Woman's Hour - Textile designer Althea McNish, Albanian female asylum seekers, endurance athlete Jenny Tough

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Following, Elon Musk’s announcement that Twitter will permanently suspend any account on the social media platform that impersonates another, Nuala McGovern is joined by crime writer, Denise Mina who changed her twitter display name to ‘Elon Musk’. Jenny Tough is an endurance athlete who's best known for running and cycling in some of world's most challenging events. For a forthcoming film - SOLO - she set herself an audacious objective: to run – solo and unsupported, across mountain ranges on six continents, starting with one of the most remote locations on earth in Kyrgystan. She joins Nuala to describe how mountains give her a sense of home and why travelling solo is a “force for joy”. We speak to Anti Trafficking Social worker Lauren Starkey and Human rights Journalist about new research that suggests Albanian women are more likely to have their asylum applications approveddue to the threat they face from trafficking. They’ll be sharing the experiences of some of the women with Nuala McGovern and give us an insight into the dangers that female asylum seekers face day to day. Textile designer Althea McNish was the first Caribbean designer to achieve international recognition and is one of the UK’s most influential and innovative textile designers. There’s currently a major retrospective of her, Althea McNish: Colour is Mine at the Whitworth in Manchester on tour from William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow. Rose Sinclair a Lecturer in Design Education at Goldsmiths, University of London co-curated the exhibition.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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.

Hello, this is Nuala McGovern, and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. I am indeed Nuala McGovern and very happy to be here with you today. I was followed last night on Twitter by Elon Musk, or so I thought for a second or two. It was instead Denise Mina who had changed her name on Twitter to Elon's who you will have seen, no doubt. He's the new owner of that social media platform. But did you also see that Elon Musk

said Twitter accounts engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying they are a parody will be permanently suspended? Well, Denise's account is still there and we're going to talk to her about why she and others are changing their names

on Twitter to Elon Musk. It can already be hard enough to know who is who online, right? But we're going to get into that. We're also going to get into the blue ticks, that verification symbol that will now cost $8 or £7 if you want to do the exchange rate a month.

Would you pay it? And there's another name that caught my eye. And that is of a guest that I'm really looking forward to meeting. Her name is Jenny Tuff. It is so apt, that name. Because Jenny has become the first person to run across mountain ranges of six continents solo. So that means completely unsupported by a team. How did she do it? You know, I've watched some of the footage and it's just incredible to see how she's able to

keep pushing on through in the most challenging of circumstances. But I also want to hear from you on what you have achieved, you know, something that you thought was way too challenging. It can be big or it can be small. But I want to hear about something that you're just proud of yourself for achieving.

For me, let's be honest, it was never going to be running across mountain ranges what I thought this morning. I was like, well, I did give up coffee a year ago. That, for me, that was a win. I want to hear yours throughout

the programme. So, to get in touch, you can text the programme. The number is 84844. Text charged at the standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour. Also, you can email us through our website or you can send

a whatsapp message or voice note that number is 0 3 700 100 444 and data charges may apply depending on your provider so you might want to use wi-fi if you can and the terms and conditions can be found on our website so you know what is, what is it? Have a little think. What do you do that you've surprised yourself in doing? We want to hear about it. But let us begin with the Qatar World Cup. It is less than two weeks away, but it has been mired by controversy. Qatar has been criticised.

You may have heard this. You may have also heard a little in the news bulletin, one of the Qatari footballers speaking out. But it has been criticised about his stance on same-sex relationships and also human rights issues. We want to talk about this person who has been speaking out, England and Arsenal player Lottie Wobben Moy. The centre-back has said that she will be supporting the England men's team at the World Cup in Qatar but won't be watching the tournament and that is due to the country's views

on women, homosexuality and also human rights. Now, this follows, if you are a regular listener, you may know, fellow lioness, Bette Meath, who spoke to us here

on Woman's Hour about this. From the minute it was announced, I thought, I mean, it's not the best idea. I think, obviously, the way they think and how they go is completely opposite to what I believe and respect. And although I'm cheering for the boys who are going to play football there, I still don't think it's the right place, but unfortunately money talks and the situation even of the stadiums being built and the amount of people that have passed because of that.

It's, I mean, it's not an ideal situation. It's not something that I will be backing or promoting at all. Bet made there. And on the Laura Koonsberg show over the weekend, the director of women's show over the weekend, the director of women's football at the FA, that's Baroness Sue Campbell, was also asked about her view.

Well, first of all, we don't decide where these World Cups are held. And what I think our players have made very clear, our male players, is that they have their own values and they will show those

and they'll wear, Harry will wear the one love band as we will continue to show that we have very different values. And we live by those values. But the games are in Qatar. And we are going to do our best. And we wish Gareth and the team the very best of luck. But, you know, we accept there's some progress being made, but an awful lot more to be made in the future.

Susie Reck is the women's football writer for The Guardian also author of A Woman's Game, The Rise, Fall and Rise Again of women's football and she conducted the interview with Lotte Wobben-Moy. Great to have you with us Susie. A lot of people will be just picking up that interview today and having a read through it. So tell us a little bit more about what Lotte said to you.

Yeah, so it was interesting because we sat down with Lotte at an England training camp before they headed off to Spain. Apologies for the background noise, by the way, there's a load of footballers eating food around me. And so we sat down with her and we asked her about her thoughts on Qatar before they head off to their training camp in Spain. And she was very much sort of like torn by it. Very somber, struggling, I think, with, you know, all of the themes around the tournament that she feels very, very strongly and passionate about. She's a big advocate for social change and sport for good, has used her voice really really carefully in the past and uh she very eloquently said you know that while she's going to be supporting the team she's not going to be um watching the tournament this summer um and also was was grappling with the idea of you

know would would you play in a tournament like that as a player and you know said she could completely understand why players make the decision to play that you many of them will perhaps never play in a World Cup again or get that opportunity again. That's a very difficult decision to make. But clearly grappling herself with her views on that should those kinds of situations arise in the women's game too. So really, really thoughtful. And clearly, she said it was tough about three or four times

and was clearly quite torn about speaking about it. But it was really about three or four times um and was clearly quite torn about speaking about it but it was really really kind of interesting to hear her thoughts and have someone speak so eloquently on um on something that is you know probably the more extreme end of of what a lot of the sort of protests and things around it have been uh have been about you know saying you're not going to watch it at all is probably the furthest that we've seen you know a senior uh men's or women's footballer say they're going to do in the run-up to this tournament and that's uh that's that's huge and i think echoes a lot of people's own emotions about the about the tournament too because i think also coupled with beth mead we played a little of her there as well. There is, I suppose,

this expansion or amplification of what's been said. And how significant do you think that women like Beth and Lotta are speaking out in this way? Yeah, it's very significant. And I think it's no accident that it is women that are, women players that are speaking out

more firmly perhaps than some of their male counterparts you know they face a lot of the issues much more directly than maybe the men do um you know in particular right it's qatar obviously homosexuality beth mead is in an open relationship with her teammate bianna mirzema there's a lot of very open out players in in women's football um you know these players that for their whole lives have fought for the right to play football and then you see a country you know, women can't travel without the permission of their husband or father. And, you know, these are, you know, whilst not as extreme situations that they've had to grow up with,

you know, it's a similar battle and have a very, you know, real visceral relationship to the issues at hand here in a way that maybe the men's players don't quite have it on the same level. So it's an interesting one because, yes, they are more open, definitely about sexuality, some of the relationships that you mentioned there. But I suppose there's always that debate, isn't there, Susie, about whether people should instead go to the country to try and expose or show that there are other cultures, other ways of living, maybe trying to promote more tolerance by taking part in the tournament. But is that something, do you think, that Lotta that everyone is thinking about as an option and, you know, maybe where you find the best of a bad situation. But the problem is, is Qatar are very much using this tournament to enhance their international, the world's view of them. And so they've talked a good talk.

You know, a women's team was founded shortly after the bid in Qatar, but that team has played once since and it wasn't a proper team. So it's not, you know, there's been a lot of talk and there's a lot of, oh, yeah, we're going to make all these promises and put all of these human rights conditions in place imminently. But we've, you know, we've known that it's being held in the country for 10 years and a lot of those things still haven't happened. So why are we expecting that after the big showpiece is gone that they're going to be done?

I think that's maybe slightly naive. And I think Russia has woken people up a little bit as well. The 2018 World Cup in Russia, that was, again, another tournament where the bidding process was questionable. It was part of the same process where Qatar awarded the World Cup too and you know you've got a situation there where once the football started everyone sort of

you know fell in love with the tournament fell in love with the football all of the issues with Russia fell to one side and you you reflect back on that now in the context of Russia and Ukraine and think why the hell did that tournament go ahead and why was why was Russia able to use that that tournament to really whitewash its reputation to the rest of the world for that month-long period and I think that's put this tournament in a lot of context as well. Yeah we do hear that term sports washing don't we Susie. Do you think it concerns the FA that female players like Beth like Lotta are more outspoken on this issue than the men's teams? I don't think so at all, actually, because for a good few years now, the FA had very much had a very open approach to the press in a way that maybe we hadn't seen previously.

Gareth Southgate coming in was a big driver of this, of changing the relationship between the players and the fans through the media. And so there is a lot of freedom for players to say what they think and speak their mind. We were sat with Lotta at an England media day with an England press officer standing nearby, but she was completely free and able to say what she thought on Qatar without intervention.

So there is very much a respect, I would say, for the players and their voices and much more of a view that we, as the FA, allow them to speak their mind and help them with that process rather than put them into a box and say, no, you can't talk on this, this and this. I wonder then how, Susie, do you understand the difference, as I see it on the outside, of the outspokenness between the men and women's teams? Yeah, it's different, but it's not completely unheard of that the men speak out too. I mean, you look at Rashford on free school meals or Raheem Sterling on racism, and there are pockets of players that do take a stand on things.

But I suppose on Qatar specifically. Yeah, it's very difficult, isn't it? I'd say like partly from what I said before, where the women are more acutely in tune with the issues at stake, particularly on homosexuality and on gender equality um so they feel that a little bit more deeply obviously they're not as impacted in that they're not faced with the decision of you know you've got to actually travel to this country and play so there's that too but then also there's the fact that you know women footballers are

generally quite activist just in their very nature because they've had to fight for so long just for the right to be able to play for the right conditions and things so that they almost have had a voice throughout their entire playing career in a way that men's players maybe haven't had because they've not needed to so then when a big tournament like Qatar comes around where there's all these controversial issues they're maybe not as experienced at raising their voice in that way in the way that the women's players are. But you know you could see a chance I was just seeing this survey suggesting there's four million more fans supporting female teams than a year ago this is according to research for the BBC

women's tournaments are going to get bigger and bigger. They're going to come up against these issues. Oh, 100%. And I think it will put a lot of pressure on players who have historically been very, very vocal advocates of social change, of equality, of opposing homophobia and homophobic laws. And a lot of them will find themselves in tough situations. Will a country like Qatar bid to host host a women's world cup probably not could they do it from a completely you know kind of reputation building perspective they could try would a lot of women's players

refuse to play in that tournament I think that would be highly likely scenario so it's a slightly different ball game because of the nature of being a women's footballer almost making you an activist by default because of how hard you've had to fought to play um so you've got this sort of more activist mindset to to women's football generally which is very very different to the men's um and it is a problem that they're going to be faced with repeatedly um how interesting as well How interesting that you have this activist mindset, you know, but I am wondering as well, Susie, as they as we see these comments and hear these comments. What are the potential consequences for them, for example? Is this an act of bravery speaking out?

I'm just thinking of we all know about trolling online, for example, or I don't know club how it views it we spoke a little bit about the FA yeah no it's very difficult isn't it because um you know you put your head above the parapet in in any walk of life at the moment and on social media the backlash can be pretty brutal I think Lotta was and Beth I think they were both very very um measured and thoughtful in the way they worded things. You know, Lotta was very clear to say, I am supporting the England team out in the start. I want them to win. I am just not going to watch because of these issues. And I think that's a really intelligent way of doing it, of expressing support for the team whilst caveating the reason why you're not going to watch it. But respect them playing, respect their decision to to play respect people's decision to watch but

explaining your own personal reason for why you're not and elevating arguments um against it do you think more will speak out just before i let you go suzy suzy saying she's not going to watch the world cup specifically from you know people in qatar potentially um who you know very protective of their tournament but at the same time it's uh it's you know it's something that they choose to do um weigh up the options of and speak out because they believe that that matters more than perhaps the little bit of abuse that they might get afterwards. I understand Susie I think your line dropped out there just for one second while I was asking you a question I will let you go but do you think more players will speak out? I think we will see more and I think this tournament is going to be a little

bit different to say some of the tournaments of the past that may be being slightly controversial not just football but you know Olympics and stuff and stuff too in that um i don't think it's going to die down when when the action starts i think you know it will only get louder i think the questions will only get more prominent um and i think the you know examples of protest will only get uh get more prominent too so i think that's an interesting shift in that you know there was very little um uproar once the tournament kicked off in russia um But I think that's going to look very, very different this time around. And that's going to be an interesting change, I think, in the dynamic of, you know, kind of some of these more political, social political situations that football finds itself in

and footballers find themselves in moving forward. Susie Rack, thanks so much. And also Persevering, I know you said you were surrounded by a lot of footballers eating, so we very much appreciate you coming on to Woman's Hour We're going to continue of course following that story as it progresses but I want to turn to something

different now, 19 minutes past the hour you are with Woman's Hour if you want to get in touch with us of course you can text which is 84844 or indeed at BBC Women's Hour is another way. But I want to turn to Twitter as we talk

about social media and ways to get in touch with us. Because you might have heard about the American comedian Kathy Griffin. Her Twitter account has been banned after she tweeted as Elon Musk. She's not the only one who's been impersonating the social media platform's new owner. Several accounts changed their display names to Elon Musk or approximations of Elon Musk. Many of those accounts now appear to be suspended or perhaps placed behind a warning sign.

Mr. Musk has since announced Twitter will permanently suspend any account on the social media platform that impersonates another. He said that people will only be able to impersonate others on the social media platform if their account handle clearly specifies parody. He announced the new measure in a tweet on Sunday. Joining me here in the studio is crime writer Denise Mina, who changed her display name to Elon Musk yesterday. I thought I was followed by Elon Musk, Denise, but it was you. I'm actually embarrassed because I haven't been banned yet and I feel slighted.

You haven't been banned, you haven't been suspended, you're still there. But why did you change your name and others like you? The whole Elon Musk thing is just fascinating. Now, there's a tradition on Twitter of people changing their username at Halloween or Christmas, you know, Spooky O'Neill or whatever. So he has come on and he said he's very much in favour of free speech, but he has no conception of the nuances and complexities of free speech. What he means is I want people to say things I agree with. So he says he said as soon as he bought Twitter, he said, comedy is okay on Twitter again. And then he made a series of very bad jokes. Now, someone made a great joke with his name on

the as the byline. And it was by Elon Musk. And it said, Oh, God, oh, God, I've made a huge mistake, which is just a week into it. And you could feel it was just genius and it went viral. And I think that's what he's actually responding to. And for you to change your name to Elon Musk, what are you trying to do? Well, you know, I just think if a bully tells you not to touch that, what do you do? You touch that. You have to touch that. Because otherwise, I mean, Twitter's going down. I think we're all aware of the fact that it's going down.

And wouldn't it be better to get chucked off? I think that's going down I think we're all aware of the fact that it's going down and wouldn't it be better to get chucked off I think that's a bit more stylish but you know I mean I think you have to be direct. But is it going down? Do we know that? I don't know now actually I actually don't know now. I mean it's back in the news I feel every second story and every headline I pick up that is working for Elon Musk

to very much put Twitter back in the headlines He's managed it so badly. Tesla have lost a lot of their share price money overnight, really a lot. So what I think is going to happen is he is going to be, someone's going to intervene and say, you will lose all your money,

because ultimately that's really all they care about. But because he's not really on Twitter, he's not aware of the fact that particularly anyone who's interested, I was listening to the activist before, anyone who's interested, I was listening to the activist before, anyone who's interested in this stuff, our feeds are absolutely full of these amazing Iranian women defying the

laws on hijabs cutting their hair, being beaten up in public and still being defiant so we're all watching that and then Elon Musk comes onto Twitter and says don't use my name unless you say it's a parody. What's going to happen? It's inevitable that lots of people are going to take his name. But do you not think that's fair enough as a parody so we know exactly what's happening online?

I think the nuances, the tiny little nuances are really what's beautiful. And the thing about Instagram isn't a substitute for Twitter if you love words. Twitter is really for people who love words and don't want to hear how you feel about your dog it's just it's not about feelings it's really about putting words together now that joke oh god oh god it was done with no capitalization it was done with no punctuation it was done as an internal voice it's so subtle the way people interact on Twitter. It's quite beautiful. It can be nuanced, it can be subtle,

or it could be, it can be hit you over the head with a sledgehammer. You mean online abuse on Twitter? Yes. Well, you know, they introduced a mute button. Now, I used to get a lot of abuse on Twitter, and now what I see is you're rude and I mute them because I think, well, if you want to shout into a bin, that's absolutely fine, and I know I do still get a lot of abuse but I don't know about it

on the principle that if I was sitting next to you on a bus would I get up and move well yes I would and you have to deal with social media that way I felt sad when I heard the footballer before saying we framed it properly so we didn't invite abuse, you're going to get abuse anyway, they're not

abusing you because you didn't frame it properly. They're abusing you because they're abusers. And then there was Susie Rack talking about Lotte and also Beth from the England, Women's England football team, speaking out really against Katar being holding the World Cup. But with Elon Musk and his decision to buy Twitter, he now has, you say they're losing money, he has talked about $8, which I was looking at this morning, just under £7 a month for a blue

tick, which is actually really a white tick on a blue background, if we're to be honest, but blue tick has become the common parlance. Is that something you will do? Will you pay Elon Musk to keep your account? No, I never had a blue tick and it was very deliberate and it's because, to be honest, I fraudulently claim to have a damehood because I don't know the honour system. I noticed that too. I did notice that and I had to research that and I came up with

and I researched that, no, you're not a dame although I will call you dame. But it is the gift that keeps giving because every so often somebody will send me a picture of me in the paper and it'll say underneath Dame Denise Mayona because nobody's quite sure but I thought I'm not going to get involved in whether or not I am actually me and that's not really why I'm on Twitter and I don't you know I didn't I never liked the idea that but apparently and I hadn't realised this Bluetick accounts get pushed so you're much more likely to see a comment from a Bluetick account

which is kind of counter to what I thought we were all doing on Twitter. But a lot of people will not, will have never applied for one and will never apply. And you are asking to be a prefect. I mean, it is like going to the headmaster school office and asking to be a prefect. It's quite, I mean, it's, talk about making something unstylish.

So this is something you will not pay for. I've seen the model, Gigi Hadid. She deactivated her Twitter account yesterday. This is what she said. For a long time, but especially with its new leadership, it's becoming more and more of a cesspool of hate and bigotry

and it's not a place I want to be part of, she said, that Twitter wasn't, that she couldn't say that Twitter was a safe place for anyone. Now, you've just talked about

the mute button and that, but do you see others leaving their account? Would you just leave the account, go elsewhere? Where would you go? Well, I've tried Instagram, which I think a lot of people find baffling. And also it is all very visual.

And it is very funny because I'm just in it for the jokes. I'll be honest with you. I'm not looking for information or debate. I'm not looking to find out how you feel about everything. I just, you know, I really like social media for the jokes. And you do, there are real communities there. I mean, I think one of the things about people leaving from Mastodon are that they're really worried that they're breaking up these communities

because they are people you speak to every day. So I think we'll see what happens. But my feeling is investors are going to come in and say to Elon Musk, you are losing money through the nose. I can help you. And there was a really interesting thread last night from a fellow tech bro who said, I'm saying this and then I'm going to leave. Elon no longer has people saying no to him. And this is very dangerous. And I've been in that situation myself. So people are already staging public interventions with them. I'm just wondering though whether it's him that takes over

and who leaves. I mean, what does Twitter look like in the future? And I know we haven't got a crystal ball, but do you worry? You say you're in it for the jokes, really. I mean, do you worry about having the truth there

or the verification process? I think you changing your name to Elon Musk on Twitter is trying to confuse that in some way. Confuse the verification process. Well, I mean, you know, it's not a declamatory platform that I see. And, you know, things like very right wing parlor, I think it was, that Donald Trump set up. And it was just right wing people declaiming at one another.

And then everyone left because it was so tedious. They need us. They need people to be offended by. They need people who are activists or who are interested in the Iranian revolution. They need people to, you know, it's grist to their mill, basically. And if we're not there, they only have a mill. So I don't think, you know, I think it's a bit of a power battle at the moment. But who knows?

I mean, I could predict, but who knows really what's going to happen? And so you are hoping to get suspended? Well, I would rather be chucked off than just leave and feel sad about it. I think it would be nice to go out in a blaze of glory, but I think they can't suspend everybody because so many people have changed their names. So they will have to introduce an algorithm to suspend everybody because so many people have changed their names. So they will have to introduce an algorithm to suspend everybody blanket. But there are people who are tweeting

lists of the glorious dead and that's all the accounts that have already been suspended because they changed their name. Cathy Griffin of course is one that we have seen. She got into trouble before over Donald Trump. Very much felt she was cancelled in that respect. But Il Musk says

she can have her account back for $8. Would you tell her to take it back? No, she's too funny. She's great. Denise Mina, thank you so much for coming in.

The crime writer who is Dame Denise Mina, as you will find. Actually, no, you'll find her as Elon Musk. It was Dame Denise Mina and then it was Elon Musk. And that's who's following me.

Maybe you'd like to follow her. You are listening to Woman's Hour. The time is 29 minutes past the hour. On Thursday last week, Carlin Quinton and her daughter Rose came on to talk to Emma about working together on stage. And we were inundated

with stories about the joys and the horrors of the mother-daughter dynamic. Now leading on from that for a series that we're planning, if you are a mother have you ever been called a narcissist by your adult child? How did that feel? And what

happened next? Well we want to know more. You can text Women's Hour hour it's 84844 text will be charged at your standard message rate check with your network provider for exact costs on social media it's at bbc women's hour or indeed you can email us through our website as well um i was asking you a little bit earlier uh you know, what have you done that you're proud of? I'm just seeing some come in here. Let me read one just before we go to our next guest. I'm proud that I'm solo sailing my sailing boat. I've been aboard for just under 17 years and I regularly sail between countries. Tomorrow I'll check out Thailand and sail to Malaysia. Wow.

I'm a qualified yachts master and regularly deliver other people's boats. I'm the only sailor in my family. I'm looking for your name. I don't have your name there, but thank you so much for tuning in. Oh, here's another lovely one. My achievement is that I bought my first bike last year, age 41. It's a recumbent bike. I could never ride a bike as I have mobility impairment. Now I have a trike and I've recently been going out more than once a week for a ride. That is so great. Thank you so much for getting in touch with us. Keep them coming. We want to hear what you've achieved. And I want to talk to Jenny Tuff, who is an endurance athlete. Jenny, good to have you with us. Hey, thanks for having me. And I want to just let people know a little bit about you. You're known for running and cycling. But the film that I was watching part of last night, it's about this objective you gave yourself to run solo.

So that means like completely unsupported across mountain ranges on six continents, starting with one of the most remote locations that was in Kyrgyzstan. First, I have to ask you, we've been talking about names, Elon Musk and whatnot. Jenny Tuff, that's your real name?

That is my real name. I get asked all the time, but it's actually pronounced Tuff in Scotland. Okay, well, I shall pronounce it Tuff. Jenny, so good to have you with us. Why did you set yourself this challenge? You know, I get this, I have this bad habit of daydreaming with maps if I'm meant to be

at my laptop doing something productive um I find myself scrolling away to a tab on maps and and that's how I love to daydream and I was looking at Kyrgyzstan one night and I'm from the Canadian Rockies but I live in Scotland now and um and I find myself missing the mountains all the time and um yeah it just kind of I guess the only excuse I can really give myself is that while I was doing this daydreaming, I also had a glass of wine with me and that made me brave and made me confident. And I thought, I'll go across Kyrgyzstan. That'll be great.

And it was only a thousand kilometers. So I thought, I can run that. That's not much. And I just hatched this plan. And I woke up the next morning and I looked at the notes I'd made on my laptop and the map that I'd drawn. And I went, you know what? Let's let's see. Like that would be the hardest thing I've ever done. But let's see. And I did. But these expeditions and I love the planning under the influence, but they average about three weeks and you're running for 10, 12 hours a day by yourself. I have to underline this

solo part because it's you that needs to resolve any issue or problem that arises in this, you know, very difficult terrain, to put it mildly. How do you prepare for that? And what is it that you're trying to achieve? You know, I think everyone gets really fixated on the runs themselves, you know, Kyrgyzstan 950 kilometers, and people like picking apart, because I think you can you can kind of wrap your head around, you know, doing about a marathon a day for 25 days. But the running was the easy part when you talk about the fact that I was solo and having to manage everything by myself. So my navigation, where I was going to sleep, where I was going to get anything to eat, how to keep myself safe, all that stuff. That's

what took up my energy every day. That's where the problems arose. The running was like, you know, I've been running since I was a teenager. I love running. It's right, left, right, left. Everyone can really do it if they want to. Um, that was the easy part. So preparation, I think the first expedition, I really did focus on the running and I trained really, really hard. And I spent a lot of time in the Highlands with my backpack, trying to run big mountain routes to get my body ready. But really the stuff that's been more valuable is preparing my mind to be alone and honing my skills, getting really good at navigation, getting really good at wild camping, you know, surviving in these foreign places, learning the languages, stuff like that. It's those skill sets that get me further.

But I was thinking when I was watching you run across the Atlas Mountains and you were concerned for your safety at times. And I was trying to put myself in your shoes at that aspect because you're going to have to sleep somewhere and you're being pursued by people at certain times can you talk us through a little bit of that and then also how you come to the mindset of I suppose rising above it or being able to overcome that fear? Yeah you know I wouldn't beat around the bush that I think northern Africa is one of the hardest places in the world to be a woman. And there are huge parts of Morocco that are very touristy and places where you could even wear your bikini and feel comfortable. But then a lot of Morocco, very remote places that I was going through, places that don't have paved road networks leading to them.

They don't have European visitors. And I very much stood out, very much stood out. And these are places where women have completely different lives. And it's interesting. I know you were just talking about the Football World Cup and talking about being visitors in these countries where we have very different situations. And you're in your head the whole time thinking, should I have even come here?

Should I even be contributing to a place where women don't have rights, where we don't have my value system? So I did. I did have a very difficult time with the patriarchy, let's call them. The local police actually found out about my expedition to run solo across the Atlas Mountains and they began pursuing me. And and the fact was that it was because they were so concerned for my safety they saw a solo woman which is something I'd never seen before and the fact that I was going away from the roads and I was going into the mountains where there were no trails or there's no hotels there's no phone signal all those things um they'd never seen that and they really didn't like it and they really the worst part it was really intense for me to be followed all this

time I was genuinely being pursued by men many of them not in uniform so I could never knew if And they really, the worst part, it was really intense for me to be followed all this time. I was genuinely being pursued by men, many of them not in uniform. So I never knew if I was being chased by a man in the wilderness or if I was being chased by a police officer who just wanted to check if I was okay. I never knew. And you're not going to stop running to go find out who's chasing you and why. You know, you're just going to run. The thing was, they were only doing this because they were concerned for my safety. It was a really paternal concern it came from a place of love it came as far as they were concerned it came from a

place of love that they saw me and they saw a solo woman they thought solo women can't do these things solo women are weaker than we are they can't go into the wilderness they can't defend themselves these kind of really irritating things that are so hard to put up with, so hard to hear, so hard to face. But ultimately, when I spoke to these men, I did have a lot of really good conversations with these guys about what they were doing and what their value system was.

As far as they were concerned, it did come from a place of love. They just didn't want anything bad to happen to me. And their assumption was bad things happen to women if they go outside by themselves. But I think, and even if you come come back whether it's in Canada or Scotland a woman setting off by herself on these expeditions was something that was breaking the mould. How did you find your place or how the rest of perhaps the extreme sports running, ultra-marathoners see you?

You know, and I kind of got into it on my own. I started running from a really negative place that I just thought I was chubby and I needed to lose weight. So I think I always ran on my own and I always just kind of found my own way into it. So when I set my own challenge the way that I liked it and kind of my own creative pursuit, that's kind of where I got into it. So I knew that it never really made sense to anyone else and it wasn't important to anyone else.

It wasn't following the set mold of going through the marathon train and then going to an ultra marathon and trying to run one of the popular races that everyone's heard of. I knew I was doing something that didn't make any sense that maybe wouldn't you know give me a career because it doesn't it's not really like headline worthy stuff it's not catchy no one knows what I'm doing but um you know it was meaningful

to me I love mountains I love crossing mountains I love running um and I wanted to see what I could do you talk about them as being um the challenges as a for joy. And I can see that in the film as you run. The scenery is astounding as you make your way, although you do make me feel cold, I have to say, at certain times. But I was struck, Jenny, by the fact that you said, you know, when these expeditions end, that it's like you hit a wall. And I'm just wondering, how do you cope with that? That's definitely the hardest part I think you look forward to finishing something so intense you know running 800 900 kilometers over a series of weeks far away from home sleeping in a bag outside without even a tent um you really fantasize about the finish line you think when you get there I'm gonna get a really nice hotel

I'm gonna get myself pizza champagne I'm really gonna and then I'm you get there, I'm going to get a really nice hotel. I'm going to get myself pizza, champagne. I'm really going to, and then I'm going to get home and I'm going to be comfortable and everything's going to be good again. But that's never how it ends. When it ends, it is that feeling of hitting a brick wall that just suddenly you've been in motion. You've been living your best life. You've been pushing yourself to your limits every day. And then suddenly you go back to comfort and suddenly you go back to the indoors and you're not in motion and you're not pushing yourself that way and I find it really unsettling every time um I don't think anyone that's finished a huge project whatever that is whether it's professionally or one of your passions whatever it is when you finish something that you've put so much of your heart and soul and focus into it can leave this kind of emptiness. Even though you did, you tried to finish it,

you were working towards that goal for so long. As soon as that goal is accomplished, you're like, oh, now it's gone. And now what, do I have to like recalibrate my identity? Do I have to find something else to fill that space? What do I do? So I have always found the finish lines a little bit difficult in that sense

that then i have to kind of replace that with a new challenge and just keep on going is that what you do yeah that's exactly what i do maybe it's not mental health but yeah i do just find something else to throw myself into and you know i'm sure there'll be lots of women listening thinking okay she did all these mountain ridges across all these continents. Is it something that you would encourage other women to do? Yeah, you don't have to do exactly what I did, obviously. But I feel really strongly that women should go out and push themselves and do it solo every now and then. You know, we live in a world where we were told from, I mean, can you even remember the first time that you were told not to walk at night alone, not to go for a run by yourself, that if you want to get into cycling, do it with a buddy

and stuff like that. That's how we start to speaking to girls. And we keep talking to them that way throughout their entire adult life. We treat women like they can't do stuff alone. And you internalize that we all internalize that we start to get scared. But the fact is, when you do something solo, it's so empowering, because you will have problems, all those things that they were warned you about told you, well, you know, you're gonna break your bike, or you're gonna hurt yourself, or you're gonna get lost, or those things will happen, bad things will happen. But then you will figure it out, and you will solve it. And you'll get so much confidence from that. And it's so empowering to put yourself in

that position. And I think women are just so discouraged from discovering that about themselves by this whole don't don't go places don't go outside the bounds if we go outside the bounds and we have to face these challenges and we have to overcome them we all become so much stronger so I would I would just wholeheartedly encourage women to go take on some solo challenges now before I let you go um I'm sure it's difficult to choose a favorite but uh what give us one high uh that you had on your expeditions. Oh gosh what a real question um you know when I was running across Kyrgyzstan I think I went there because of the big mountains you know it's over 4,000 meters altitude almost every day uh really

gorgeous stunning white peaks. And I was there for the mountains, the physical territory, but when I got there, I met the nomads, the people that still live there in the yurts, these high pastures. And every day I just had so many wonderful encounters of these nomads who lived on horseback that just herded their flocks

and they would show me so much incredible hospitality. I was always so humbled by how many times I was invited into yurts to either just have a cup of kumis, which is fermented horse's milk. I don't recommend it that strongly. Or sometimes just even, you know, stay the night with their family and eat with them and share their warmth in their yurt. So, yeah, I would give it to the nomads if I had to pick a highlight. I loved watching that part, I have to say, even sometimes not speaking the same language,

but being able to communicate with one another just in that hospitality was incredible. Jenny Toof, am I pronouncing it correctly? Toof. Toof. Thank you so much for joining us. The film is solo and it's really quite something to behold. Congratulations on all you've achieved. Thank you so much.

That is Jenny, really, really inspiring, as you see just the challenges that she overcomes. She is a problem solver, that woman, let me tell you. I want to turn, I suppose, really to politics in some ways. If you saw the papers today, any of the newspapers, so many of them have photos of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak embracing President Emmanuel Macron of France. This was taking place on the sidelines of COP27, the climate summit in Egypt.

But Number 10 has said a deal with France over small boat channel crossings are in the final stages. They actually expect specific details in the coming weeks. And channel crossings, there's something we've been hearing a lot about, right, over the past week or so, particularly in relation to Albanian migrants. New research by the Oxford Migration Observatory suggests that 86% of Albanian asylum seekers

who were granted leave to remain in the UK up to June 2022 were women. And a big factor for these women being granted leave to stay is because they're at risk of being trafficked or in need of protection. Well, with us to discuss the issue is human rights journalist, co-founder of the Refugee Media Centre and host of Media Storm podcast. It's Matilda Mallison. Good to have you with us, Matilda. Welcome. Thank you for having me. I thought that was

really quite something as we looked at the gender breakdown, I suppose, there when it comes to the asylum process. Give us a bit of an insight how you see it when it comes to the place of women, particularly that figure of 86% that I mentioned. Yeah, this is a really telling statistic. I think that there's a few things we can take away from it. One is how we are told that Albania is a safe country. And actually, this is something that we've been told at the Conservative Conference by Home Secretary Svela Bravman, that because we're seeing this rise of asylum claims from a country that is

officially designated to be a safe country, these claims are therefore fraudulent. But another way to look at it is to challenge that assumption that Albania is a safe country, because particularly for impoverished rural women, it can be a very dangerous country where there is a very, very high risk of trafficking. But I think something else that's really interesting from this data is that it's not actually a new phenomenon. This risk to women in Albania, it's not a new thing. This dates back to the kind of post-Viet economic disaster that hit Albania.

And even within the UK, Albanian asylum claims have been a significant number since really 2001. I think that started increasing. Yes, it has significantly gone up, but that isn't likely to be due to changes in Albania. I think if we want to understand why that surge is happening now, we need to look at changes in our own country, because it is the UK that's seen this increase in Albanian immigration in a way that other European countries haven't. And I think that it's actually something that might seem very strange to a lot of people, but for some of us, it may have been

quite a predictable phenomenon when we looked at changes being made to our asylum system. And what I mean by that is lately, the government has made some moves to close off the asylum system and make it harder for people to pledge those claims in order to, they intend to deter people from coming in and reduce the inflow and maybe make it more manageable but one thing that that means is the market for smugglers who previously made their money consensually from clients who want well I say clients it's obviously an exploitative arrangement but from asylum claims who are paying asylum claimants who are paying them to bring them to the UK so that they could enter our asylum system. And the government government did say that actually their plan was to undercut the market for smugglers by making it hard for people to claim asylum by telling them they'd be deported to Rwanda, for example.

But that's not how these organized crime groups work. They don't really care what happens to people when they come here. They're not going to just pack up and go home because those people can't claim asylum. They shift the focus of their market from consensual smuggling to coercive trafficking. And so it was quite predictable that we were likely to see an increase in people being brought over not to enter our asylum system, but to enter our undocumented workforce as victims of modern slavery and labour exploitation. And then let's talk about women within that when it comes to trafficking. I mean, is there a particular aspect or something that has happened that we're now hearing that these numbers of Albanian women are so high? Is it something to do with that particular trafficking perhaps more

susceptible than the men? Yeah, so definitely when it comes to Albanians, and it is not insignificant that the Albanian organised crime groups do seem to have taken more of a foothold in northern France, for some of the reasons that I've said. But within the trafficking of Albanians, it's not exclusively women. And also we need to kind of take a more fluid approach necessarily to how we look at trafficking, because while women are more susceptible to being trafficked here for prostitution, and men in Albania are often being brought here to work on the undocumented workforce. That's still often a very exploitative arrangement.

So it's not necessarily that they are victims of modern slavery or they're economic migrants coming here to game our system. But certainly when it does come to women in Albania, there is a high risk that women will be trafficked. It's one of the main source countries really for sex trafficking victims. And if women come here and if their application is accepted, what sort of setup is there in the UK for them? What sort of setup is there in the UK for them? What sort of support? That's a really good question, actually,

because when we look at the data of who is coming forwards or who is being referred as victims of modern slavery, Albanians are one of the largest. It's actually the largest single proportion are Albanians, and 90% of them are being found to have valid claims of being modern slavery victims. However, even then, they still are at risk of being deported back to Albania. So the UK will often deport women who have been trafficked here from Albania back to Albania on the basis that maybe they have family and Albania is officially a safe country.

Now, this isn't necessarily a good thing. Well, it's for very obvious reasons. But often these women have been failed in Albania as victims of abuse before they are trafficked here. It's often women who have been victims of domestic abuse or rape and then become a source of shame to their families are then the most vulnerable to being trafficked, falling into the web of trafficking and being deported, taken out of Albania as victims. So then when they come here and they are found to have gone through this trauma, they may still be at risk of being trafficked back, of sorry, being deported back. Also, this is kind of becoming even more likely now that the government has taken this

focus on Albanians. And actually when Priti Patel was Home Secretary they started implementing the system of fast tracking deportations to Albania and we have had the Home Secretary say that because more Albanians are claiming to be victims of modern slavery they intend to reform the Modern Slavery Act to make it harder for people to access that protection. All of this has the effect of deterring people from coming forward as victims and making it more likely that they will be untacted and they won't be rescued. So I think that it's actually likely, what we're seeing is really an increased risk of vulnerability to those women. I understand. Matilda Mallison, thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour. I do also want to read a statement from the Home Office, which said,

Modern slavery is a barbaric crime. We remain committed to stamping it out. We provide support to thousands of victims each year, as well as working with a wide range of partners to prevent this terrible crime from happening in the first place. It goes on to say, however, it is clear people are abusing our system when they have no right to be here. They also say that is why the Home Secretary has committed to reforming our response to modern slavery to make sure that genuine victims are receiving the support that they need and deserve whilst cracking down on those exploiting our modern slavery system. A story, of course, so much in the news. Thanks so much to Matilda. Now on Woman's Hour, I want to move on to textiles. And the textile designer Althea McNish in particular, she was the first Caribbean designer to achieve international recognition and is one of the UK's most influential and innovative textile designers.

She left Trinidad in 1950 to come to London to study architecture, but she soon switched to textiles and went on to gain a scholarship for a postgraduate degree in textiles at the Royal College of Art. Straight after her degree, her designs were snapped up by Liberty. And there's currently this major retrospective that is taking place.

It's called Colour is Mine. It's at the Whitworth in Manchester on tour from the William Morris Gallery, which is in Walthamstow. Rose Sinclair is here, a lecturer in design education at Goldsmiths, the University of London, and co-curated the exhibition and joins us now. I have to say, for our radio listeners,

in beautiful prints. You're wearing beautiful prints. You're carrying beautiful prints. Yes, and I'm wearing Althea McNish's Sora, or Port of Spain, which is one of the designs reissued by Libertas during the summer so yeah textiles is my world. So I just need to explain it to people so it's kind of a darker not as dark as forest green but then with pink and yellow very bright almost a neon pink yeah that pops out And what does this design say to you?

It just says to me the world of colour that Althea inhabited. She said, why not use colour? Why be afraid of it? And the exhibition is that understanding of her use of colour. This notion that you could, colour was the thing that she said, you can't be afraid of it. One of her quotes is, black because it has power in it. Red she loved, grey was a non-colour. Grey is a non-colour. I agree with her on that one.

I did like one quote that I saw, everything I did I saw through a tropical eye. Yeah. And that is, that becomes the thing that you, when you look at her work, she, she always said that she was homesick. And she explores that through all of her fabrics. As Rose pulls a fabric out of a very bright bag. But this one, this one's called gila and it was by whole traders and what you can see and well no viewers can't see it but you can let's describe it and it's it's um a mixture of oranges purples blues it just brightens up the minute you hold it it's talking to me of definitely a tropical climate yeah but I'm just

thinking about all of that in a very grey England yeah and she was um if you think about it we were living in a post it was post-war new buildings and the designs that she created actually fulfilled this notion of newness. And when she was interviewed by Arthur Liberty in 1957, they recognised that straight away this woman had this extraordinary sense of colour and snapped up her whole collection on the spot. So talented. She designed for Queen Elizabeth's trip to the Caribbean, some of her clothes and the fabric for her temporary residence. I love this. The Bachelor Girls Room for the Influential Ideal Home Show in 1966. But what is her legacy for you?

Her legacy for me is that she opened the doors for, as a black woman. So as a black woman, she was actually influential in saying that this is where you can be I've made a I've made a point of saying that I could open the doors I am there but she's also absent from art from the many textbooks so there are young designers out there that will have never have heard of her and going into the space and seeing her, whether it's the William Morris Gallery or seeing her at the Whitworth, they can see that you can have a career. She had a 60 year career in design. And you met her. And I met her.

What was she like? It was like meeting my own grandmother. She was 93 by the time I met her. And she just had this amazing sparkle in her eyes she once she started talking about textiles it was like you could she was transporting you back and she always carried this allen key in her pocket and you know when you go and do the the when you buy furnishing yes and you have that little key that can put things together can drive you crazy you're putting furniture together but yeah you use this allen key when you set up a screen print when

you're setting up screen printing it's like a flat screen and she would actually carry her allen key when she went to the screen printers because she knew this stuff inside out she was that was her thing her technical acuity was her thing and she would actually go behind some of the technicians and actually just tweak her screens if she didn't think they were quite right when they were getting ready for printing. And whenever she took her Allen key out, she would just start talking about back in the day

and talking about what she was doing or how she felt. And she would just be, you would be transported back 20, 30, 40 years when she started talking about her designs. And, you know, this is about her designs and her career. But as you mentioned, she was a black woman living through those decades. You asked her about whether she'd ever experienced racism. Yeah. And she's just said, I didn't take no notice of it. She said it was there, but I couldn't take any notice of it because it wasn't going to be the thing that would consume my life.

I just loved design and I just had to get on with it. So she could walk into a room of 200 men and be the only woman, but also be the only black woman. And then another woman would join and she said, but then there'd be two women in the room. So she said her dad told her that they are going to see a beautiful woman walk in the room. You just get on with it. And the exhibition, what can we see? You will see her process, her practice, her designs. They are hung in, I call, they are hung in majestic spaces.

So the Whitworth is a massive, it's like going into a big cathedral and being bathed in colour. Somebody said it's like walking into sunshine. Well, isn't that exactly what we need in the winter? Rose Sinclair, thank you so much for coming in and also bringing some sunshine, some tropical sunshine in to us here on Woman's Hour. And thanks also to everyone who got in touch. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. How would you feel if someone told you that day never happened? That you were being paid to make it up?

For people who've lived through terrible disasters, this is a shockingly common experience. I'm Marianna Spring, the BBC's disinformation and social media correspondent. In the BBC Radio 4 podcast, Disaster Trolls, I investigate how people caught up in the Manchester Arena bombing and other UK terror attacks are being targeted with extreme conspiracy theories and abuse. Join me as I uncover evidence of the trolls blighting the lives of people right here in the UK who now want answers and justice. To hear the podcast now, subscribe to Disaster Trolls on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

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