuse that.

You feel it will be used even when there is no proof? And I mean, also, at the end of the day, he is the leader of Taliban. Now, the whole statement he made was only about women's outfit. And it shows how low they can go, because, you know, why do you have to just speak? The country is in the age of starvation. We know people are suffering from poverty. So instead of like focusing as a power who is now controlling Afghanistan, instead of focusing on things that they should do for the country, the whole statement and the whole focus

is only on woman outfit and how should woman do. As if women are their only enemy, while women are already being erased from all the public sphere. Their basic rights are being eliminated, but they even don't want them to breathe, you know, that atmosphere of fear. Why do you think he made this announcement now? Well, we know that Taliban establishment was based on their suppressive measures against women. They are very famous for that suppressive measures. Recently, there are obviously signs that the movement or the group has fragmented. There are different ideologies between them. At least they are fragmented in five layers.

And I think for him to keep the unity, one of the means to keep the unity is suppressing women. That's how they... It's so interesting there, Fazia, so you think that it might be for political cohesion. So maybe in a way this shows cracks in the structure, perhaps. How do you think such a ruling or such an announcement will impact the women back in Afghanistan? What are you hearing day to day life? It has frightened them. Some of the women who actually were going to the offices working

even discreetly, they have stopped going to the offices since three days because if their leaders say something, an educated soldier on the streets could amplify that order to suppress women. All what Taliban do against women is political. It has got nothing to do in our religion or culture. They do it as a bargaining chip for international community, for engagement with the international community, not give the space to the woman, to the political opposition, especially to the woman. We want to take the lead in bringing a political solution. We are now working day and night to see how we can unite all the forces. But unfortunately, we are not being given the space.

And of course, there are sanctions against aiding the Taliban now that comes from the international community. The Taliban are in power of those institutions. If we look at the issue of girls attending school, it's now 900 days since girls were first banned from going to school in Afghanistan. The Taliban says they would be readmitted once a number of issues were resolved, including ensuring the curriculum was Islamic. But what stage are we at with that? Has there been any movement whatsoever to getting those girls and young women back into school? No. And in fact, like, yeah, only two days ago, there was the third year that the girls are not allowed to go to school. They continue to obtain education in their own way, be it discreet, online.

But why should education be a crime? Why should getting education be a crime? You know, yesterday I was talking to some women who were telling me that the Taliban went to their centers, education centers, searched them, you know, asking them questions to ensure that they are actually not getting regular education, but only getting Islamic education. They were telling me that they are shaking because of the fear after the Taliban left the center. I mean, once you are in that circumstances and you feel that, for getting education, you are being interrogated, you are in that constant fair, you can only feel that when you are in that circumstances. Three years later, there is no prospect on when the Taliban will allow girls to go to school, when they will open their universities, when they will allow women to go to workforce.

And we have it's not only like the basic minimum rights of women that are deprived, that are banned, but also the economy of Afghanistan because of these bans. You know, we had one billion dollar deficit every year to our country's economy because of the ban on women's employment. And I think, unless and until we do not change the political ecosystem, the hope that maybe we will influence Taliban here and there and they will change policies is not really an optimistic hope. So I think we need to really change, empower the women, give them the stage internationally inside Afghanistan, support those local organisations, support women, discrete education, whatever means to keep the spirit of education in women. That was Fazia Koufi, the former Deputy Speaker

of the Afghan Parliament and the first woman to ever hold that position. Thanks so much to her as we were talking about 900 days since girls have left their education. I want to talk now about somebody you may or may not have heard of, but her work perhaps has influenced your life. She was a huge figure in the world of children's television. And I'm talking about Kay Benbow.

She was hailed as Queen of the BBs. Sadly, she has died. That was yesterday at the age of 63. And under her tenure as controller of the BBC's CBeebies, the channel won numerous awards. Many of the shows she commissioned, they still remain on air today. I'm joined by Dr. Emily Bourne,

a senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield, who's currently writing a book about children and childcare. And also by Anne Wood, producer of programmes like Rosie and Jim, Teletubbies, Teletubbies even, and In the Night Garden. She knew Kay and worked with her on a number of occasions.

So let me begin with you, Anne. What was exceptional about Kay and her work? And talk us through a little of some of the projects she was involved in. Well, when we worked with Kay, it was an absolute delight. I mean, it's easy to say that because one expects all

of that kind of thing to be said in these terribly sad circumstances, but it is actually true. She had immensely, she had a quiet confidence about her, and she believed in the importance of what was shown on television for children. She wanted to widen the experiences that they had vicariously, and she also very much understood, and we shared this very much, the importance that children could make their own meaning from watching. It wasn't just a question of putting on something and they would watch. It would be putting on something that they would watch and make their own understanding out of, although it also was entertaining for them. And this is a very important part of anybody,

whether it's a children's book editor or a television editor. And it's harder to do, I think, in television. It's a very relentless industry. And there's a lot of, and certainly at the time Kay was inhabiting that position, there was a lot of change impending at the BBC, particularly in children's. So she, nevertheless, was very tenacious in hanging on to what she believed was the widest possible experiences for children. And I think she rightly won Channel of the Year more than once, because it was appreciated. And the other thing was she had a great sense of humour. I think you're going to have to, right, if you're doing children's television as well.

Perhaps. Well, thank you for that, Anne. I want to turn to you, Emily, and you've said that Kay changed the way that TV was made for children. What do you think was that defining aspect in the way that it was before Kay or perhaps even what you see now? Well, so Kay was born in Sheffield in 1961 and she would have grown up in the era of Watch With Mother when children's programming was happening at a particular time of day.

It would have been in the one room of the house likely to have a television, the living room. And the idea of watching with a parent was baked into the title. It was a collective and also kind of time bracketed experience. But she was in charge of CBeebies during a decade when that changed completely. CBeebies became a channel with 13 hour broadcasting from 6am to 7pm and then also launched apps that children could access really at any time of the day and Playtime app was launched in 2013. So kind of right in the middle of her period in charge of CBBs. And I think what was remarkable about Kay's vision is that she really tried to protect what was special about the kind of spirit of Watch With Mother. So her programs are always about that they're profoundly kind of respectful of the child

and the child's experience and the meaning that a child can make. So something like Tweenies is about child-led play in a play school. And the main characters are four puppet children. But things like Tickabilla or the show that we love in our house, Baby Club, are about inviting the parent in. And they're as much aimed at the parent as the child. And they almost kind of tutor the parent in how to how to interact with the child and the kind of activities that they might do. And then when you have this kind of longer day potentially of viewing, the thing that CBeebies does really beautifully is it matches that viewing to the rhythm of the young life. So you have the kind of exciting morning shows, which are typically very high energy time of day. Then in this period between kind of nine o'clock and three o'clock,

when many children might be in a childcare setting or out and about, what CBBs does is it has this kind of discover and do program where a lot of the programs are about things that children might be seeing out and about or they are about activities that they might do. And again, that really democratizes the experience of childhood. It's bringing it to children who maybe aren't able to be out and about or don't have access to childcare provision. And then, of course, we have the kind of wind down at bedtime. We have the recommissioning of the clangers,

which Kay did, and story time. And again, sort of just a real understanding of the rhythm of a child's day. It's so interesting. As you've both been speaking, you know, I threw it out to the audience, what they'd like to talk about, how they use children's TV or did use

children's TV. There's so many messages, so much reminiscing as well as what they're doing now. Let me read a couple of them that are coming in. This is Jill. My experience of children's TV possibly saved my sister and I's lives. Blue Peter was a real favourite and among the crafty makes and the

programme pets were educational and life skills. One such was what to do if there's a chip pan fire in your kitchen. I knew to throw it out the door and when this happened to my younger sister, instead of putting it under the water and that's an act that would have had dire consequences. So some educational TV going on there. Here's another one. This is from Aurelie. I am a mother of three children under the age of six. I used to rely on kids' TV as an after-school nanny. It was my only

chance to get anything done or prepare dinner. After COVID, with the support of my husband, we decided to go TV-free. The children are screen-free all week and we let them watch a film on movie nights after school on Fridays. Screen time is seen as a special treat. The kids, not surprisingly, were very unhappy about having the TV taken away and complained about being bored.

Now they're good at independent playing and their imagination has flourished. I can't see us ever going back to rely on screens to help us look after our children. Now, that's what Orly has done. But there are others talking about their concerns about children just being in front of the screen too much, Anne, and I can read some of those as well. But how do you see it, that kind of transformation, really, from the box in the corner to something that's in our hand at all times yes i think there has always been uh people who were afraid of the power of the of the box in the corner uh but um given the world that we're now in uh it's it's rather a view that that holds no power because children have screens in their hands and YouTube in particular, you know, a great many parents

just are happy for the children to use the tablet or the phone, you know, and watch YouTube. And that is of great concern to a lot of us who have spent our lives making what we like to think of as um television that really takes into account the imaginative development of children and i think k was a great uh proponent of that uh and and but was also very much aware as we've seen from the

comments of the parent and and the context in which children were watching or in which we would like children to be watching. But unfortunately now that's all been taken away from us because we have streaming, which means that you can't just buy a DVD and hold that to play when you want it to be played in your family, just like you would take a book down to read. Really, that power has gone because children can very quickly access all that themselves. And so our concern as program makers is that YouTube doesn't pay for the content and nor is there any regulator or any person

of character and integrity such as was Kay overseeing that output. And I don't have a response obviously from YouTube on their children's programming that they have on those platforms. But I would be curious for you, Emily, how do you see the future

of children's television? I mean, thinking back to Kate, God, she was really thinking ahead with that app, best part of 10 years ago when it came to playtime. But how do you see it going? Is it going to be on the phone with the kid? I think one of the things that Kate did so brilliantly was work with researchers. And she was really, I mean, you talked about kind of people of principle. She was not about, you know, having the most children engaging with the app for the greatest amount of time. She was about sort of putting guardrails in place and thinking about how can this be used for education? How can this be used to get children outside? She worked a lot with two of

my fabulous colleagues at the university of sheffield um fiona scott and jackie marsh looking at working class children in sheffield particularly and their experience of using apps and she found actually that the pit or they found that the picture wasn't maybe as kind of worrying as we think that children may be using apps for about an hour a day, which is not which is not lots. I mean, anyone who spends a large part of their day with toddlers knows that that's a small part of the day. But that these apps can be used to facilitate parent engagement, again, always kind of looking to the parents to get children outside to input stories. And actually, this is a space where AI can be important. I've been using an app with my sons called Yarn, which is kind of currently in development,

which is helping get children, again, kind of away from just passive consumers of content and towards making their own stories through the power of AI. And again, kind of this is being developed by people who are very ethical and principled and so there are kind of guardrails in place that stories cannot become too too dark that stories lead towards kind of um well ethical principles that parents uh would endorse so i think i think there's a time of tremendous opportunity actually for this kind of two-way engagement to happen through children's entertainment. Sorry, go ahead, Emily, forgive me for stepping on you.

It's really important. And this is something that Kay never lost sight of. You know, we can talk about the way that we use screens in our own houses and what our ideal screen policies are, but there are always going to be children. And Kay presided over CBBs in a decade of austerity and rising child poverty for whom television and apps is more than we would want it to be one of their foremost connections with the outside world. And Kay was so visionary because she used children's television really in the fight against child poverty and particularly cultural deprivation. And she brought Shakespeare and ballet and mathematics and science to CBBs. Let us leave it there.

It's a lovely tribute to Kay Bembo, who has died at the age of 63, Dr. Emily Bourne, and also Anne Wood joining me and lots of your comments coming in as well. Thank you so much for those. 84844, I'll keep an eye on them throughout the programme. This Friday, the 29th of March, marks 10 years since the first marriages of gay and lesbian couples in England and Wales. Did the change in that law result in you and your partner getting married in 2014?

Perhaps you're celebrating 10 years of marriage in 2024. I can't believe 10 years has gone, 2014. We're asking you to share some memories from your big day or how you'll celebrate your 10th wedding anniversary this year. Same number, text the programme 84844 on social media.

We're at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website. The WhatsApp number, that is 03 700 100 444. Now, I want to turn to the next episode in our series, Breaking the Cycle. This is about a new approach called SHIFT, which is all about helping people,

young people at risk from going off the rails, basically. Today, our reporter, Jo Morris, she meets a mum whose son got into serious trouble. At 14, he ended up mixing or cooking drugs and dealing them in what's called a trap house far from home.

If you don't know the term county lines, it's a form of criminal exploitation where children and young people are groomed into drug dealing. This is his mum's story. Yesterday I met Eva, a guide with Shift. We were on our way to meet a young man who had been groomed and ended up cooking drugs in a northern seaside town. You can hear his story tomorrow. This is his mum's very relatable story

of realising that her son was going off the rails. He was always so full of personality and life and all of that went very quickly. He changed so dramatically in how he was behaving. He really went from just being a bit mischievous to being completely secretive, very, very depressed, not eating, looking like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. So I was trying to think, is it because of school?

Is it because of his girlfriend? Something going on? Is he being bullied? I never would have thought that he was being trafficked across county lines for the purposes of selling drugs. My mind wouldn't have gone there. We just thought he was being a teenager. When their boy started to go missing, a lot, things started to ramp up. He just kept disappearing. I'd get calls from school, he'd leave here in the morning,

wouldn't let me take him. He went to like an alternative provision school he's not turned up that was one thing but we thought oh he's just gone around to a friend's wagging it you know a lot of stuff started going missing from the house he started um in the middle of the night i'd get up to check if he was in bed and he wouldn't be in bed so he's sneaking out in the middle of that like for you oh it was heartbreaking i'd be up then all night frantic where on earth is it he'd go and say you know he's staying at a friend's but then his phone would be switched off so i couldn't get hold of him i'd try and ring his friend's parents and i couldn't get hold of them but what i realized now

is the friend's parent that I thought I was speaking to was actually somebody who was associated with the gang so when I'd rang him and said is he staying there they'd gone yeah he's just gone out with his the friend that he was hanging around with and it was a grown-up. We did report him as a missing person quite a lot as well and because the police report has to ask so many questions they were asking about it but they didn't actually pinpoint it because they have to look you know is it to do with being radicalized is it you know all these other issues and i think for mums we kept going round and round in a circle not knowing what we was dealing with this mum is now involved with the

charity parents against child. She and her son are speaking out to raise awareness. First things first though, kettle on. Do you want me to make you a drink? Yeah, do you want coffee? It's a latte one, I don't have no more coffee. I was so naive and I wasn't brought up with a silver spoon. You know, you see things yourself growing up and still it couldn't have prepared me for the risks that he was facing. And unless you know what it is, how can you get help for him? We just kept going round and round

and what really resonated for me is he took my car a few times and the last time he said, Mum, it's all I wanted to do, I didn't care if I die I just wanted it all to be over we thought you know he's just being naughty stealing cars but it was the amount of pressure that they'd put him under they'd done things like the gang members had turned up because my husband works away a lot at night so there was me and little one in bed and they'd forced away in the house with him and got him to take the car keys but it was all threats that they were putting him under to do stuff but at the time I was getting more distant from him because I was thinking why is he doing this to me and his dad you know why

is he stealing our cars and letting people come in our house it never occurred to me that he was under such duress and being forced to do that as As parents, you try and stamp your foot down, don't you? Show them right from wrong. And in that instance, that kind of stance actually played right into their hands. Did you know what county lines were? No, I didn't. I'd seen a little bit of a mention then on TV, but it seemed so far-fetched. And all the children that are portrayed, they're in children's homes,

they haven't got a mum and dad at home. It was children who you see as, you know, they are easy targets because they're out on the street all the time, bless them, you know, they're falling through the cracks, but you don't think it's going to impact your child. I changed jobs so I could work from home, so I could keep an eye on him. So I was here every day. So it was going on all right under my nose,

and I still didn't see it. That really gets to me, going on under my nose. What parent doesn't have sympathy with that? And this mum is clear that the shame and stigma are immense. We were just so unprepared, and it could have gone a different way. I do feel blessed that he's still here with me, I do. When you say it could have gone a different way, what do you actually mean? He could have been gone a different way. I do feel blessed that he's still here with me, I do. When you say it could have gone a different way, what do you actually mean?

He could have been overdosed on drugs. He was being sent to a trap house to cook drugs. That could have seriously injured him. He had people put machetes to his throat. He was beaten. One wrong move, you know, the cars that he was taking and what they had him involved in. At any time, he could have lost his life,

and that's how I feel as a mum. You know, he went from being a bit of a handful to being faced in situations where his life was at risk, as far as I'm concerned it was. You know, he was cooking drugs in a Pyrex dish on an open flame. It's not good, is it? And I think both me and his dad for quite a while we were very shamed over what was going on with his behavior because we were fearful of you know what people are going to think of us as parents because we can't control our child you know

we shouldn't have allowed ourselves to feel so shamed for so long because again that's all keeping us from speaking out and asking people for help. What did you think when Eva approached you? I think it's an absolutely fabulous scheme what I love about it is it's very very relaxed for him so a lot of the other meetings we've been very fortunate with the support we've had. But it's quite formal. And again, he feels almost as if he's going to get in trouble if he opens up and shares things. And I think what Eva's been able to do is build his trust by doing some fun activities that we never expected. We don't know what it's like to be a teenager anymore. You think you do, but you don't.

And they do, they're very much in touch with a lot of other kids, so they understand it without them being preachy or like a teacher. Social services have been great, but they are very much... He's still guarded with what he says to them, whereas I feel with this type of scheme, I think he's perhaps opened up to Eva more than anyone else. Do you think he opens up more to her than he does to you? I'd like to think that we've got the trust where he can tell me,

but I'm also fully aware that I'm his mum, and he's scared of hurting me. He's scared of getting in more trouble and letting me down. And I think he feels a huge amount of shame. So I can hear him and Eva laughing in the room. Yeah, she's brilliant with him. She's just consistent. So she said she's going to keep an appointment, she does.

It comes up again and again, the importance of the shift guys just showing up. It's not rocket science, it's about relationships. When Eva said that she was here to help you, did you believe her straight away? Mm, nah. When someone comes in telling was here to help you, did you believe her straight away? Mm, nah. When someone comes in telling me a bunch of things, this and that, I don't believe them until they do it.

I'm used to not trusting people. I didn't want people to know what was going on, cos I didn't accept that I needed the help, cos I thought I could do it all on my own. But when you're 15, you think you can take on the world on your own, don't you? I know I'm one of the lucky ones. Most kids who get involved in the things I get involved in at that age,

they end up dead or in jail. The reporter there was Joe Morris. Tomorrow, you can hear more of that boy's story on the series Breaking the Cycle. I don't want to turn to a little bit of music next. Today marks the centenary of the birth of the pioneering jazz singer, Sarah Vaughan, nicknamed Sassy and the Divine One. They're good nicknames to have, aren't they?

Sarah was revered not just for her incomparable vocal range, but for its depth, control, emotion and playfulness. She won two Grammy Awards. She was described by one critic as having one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century. I want to welcome to the Woman's Hour studio, Zara McFarlane, who's a Mobo Award winning singer and songwriter. Welcome.

Hello. You're also one of the UK's leading jazz vocalists and one of Sarah Vaughan's biggest fans, I hear. You're creating this show on her life and her music is going to be at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival this year. What is it about Sarah Vaughan that, you know, compelled you to create? Yeah, so the thing is for me with her voice, she literally has everything. She has the tone. She has charisma. She has style.

She has flair. She tells the stories. She has the range. You know, most people know a lot about Billie Holiday. They know a lot about Ella Fitzgerald. But they don't always know as much about Sarah Vaughan. I feel she's kind of been a bit overlooked. Yeah, why do you think she flew under the radar, I wonder?

I have no idea with regards to that. But with regards to this project, it's a chance for me to kind of shine a spotlight on her. Because she's definitely my favourite jazz vocalist. She's so playful with her voice. The way that she sings, she swoops and scoops. And even with the audience sometimes, she can be and scoops. And even with the audience, sometimes she can be very coy and playful. And I love that about her character. You've recorded an album of some of Sarah's songs. It's due for release this summer.

I can tell you're a huge fan. Was it difficult to know which ones to include? It was really, really hard, actually. I worked with a great musician called Giacomo Smith on this record. He produced the record and he musician called jacomo smith on this record he produced the record and he also plays um saxophone and clarinet on this record and you know there's so many great tunes one thing about sarah she didn't write her own songs but like many of the jazz singers they sang the standards in the american songbook but so many great renditions of these different tunes it was kind of a struggle to decide between the two of us, which ones do we want to showcase? But what we did decide to do in the end was try to showcase her 50 year career.

So taking some things right across those decades and maybe highlighting a few things that are not that familiar to people as well. Either that she sang them or that they existed. And we're going to hear a performance from you in just a moment. But I want to know a little bit more about you. You were songwriting from an early age. Tell me about that. Yes, I started songwriting from the age of about 11, actually. That is very young. And yeah, it's just something that I was doing for fun. I just enjoyed sitting by myself at the piano, had melodies in my head.

I had things I felt like I wanted to say. I remember the first song that I wrote was about the bombing in Ireland back in the 90s. So I started writing. I would ask to perform them at school in assembly and things like that and put myself into different competitions. And was it always jazz you were interested in? It wasn't necessarily. I kind of heard a little bit of jazz.

It wasn't like my parents listened to a lot of jazz. They're Jamaican, so I heard a lot of reggae in the home. But I discovered definitely Nina Simone, Ella, people like that through probably the TV, to be honest with you. A lot of the time, some of these tracks were on adverts, in movies. And then I started to explore further, seeking out the artists.

And then as I got more involved in jazz later on, I was introduced to different artists like Diane Reeves, you know, different female singers. And you're in London. How would you describe the London jazz scene? The London jazz scene is definitely thriving and it has been for the last few years. There's a lot of music coming out

that's under that umbrella of jazz. I think there's great new venues coming, opening, there's new festivals happening. There's a lot of things going on for the jazz scene in the UK. And I mentioned the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, but you're also going to Luxembourg to perform with the 99 Peace Orchestra.

Have I got that right? That is correct. Is that daunting, exciting, exhilarating? All of the things. I'm actually really, really excited about that because we have a gentleman called Gaston Walsing who has done the arrangements inspired by our versions of this new album that we've done of Sarah Vaughan's music.

But also he's incorporated some of the other things from my previous albums. My last album was very much an electronic album. It wasn't really a jazz album. So he's bringing in some of these elements to this performance as well. So that's really exciting. I love hearing how the various genres, how you can cross over them. We're going to be doing a show on women and country music at the beginning of next week on Woman's Hour. And that is also, it's so interesting how people decide what path to take and how easy and sometimes difficult it can be to change between those paths, whether it's jazz and electronic or perhaps country and pop, for example. But just before we go to the track, and we've just about 40 seconds or so,

if you could see me now, you're going to perform for us. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Why do you love this track? I love this song. It was a song that was actually written especially for Sarah Vaughan, which is very rare. So for me, the way that she sings the ballad, she tells the story, she gives you an emotional journey. That's what I love about it.

You can hear Zara at Ronnie Scott's in London on the 3rd of May and the Cheltenham Jazz Festival, as we were speaking about, on the 5th of May. I want to also just mention that Corinne got in touch and she's Kay Benbow's sister. And she just wanted to mention that Kay was 62 when she died on Sunday. Thank you so much for tuning in and I hope it was gratifying to hear all the tributes to your wonderful sister

and thank you for tuning in to Woman's Hour. Join me again tomorrow, 10 o'clock. I'll be speaking to one of the founders of the iconic clothing brand Biba, that is Barbara Holoniki, alongside creator Martin Pell. They have a new exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum that is to mark 60 years since the first Biba shop opened. And yes, I will be looking for your memories of that shop. Did you go to the Seven Stories on Kensington High Street,

which was apparently the place to be in the swinging 60s? But that's it for today's Woman's Hour. Join me tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join me tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Natalie Cassidy. And I'm Joanna Page. Now you might know me as Sonia from EastEnders. And Stacey from Gavin and Stacey.

And while sometimes we are on the telly, mostly we just love watching it. So that's what we're talking about in our podcast, Off the Telly. We're chatting about shows we just can't miss and the ones that aren't we just love watching it. So that's what we're talking about in our podcast Off the Telly. We're chatting about shows we just can't miss and the ones that aren't quite doing it for us. That comfort telly we can't get enough of. And things we know we shouldn't watch but we just

can't help ourselves. And we'll be hearing about all the telly you think we should be watching and talking about too. No judgement here. Well, a bit. Join us for Off the Telly. Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

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