Woman's Hour - Support for black and minoritised women facing domestic violence; South Asian women in sport; Midwives under pressure

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

The government’s new violence against women and girls strategy was published last Wednesday. Many organisations welcomed the commitments it made but many had criticisms for areas not addressed, not least the specific needs of Black and minoritized women when facing domestic violence. Ngozi Fulani is the founder and director of Sistah Space, a small charity that offers specialist support for African & Caribbean heritage women affected by abuse. Professor Aisha K. Gill is an expert criminologist at University of Roehampton, working on violence against women/girls in Black and minoritised communities for over 20 years. They discuss the needs of these women and how big a problem this is in Black and minoritized communities.Why there is a lack of visibility of South Asian Women in sport? Mara Hafezi is a women's health coach and personal trainer, working predominantly with South Asian women. An endurance sport enthusiast, she is the Sports Co-Lead for South Asian Heritage Month. Shaheen Kasmani is a senior project manager for Maslaha, an organisation that seeks to change and challenge the conditions that create inequalities for Muslim communities. Shaheen also helps run Muslim Girls Fence - set up to encourage young Muslim women into fencing.Maternity services in the UK have in recent years faced a series of scandals, reports and investigations - all of which highlight the failings in midwifery. But what do the midwives themselves think of it all? Jessica speaks to two midwives about their experience of working on the front line and what they think needs to happen to turn things around. What does home mean to you? A place, a physical structure, a deep emotional bond or an absence of any of these? The visual artist Harriet Hill has just completed a month-long walk from her home in South-East London to her childhood home in Mid Wales. She was wearing a costume of the word ‘HOME’, made from yellow canvas over a bamboo and fibreglass frame mounted on a pair of 20” bike wheels. Inside the word was everything she needed to make home for the month of the walk - from a pull-out tent to a solar charger! Passing through diverse communities Harriet investigated the commonalities and differences in how people relate to home.Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Shaheen Kasmani Interviewed Guest: Mara Hafezi Interviewed Guest: Professor Aisha K. Gill Interviewed Guest: Ngozi Fulani Interviewed Guest: Harriet Hill

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be back with you on Woman's Hour this week. We have yet another thought-provoking hour in store for you this morning, including the distressing situation that midwives are currently going through. Lots of you got in touch after we discussed the two damning reports on maternity that laid bare the issues of staffing and safety just a couple of weeks ago. You wanted to hear from midwives themselves about their experiences

so that is exactly who you are going to hear from a little bit later this morning. One a community midwife and another who works in a hospital. Now they reveal what it's really like to be on the front line in that profession. So thank you to everyone who got in touch about that. Also a new study has found that 86% of black women have either been a victim of domestic or sexual abuse or know a family member who has been assaulted. We'll be discussing what more can be done to address the needs and concerns of women

from ethnically diverse communities. Plus, we're expecting a significant legal update on the case against imprisoned former surgeon Ian Patterson, who over a 14-year period carried out unnecessary and damaging surgery on more than 1,000 female patients. And also this morning, what is home to you? We'll be having a discussion with artist Harriet Hill after she walked from London to mid Wales exploring just exactly what home means to her and to others as well.

We'd love to know what home means to you, though. Maybe it's a place or maybe it's not anything physical at all. Perhaps an emotional bond, for example. Well, get in touch. We'd love to hear from you as always. You can text us on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Or we're on at BBC Women's Hour on social media. And of course, you can always email us through the website as well.

Now, first this morning, with the Olympics well underway and with it being South Asian Heritage Month, our first discussion is very pertinent. Why is there a visible absence of South Asian women in sport? What are the barriers getting in their way? Well, two women join me now who can delve into this for us. Mara Hafizi is a women's health coach and personal trainer working predominantly with South Asian women. She's also the sports co-lead for South Asian Heritage Month and is an insurance athlete as well. My goodness. I don't know how you find the time.

Also joining us is Charlene Kasimani, a senior project manager for Maslaha, which is an organisation that wants to change and challenge inequalities for Muslim communities. Shaheen also helps run Muslim Girls Fence. Very good morning to you both. Shaheen, I'll come to you first. Hi Jessica. Good morning. Identify the situation for us then.

Spell it out for us. Why are there so few South Asian women and girls in sport in comparison to other women? Well, I think it boils down to quite a few things. Generally, there's been, I think, a huge lack of access. So we're talking about, I mean, OK, let me just start. Let me take it back a few steps. A lot of people would say that, oh, you know, it's due to culture, it's due to religion, it's due to faith, it's due to, you know, the men in the family or the community not allowing the women. But to be honest, it might be that in some cases, but when we think about it on a grand scale,

it's about access. So we've got, is physical activity, are sporting facilities accessible? Are they affordable? Are they in the right areas where South Asian women live? Representation in terms of visual representation is of course an issue but it's not the be-all and end-all. So you know we can have Asian women in modeling sports clothing but unless Asian women's needs are centred and are catered for in a sports facility or in a sports space, as well as that access to that space, then of course you're not going to get South Asian women present. And by extension, you're not going to get women of colour or other marginalised communities present in in sports spaces okay uh you mentioned a number of uh i suppose they're barriers um that are preventing south asian women and girls um mara i i wonder i i've worked in

sport for a number of years and i've had people quite high up in sporting organizations say to me that well asian communities they don't like this particular sport, which is not only offensive, it's of course wrong. So, you know, when it comes to stereotypes, negative stereotypes, is that what's getting in the way of perhaps women and girls accessing sport from the South Asian community? Yes, I think there is an element of stereotypes coming in play. And I think also when the way in which organisations or brands may try to work with the different communities and trying to engage those communities really matters in terms of the language that they use. There's a strong danger that they may end up treating the South Asian women and girls as a charity case. Like, ah, we'll just tick off this CSR activity for us. So language really, really matters. And it's also about, you know,

following from what Shaheen said,'s also about access but also making the activities culturally appropriate so we'll take Ramadan for example at school are they making the PE lessons more appropriate for those who are you know fasting if they are in terms of the sports activities and the clothes or for example for example, at the gym spaces, are, you know, when they're holding events throughout the year, are they also recognising the cultural and religious events of those in the communities? And equally, when you are throwing events to celebrate and welcome and engage those people, Are you also taking in things like their dietary requirements? For example, if they're vegetarian or if they're having halal food.

They may seem very, very small, but they show that people, those women will feel welcomed, that they are being recognised, that they are being seen. Now, Mara, you've been involved in sport and played sport since you were very young. And you have, you know, spoken about the feelings of self-consciousness that you've had to deal with, particularly when you were growing up in a predominantly white school. Is your experience almost the norm for South Asian women? Or does your experience differ from those that you speak to uh i think for a lot

of women who i've spoken to who also attended predominantly uh white schools there it is a situation which they recognize i held a panel event on friday where i gathered the minds of five other women who um participate in sports in some level and the audience really resonated with a lot of that and it's you know things little things that I've mentioned are for example body hair and how you know as teenagers, when you're growing up with brown skin and the hair showing up a lot quicker and earlier. Oh, no, I think we might have lost Mara there. This is what happens when we rely on technology. That's a shame. Shaheen, I can come to you, hopefully.

You can still hear me. Yes, good. I think Mara was making the point there about the feelings of self-consciousness that she was dealing with. I mean, what can sports organisations do? What can, I mean, even the media has a role to play in this, doesn't it?

What can the media do to promote body confidence within this community in particular? So going back to what Mara was saying, it's really like when we're talking about body confidence, and I know you asked about this community in particular, but for me, in my mind, it spreads out then to all women because you've got the example of the Norwegian handball team who have been fined for wanting to cover up a few more inches of flesh,

which is absolutely ludicrous that in 2021, women's bodies are being controlled. And these women have that Western ideal of beauty standard. They have that. They have the right body shape. They have the right skin color. They have the lack of beauty standard. They have that. They have the right body shape. They have the right skin color. They have the lack of body hair. They have all these things that we are, the rest of us are all measured up against. So if these Norwegian women, the handball team, the Olympic handball

team have been fined for wanting to wear shorts instead of bikini bottoms. You can see generally, and that's at the highest level. So how that filters down into everyday culture of sport and physical activity it definitely filters down because if I want to go into a gym or into you know any sort of sports space and participate am I going to feel comfortable being dressed the way I want to dress or my body the way my body is more than more often than not not really I'm going to have to feel that I have to change to fit into a space as opposed to have a space being catered for all and I think when Mara was talking about um having you know like the body hair and so on. If it's a case of us all being accepted for who we are, then it benefits everybody. Whereas if it's just a certain, you know, 1% of society are accepted, but everyone else has to work their

socks off to fit into something that's never going to happen, then it excludes automatically so many women, including South Asian women, including black women, including other marginalized communities as well. Yes, Mara, I think we've got you back now. Thanks for coming back. I think you were making the point there, weren't you, about the, I suppose, the pain and the anguish you went through at school, particularly around body hair. What more would you like to see done to promote body confidence so that others aren't dealing with these same issues? I thought we had Mara. Perhaps we don't have Mara. No? Oh, my goodness. This is sometimes, this the joy of of using technology.

And then sometimes it decides to completely not work at all. It can be a double edged sword. It can be a double edged sword. Shaheen, I'll come back to you once again. Thank goodness you're here. With the Olympics, let's bring it back to the olympics because the olympics are going on at the moment i mean is it important um for young south asian women and and girls to to see themselves represented at the elite level does that help we you mentioned representation being important but is that key to uh ensuring more women and girls go into sport um i think it's important but it's not the only important thing so of course there's that saying

of you know you have to see it to believe it um or you have to see it to to be it um but also it's a visual representation is just you you know, one goal. After what happens after that, do we have representation in decision making? Do we have representation in the people who, you know, in the Olympics committee of who gets to say that which types of swim caps are banned and who gets to say which types of bikini bottoms are allowed or not allowed? So I feel like, yes, representation representation matters but only to a certain extent it's a case of does in terms of visual representation does is there representation at other levels are spaces made to be safe and feel safe and are those you know those authorities and those decision making people are they representative of the communities they say they want to involve? Important points made there, Shaheen.

Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Also, thank you to Mara, who I'm not sure can still hear me, but a pleasure to get your thoughts before the line dropped out as well. Thank you very much, both of you. Now, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about two reports into maternity services in the UK and the findings, well, they weren't very good at all. Eight out of 10 midwives felt there weren't enough staff on shift to provide a safe service. found that litigation and blame culture meant that parents were not always treated with compassion and understanding

and that the gold standard of personalised continuity of care was either inadequate or required improvement. We spoke to consultant gynaecologists and obstetrician Professor Leslie Regan about the findings, which you can listen to again, as always, on BBC Sounds. But after that interview, lots of you got in touch saying that you wanted to hear from midwives themselves. One person emailed in to say, please, let's hear from midwives' voices soon, not managers or trust spokespeople,

as we are the ones on the shop floor every day, every night, bearing the brunt and taking the flack. Well, you spoke and we listened. I'm joined by Louise, who has been a hospital midwife for almost 11 years. Good morning to you, Louise. Good morning. But first, we're going to hear from a community midwife who works at one of the 12 NHS trusts currently in special measures. We're keeping her anonymous to protect her identity.

She started by telling us about one of the more serious consequences of not having enough midwives on shift. Her words are voiced by an actor. Our local main high-risk unit, they're very, very short-staffed. Now, we know that part of our job as community midwives is to go in very occasionally and help out. And it's never, ever been a problem. But increasingly, because of the pandemic and the strain it's had on the maternity workforce, we've been called into the unit more and more and more. So an average day would be you would go and do some visits.

You might do some antenatal work in the day. So you're day would be you would go and do some visits, you might do some antenatal work in the day, so you're working from eight to four, then you go home for four hours, and then you're on call for 12 hours. Where it's having an impact on us now, with the main hospitals being short staffed, is that we're pretty much called in every time we're on call and we're called into a high-risk unit. Community midwives are specialists in low-risk labour and birth. So when we go out and do lovely home births, that's wonderful. But a lot of community midwives have been in the community for years. So the higher-risk care is not something that we're particularly comfortable doing and not particularly safe to do because we just work in a different way to the hospital midwives.

It's pretty scary for us to go into the high risk unit because if it's a really busy night, you have to do your best, but you're going into a unit you don't know where things are kept it feels very very chaotic for us and to be going in there and as I say it's happening more and more and it's not safe it It's really not safe. The hospital staff will do their best to support us and they will always try and prioritise the lower risk women for us to care for. But I know that people are having to look after people that's out of their, you know, out of their remit as a community midwife. It doesn't feel safe.

It's not safe. Well, a frank and honest overview there. The community midwife also told us about the strain understaffing is having on midwives themselves. The attrition rate is really high, now after covid because we're too exhausted and quite frankly quite a lot of us are pretty scared because we know that every day we go to work and we're caring for two lives and that should take priority but i don't think you know all the time there's enough goodwill from the staff I go to work for my ladies my babies and also for my colleagues and I've wanted to take

time off sick many times through stress but I don't because I know the impact that will have on my colleagues. So it's been a long time coming. I think that COVID is the nail in the coffin, really. And if the government continue to not address this, you know, bad things are going to happen. But unfortunately, it's the midwives that get the blame when there are really unfortunate outcomes sometimes. And there are, you know, and it just feels as though they'd rather keep the money for the litigation rather than pumping it into a system that desperately, desperately needs it. Well, those are the candid words of one community midwife. Louise who's with me this morning you work as a hospital midwife and I saw you there just nodding along in agreement

what's your reaction to what you've just heard? Agreement to all of it really I think that as the final point there about litigation I think think from the report recently, yes, of course, we want to reduce risk, of course, always. Our key focus always is the safety of our women and our families. And that's where the key pressure comes from for midwives, I feel, is that because we come on shift and there aren't enough staff our first thought is is not there's too much work it's that we won't be able to give the care that we so desperately want to give that's always our priority is to make our families feel safe feel looked after and when you come on to a shift where you're working on two thirds of the staffing you should have, straight away it causes anxiety. And you know that there's the chance that those families aren't going to get the care that they deserve.

And with litigation, we always feel that pressure. We know everything we do, everything we write at some point may be scrutinised and we practice under that pressure at all times. But what is the most frustrating thing is if the funding was put into more staff, it would solve nearly every issue that all of these reports discuss. And every report does talk about staffing, but it's never the key focus and it would solve nearly every case that comes up um and coming on shift with that constant stress does cause people to leave does cause people to go off sick and cause even poorer staffing levels so what impact does that have on you louise you've mentioned so many issues there. What does that mean in terms of your stress levels, burnout, taking time off, balancing being a mother as well?

Yeah. So life to work pressures are massive for a system in which we give everything to helping mothers. As mothers ourselves, there is very little flexibility in our working. We cannot get guaranteed shifts in order to organise childcare. So that in itself means constant stresses of trying to organise our lives around our working hours. On top of then, you know, caring for our children all all day going in for a night shift where we're faced with a full ward of women and two midwives to look after them and when you see a ward it may have 20 women in it but 20 women also means 20 babies so that's 40 patients to look after um and we it is such a priority safety is such a priority and things

can go wrong so we need to have the time and the attention to spend proper time with these women as we're being asked to with the continuity of care so much is being asked of us without there being the equal emphasis on needing more of us. And you mentioned there your concerns around being able to safely work under those conditions. So I wonder about the impact on the women who are pregnant and who are in your care. I mean, with all the negative headlines and the blame thrust upon midwives, how has that impacted the relationships you're able to build with these women?

I think women still have wonderful faith in us. I'm always so grateful for the responses we get from women. What I hate is when they say, I don't want to bother you. I know you're really busy, which I hear so often. And I have to say, please don't feel that way and we still manage to feel bonds to form bonds because that is the core of midwifery it means being with women that's

what midwife means and that's what every member of my team wants to do and what we still manage to do but our women do see that it is under stress and that's the last thing we want for them to be aware of at such a vulnerable time now it seems to me that the staffing issues that are constantly being highlighted aren't new so why it seems to be a chronic problem so so what's being done what happens when you for example raise an issue with a manager about inadequate working conditions, for example? So I believe our front line, our sort of line managers are doing what they can. But the issue is so systemic, but it is so frustrating that it has been spoken about for at least a decade. And we're still coming on to short staff shifts. our trust would say that we're fully staffed.

But that is because a fully staffed maternity unit does not take into account those people on maternity leave, those people are sick, which obviously is high, nearly all the time due to stress. So there isn't an allowance for that. I believe if we look back at our statistics for the past 10 years, we could easily justify having two or three more members of permanent staff constantly. But because they say

we are fully staffed, they won't give us more. Even when we go through applying birth rate plus, which is the scheme to assess how many more midwives we need. We went through all of that, our managers applied for more funding for more midwives we need. We went through all of that. Our managers applied for more funding for more midwives and the trust declined it, as has happened over many trusts in the country. So we look at safety. We say how many midwives will make us safe and the funding isn't there. Okay, I do have some statements here from those involved. Let me read this to you from a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson. They said, midwives perform an incredible job and we are committed to ensuring

the NHS has the funding and resources it needs to provide the best possible care for everyone. There are record numbers of midwives working across the NHS and we are increasing the maternity workforce further with a £95 million recruitment drive. We also recently launched a new training programme for NHS maternity and neonatal leaders to improve workplace culture and foster more collaborative working between nurses, doctors, midwives and obstetricians. Also a statement here from the Royal College of Midwives. They say that maternity services have been an invisible victim of COVID. Currently, there is a shortage of over 2,000

midwives in England alone. This plus staff becoming ill themselves has led to far too many services having to divert women to other trusts and hospitals because there simply aren't enough midwives. This is becoming more acute with more pregnant, unvaccinated women being admitted with COVID and requiring more care and support as a result. The Royal College of Midwives supports and respects these often difficult decisions

to change a woman's admission plan or suspend a home birth service because we know it is not one that is taken lightly, but on the grounds of safety so just one final question Louise what more would you like to see done I think I would like to see an emphasis nationally on getting more midwives per shift I mean I know they're saying they're doing all of this I understand that but um are as a midwife coming on to shift i say to the managers this is unsafe and they there's nothing they can

do about that there needs to be a system for emergency staffing if a if a unit is below staffing by more by a third there needs to be some sort of national protocol to say therefore either agency staff somebody needs to come in and fill the gap currently for our trust it is ourselves we have to come in and do extra hours and we're relying on that every shift that the already overworked staff are coming in to fill the gaps and we need some kind of system where there's agency staffing that has to be brought in to to make up the numbers because even if they're not experienced at our unit, at least they are qualified professionals who can go and be with women.

Now, I'm very aware, Louise, that there will be some women who are pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant and be absolutely horrified by what they've heard so far. So what would you say to those women? And how would you reassure them them i would say that they are always our priority that um we come on and we focus on their care primarily that still within labor situations their care is one-to-one i am we are always dedicated one-to-one to the women in our care it is antenatally and postnatally that things are failing I believe and where but that women themselves must always be certain that we have their well-being at heart and they must always ask never be in fear of asking a midwife for any help you need because we are always very happy to do it it is our priority at all times I'm sure that would be very reassuring for all those women. Louise, thank you so much for taking the time

to talk to us this morning on Women's Hour. Now, the government's new violence against women and girls strategy was published last Wednesday. While some organisations have welcomed the commitments it made, some had criticisms, particularly around the specific needs of ethnically diverse women who face domestic violence. So joining us to discuss this is Ngozi Falani, who is founder of SisterSpace. That's a charity that offers specialist support for African and Caribbean heritage women affected by abuse. And Professor Aisha Gill, an expert criminologist working on the intersections of

violence against women and girls in ethnically diverse communities for over 20 years. Good morning to you both. Hoping you can hear me. I'll start with you, Professor Gill, and talking about the government's new strategy on combating violence against women and girls, as we know, published last week. Now, some of the key aims it laid out were better support for survivors, pursuing perpetrators more successfully. However, there was very little on the link between race and domestic violence. So does this report fail ethnically diverse women, do you think? Good morning, Jessica. Yes. The short answer is the strategy announced by Piti Patel, in my opinion, was half-baked. I don't think the government has done its homework in terms of providing a deep

understanding and acting on enabling a just transformative strategy that actually includes and centres the experiences of black and racially minoritised women and girls. And I think it was a real missed opportunity because it kind of, the strategy kind of neglects to centre the lived experiences of migrant women and particularly women who have no recourse to public funds. So the strategy is weak in offering tangible intersectional interventions. Violence against women and girls in our communities is not new. And we really need to leverage commitments in terms of this, what I describe as a half-baked strategy, to ensure that the experiences and the prevention, provision and protection in terms of routes to safety and justice are not undermined. There's a real disconnect. I appreciate that there's commitment.

We welcome the commitment around street safety investment, but there's no real commitment in terms of ring fence funding for specialist buy and for services. So there's a serious gap um in terms of um the rhetoric that's been put out right um i i'd come to you now as well because sister space has actually done its own research has been funded by the london mayor's office and the black lives matter charity which has been released today so i'd like to hear more about that okay just to be clear um we are commissioned by the london mayor's office or one member of staff to support african and caribbean heritage women and girls pan london um the black lives matter uk have funded our research because we find that the research that's out there currently funds BAME, whatever that is. And so

when you talk about BAME, you're talking about a vast amount of different cultures. You can't really specify about African and Caribbean heritage women and girls. And so we have gone to do that research because only we can really get into the community and talk about ourselves. So tell me about the research that Sister Space has released today. OK, well, it's ongoing. So people are encouraged to go on to our Twitter and our Instagram. But it's about finding the real experiences of African and Caribbean heritage women and girls. We had Valerie Ford and her baby who were murdered a few years ago.

She had gone to the police station and asked for help and it was recorded as a threat to property. And we find that a lot of black women are going to housing, to police, to even violence against women and girls, the work sector, and not getting supported. There is this feeling that African-herited women are strong and are not in need of support. And so we're not getting the service that we need.

And so we've decided to hear firsthand the experiences of black women. And when other people take on the research, they don't go to grassroots people, they don't go to the community. I don't know where they go. But in order to find out about us, it has to be us. Understood. So Aisha, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think recent statistics show that domestic violence is not necessarily a bigger problem in ethnically diverse communities than others so is the problem then that these women are having trouble accessing the support needed well in terms of the reference to the reset before i respond to the question i just want to uh appreciate the work of this space and to pay tribute to the family of Valerie Ford and her 22

month old daughter who were murdered and these deaths were entirely preventable. In terms of the question with regards to data in terms of whether it's a no bigger problem, by and for specialist services have reported higher rates of violence in against black and racially minoritized women but only 37 percent report to the police now that is key to key to highlight in terms of the aspect of underreporting and this is borne out by research by sisters for change for example and i think it's important to highlight that that you know it's critical to understand the relational aspects of both black and white women's experiences because we can learn from each other in terms of furthering our commonalities to address violence against women but the bottom

line is this Jessica black and racially minoritized women are less likely to report abuse due to a lack of trust of support services, direct and indirect discrimination, systemic structural racism. We have a long history of fraught racialized responses to violence against women and girls in our communities. For example, go-home vans, hostile environment, windrush, Brexit, Islamophobia, and basically these variables, these contexts, these events have actually fuelled powerlessness and the rights and protections of Black racialised, minoritised women on basically not being protected. Now the research by Sister Space captures really snapshot data and that's really, really important because what it highlights, it kind of supports the research that has been ongoing

in our communities by black and Asian feminists in terms of documenting the complex abuses in terms of the multicultural, multidiverse communities. And of course, these are marked by gender norms, family kinship aspects, you know, the way masculinity is understood, be it in African Caribbean heritage communities or in South Asian communities or Middle Eastern communities. And of course, there is also, at the heart of all this, is a problematization of culture,

the cultural essentialism that Gozi speaks to in terms of the assumptions that are often made in terms of that one size fits all, it doesn't. And we need to ensure that services reflect the experiences of diverse women and girls in our communities. And Ngozi, just finally, I suppose that's what you want to see more of going forward specialist training um that is able to help these ethnically diverse women um let me tell you about valerie's law which is what we're trying to get implemented you see everybody knows of the murder of um sarah everard i myself and and the sister space team went down to to to support but what we found is that when it came to like Biba and Nicole and other Black women, the media is not interested and neither is the violence against women and girls sector. I mean, Biba and Nicole, even in death, they had police taking photos, selfies

with their bodies. Everybody knows the name of Sarah Everard which is good we also have to support um any woman that goes through violence but why is it when it comes to black women there is no outrage so Valerie's law is the petition that we must make sure is it goes through because where people think they understand about African heritage women they don't and. And we very, very rarely have a voice. We find everybody else is allowed to speak on our behalf. It's as if black women can't articulate or we are invisible. But we must be able to say to the community, to the agencies and to the government, look, we're not being heard. This is what we want well we want valerie's law because it it it supports

what victims of domestic abuse are saying that we are not being seen and we are not heard i just want to respond to yes please do just to say you know it's really important that that you know we have a problem here in terms of the way in which there's a lack of representation and reporting of black women's experiences, minority women's experiences when they're subjected to murder and of course working closely with the organisation Sister Space we know that historically cases of Banaz Mahmoud, Shafila Ahmed, the case of Nicole Smallman, Biba Henry, basically they draw they all draw attention to the fact that lessons are not being learned. And we have to tell it like it is, that there are minority officers who are not upholding the human rights and dignity of black and racially minoritized women in the line of duty.

And those kind of delayed responses in relation to scenes of crime are not only reckless, but they actually demonstrate systemic institutional race-based bias in terms of protecting life. You know, the uniform says, you know, the police uniform says that do no harm. So basically, I share your concerns and I think it's really important that more must be done to build public confidence in police responses, to reports of gender based violence in our communities, because you see what is going on here is that there is a hierarchy of human rights and the responses to violence against women in our communities has to change. Enough of the talking. Yes, Ngozi, you mentioned Valerie's Law there, and that is, for those that haven't come across it yet,

is basically the call to make specialist training mandatory for all police and other government agencies that support black women and girls affected by domestic abuse. So you started that petition. It's almost close to 16,000 signatures so far. just put it into context for us Ngozi without this compulsory um training without Valerie's law are black women and girls unsafe absolutely unsafe in in danger of death serious injury look we're not going forward because when we do we get asked questions about our hair and people say that they can't see the bruises on our dark skin or you know things like oh a tough girl like you I can't believe that you know somebody will attack you well no it's almost like if we're seen as men yes so I think the organizations don't understand that they don't

understand you don't know about my hair if you know even now the hairdressers have there's a law that says hairdressers have to understand afro hair, whatever Afro hair is, because I don't have Afro hair. Right. But they have to understand black hair. So if they can make that move for the hairdresser, how come they're not making it for people's lives? All right. Everybody who thinks they know or they want a service for everybody should be able to cater for African heritage women and you don't. So basic training is compulsory and we can only do that with the help of the community for them to sign Valerie's law. That is the only way we can do it. So I hope people understand that it isn't, we are family, we are sisters, this is women's hour. Yes. So all women together, you know, if one is in trouble, we are all in trouble, you know.

So we are saying to you as black women, we are saying to you. Yeah. And I give thanks to Prof Aisha because you have supported us the whole time and we've had a lot of support. But I'm saying to the community, listen to what we are saying. Don't think you know what we want. We are telling you what we need. Please listen. Thank you. Thank you very much uh and goes the falani and professor isa gill for joining us uh this morning on women's hour pleasure to talk to you both now what does home mean to you is it a place a physical structure perhaps or maybe an emotional bond well the visual artist harriet hill has just completed a month-long walk from

her home in southeast london to her childhood home in mid Wales. Now, the interesting part of this was Harriet's costume. She was wearing the word home. Now, if you haven't seen it, please, honestly, go and take a look. It's absolutely incredible. It's all over social media and I've seen pictures myself. So I'll try and explain it to you. Basically, the word home is made from a yellow canvas over a bamboo and fiberglass frame mounted on a pair of 20-inch bike wheels. That's at the back, which is attached to Harriet at the front.

Now, inside the costume was everything she needed to make a home for the month of the walk, including a pull-out tent and a solar charger. I kid you not. Lovely to have you with us this morning, Harriet. Good morning. Hello. Hello. Now, I did try my best there to explain that costume. So sorry if I got it a bit wrong. I tried my best. It's very impressive. But my first thought was, with all that in there, my goodness, that must be pretty heavy. How was with all that in there my goodness that must be pretty heavy how did it feel for for a whole month wearing that I designed it well so I'm

standing in the front of the H and the wheels are under the E at the back um and as much of the weight of as possible is kept over the wheels or the other side of the wheel so it's a bit like uh you know when you carry you push a wheelbarrow you can you can push an amazing amount of weight in a wheelbarrow without really feeling that weight so um the tent was sort of tied up underneath the length of the word and it it just dropped down when I needed to sleep and I slept so I slept underneath the word um and then yeah so taking the weight you know I had a hip belt and shoulder straps but most of the weight was taken on my hips um and it was okay I felt the weight weight really when I just started when I was going

up hills if I was sort of trundling along the flat and then it was fine. It was just like, I don't know, dragging my home behind me. Genius, genius. I'm interested to know, so where was the, I suppose, the idea? Where did it come from? What was it birthed from? Well, I've been sort of playing with the word home in my practice as an artist a little bit over years. And then two or three years ago I've I've made

individual letter costumes spelling the word home so I've had four people in HOM&E walking around we went up to Wakefield and we went to Slough talking to people about home and what home means to them I mean home's an incredibly sort of resonant word and it means something different for every single person. And, you know, those of us lucky enough to have homes or lucky enough to have comfortable or happy homes and those obviously that don't. Everybody has a sort of response to the question of what does home mean to you? So what are some of the stories that you've heard then because you must have drawn in quite a few people along the way yes I was walking with I had different walking companions every day because I need to have that support on on the

on the journey but also stopping to talk to just members of the public that I met along the way um so there was you know on the outskirts of Oxford, as I came round in an area called Blackbird Lees, there was a woman called Doreen sitting outside her house who told me that she'd lived in her home for 60 years, but she'd grown up in a children's home with her two sisters. But she said that was a kind of happy experience. And then there was Diane, about a week later, walking through a village called Alvescott in

Oxfordshire. We met Diane, who told us about that her and her husband were both children of military parents. So they'd moved around a lot and she'd been to 11 schools then it turned out um that she her and her husband about both uh represent the uk in 10 10 pin bowling um which was amazing there was an old bowling ball kicking around on the floor of her garden and and so we started talking about that um and how bowling are made, which I found found interesting because I'm interested in how things are made. And then there were a couple of women who were well into their 70s, I think, who I met in a campsite in near Burford. They belong to an organisation for single people to meet, who have camper vans and caravans to meet up in different places and have company. And these two women were great.

They were real keen travellers. One of them, Jojo, has a house on the Wirral that she goes back to and loves. But the other one, Annette, whose house, whose home was in somewhere in Shropshire, and, you know, she'd bought her home with her husband shortly before he died, and she felt no attachment to that house, and really just seemed to want to be in her camper van the whole time. So, you know, it's interesting meeting a lot of people who live in these kind of liminal liminal bits of society either you know people on boat I met a lot of people living on boats along the canals and people living in vans and a couple people who run campsites actually a lot of them seem to be people who choose to live most of their year in their caravans on the campsites

so it's both a home and a sort of place of work yeah what's some fantastic stories there we've had quite a few people uh getting in touch with us here on woman's hour to talk about their idea of home beverly says when my son was seven years old we were moving into our fifth house because of my husband's job i thought it would cause some disturbance in his later life, not having a stable upbringing until a friend said, home is where you are. I've also had another message come in that says, home equals the place where when you go, they have to take you in.

And I suppose, you know, that's the beauty of this, is that everyone has a different idea of it, don't they? But for you, what makes a home for you well for me it's a sense of belonging and part of this this journey has been a personal journey reflecting the move that my family made when I was a child from south London to mid Wales and the kind of impact that that's had on me and particularly my art practice, really. But I feel very... And I've moved...

I've lived in both places as a child and then as an adult. And so both of those, both South London and Radnorshire, where my parents live, feel like home to me. And I think really it's about a sense of belonging a feeling of belonging and a feeling of some sort of sense of community and acceptance perhaps being accepted by the people who live there you know a sense of belonging is what's important to me I think. It is I would wholeheartedly agree with that. Harriet Hill, it's been an absolute pleasure to speak to you this morning.

And I would urge anyone who hasn't seen her costume to please log on to our social media and take a look. Thanks for speaking to us, Harriet. Thank you. Now, we have had a statement coming in regards to the last discussion we had around domestic violence in regards to black and minoritized women at the home office a spokesperson has said to us that we are committing to radically changing how we tackle violence against women and girls across society it is vital that the specific needs of different communities are listened to which is why our call for evidence which received over 180,000 responses, actively

sought views from underrepresented communities and held focus groups to ensure the perspectives of black and minority ethnic groups were fed directly into the strategy and complementary domestic abuse strategy later this year. They continue, we are encouraging forces to take on the College of Policing Domestic Abuse Matters training designed to change and challenge the attitudes, culture and behaviour of police when responding to domestic abuse. Now on the programme last week, we discussed innovations and the idea of the typewriter as a key to women's freedom. There's the huge increase in industrialisation, which brings big increase in offices, in the bureaucracy, in information technologies. The same with government departments, everything from the civil service to the post office increased hugely.

Running alongside that was a big social question, the woman question, very much a middle class concern about what to do with educated, unmarried, crucially, middle class women. And there were lots of debate about that. And it was to do with a shift beginning to happen of middle class women whose whole sphere had been very much the domestic, the private, wanting to move into more of a public sphere, beginning to be involved more in politics and in the world of work. And into this comes the typewriter and these new opportunities, and I think that's crucial, of clerical work. So they weren't taking jobs from men, these were new jobs that were coming into offices. And the typewriter came into this, so it wasn't an immediate, obvious leap from the typewriter into office work. It was the combination of several different elements.

So tell us about some of the early women who were using typewriters. The first typewriters were imported from the States to the UK in 1875, 1876. It's important to know that these were expensive bits of kit. We're talking more a family car than a laptop. So the average person was not going to be buying one of these. But then retailers were very quick to catch on at the opportunities for marketing these to business. And one of the quotes we have early on in the exhibition is for an advertisement for a Scottish retailer in the early 1880s that makes that link between women's employment and the typewriters by saying, you know, what profession can we teach our girls? Thousands of young ladies are practically independent through the use of the typewriter and are earning large salaries from its work.

So very early on, you could see that link. But large salaries, I don't think so. One of the big points of contention over this was that women were paid maybe half as much as the male clerks that had always worked in businesses that you can imagine the Dickensian figure sitting writing in a ledger those sorts of jobs went on but the more that typewriters came into the office the more those jobs might be threatened so women were paid far less than the clerks. Also, they had to leave on marriage. And you can hear that interview in full and all of our other programmes.

Just go to BBC Sounds. Now, a new parliamentary report has found women in the armed forces who are victims of bullying, harassment, discrimination and serious sexual assault are being denied justice by a woefully inadequate military complaints process. The Defence Select Committee heard evidence from more than 4,000 women, including veterans and those still serving. MPs said they were truly shocked by accounts of sexual assault and rape. We're going to be looking at this in detail tomorrow on the programme with the author of the report, Sarah Atherton MP, also the Defence Minister, Baroness Goldie and Colonel

Lucy Giles from the Army Officer Training College, Sandhurst. But just to give a flavour of the report now, I'm joined by our defence correspondent, Jonathan Bill. Good morning to you, Jonathan. So what sorts of issues are women facing in the armed forces? This is a wide ranging report and it doesn't just talk about their experience of discrimination, harassment, even assault and rape. It also talks about, for example, the basics that women aren't being given uniforms that fit and body armour that fits. And the committee said it's extraordinary that the MOD is not getting the basics right. But I think the most shocking thing, no doubt about it, is that of these 4,000 women who gave evidence,

veterans and those still serving, and the Defence Secretary did allow those still serving to give evidence or to complete a survey to the committee, 60% of them said they'd experienced bullying, discrimination, harassment. And I think the most alarming stories are those of sexual harassment and serious sexual assaults as well. And indeed, I've spoken to a number of women and essentially what they're saying is, remember, they're just 12 percent of the regular armed forces women. They want to increase that number, the armed forces, each of the services. But they all talk about this boys club culture that when they make a complaint, they find they're facing essentially, one of them told me, a brick wall. And the people who have to deal with these complaints are often their bosses,

and their bosses are friends of the people who are being complained about. So it's this whole culture. And this committee makes a number of recommendations on how they should deal with that. And what else are they recommending, Jonathan? It's quite a wide ranging report. Yeah, there are more than 30 recommendations. And for example, they say that those incidents of a sexual complaint, a sexual nature, they should be removed from the chain of command. In other words, it shouldn't be a boss looking at it in that particular service. They also say that in instances of rape and serious sexual assault, that should not be tried in a military court. That should be tried in a criminal court, in a civilian court where the conviction rates are much higher than in a

military court. Jonathan, thank you very much. I'm afraid we're running out of time, but thank you for bringing us up to date. And of course, we'll have more detail of that report and a response to it on tomorrow's show. Just before I go, I just wanted to clarify that we mentioned that the BLM is a charity. Black Lives Matter is a charity. It is in fact a community benefit society just to ensure there's no confusion there. Thank you very much for joining me on Woman's Hour. I will see you tomorrow, 10 o'clock.

Thanks for listening. You can join me live for tomorrow's programme at 10 o'clock. Thanks for listening. You can join me 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.

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