Woman's Hour - The effect of being a victim in high profile cases, Ruchira Gupta, Women Plumbers Women & premature deaths, Story of Ana Obregón

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

We look at the effect of being a victim in high-profile cases, after the BBC suspends a presenter accused of paying a teenager for sexually explicit photos. Nuala speaks to former Chief Prosecutor for the CPS, Nazir Afzal.Ruchira Gupta is a journalist, social justice activist and Emmy-award winning documentary maker who has dedicated her life to fighting for the rights of women and young girls. She is the founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-sex trafficking organisation that has helped thousands of girls and women in India leave a life of forced prostitution. She joins Nuala to discuss her work and her debut novel, ‘I Kick and I Fly’, which tells the story of a 14-year-old girl called Heera as she tries to escape the fate of women in her community who are sold into the sex trade.New research has found a rise in vulnerable women dying prematurely in North East England. The report by the charities Changing Lives and Agenda Alliance says that a woman in North East England in 2021 was 1.7 times more likely to die early because of addiction, suicide or murder by a partner or family member than women in the rest of England and Wales. Nuala discusses the findings with Laura McIntyre, the head of women and children’s services at Changing Lives.According to the ONS, only 2.4% of plumbers are women. Nuala speaks to two female plumbers about why that figure is so low and whether they recommend the job to other women. Nuala speaks to Sovay Berriman, who runs the company PlumbMaid and is based in Cornwall, and Lysette Hacking, who worked as a plumber for six years before becoming a lecturer in plumbing at Calderdale College in Halifax in Yorkshire.In April, the Spanish actress Ana Obregón made headlines when she revealed she was a mother again at 68 years of age. A week later, in a glossy photoshoot for ¡Hola! Magazine, she explained that the baby was actually her granddaughter - born via surrogacy using her dead son’s sperm. Journalist Patricia Clarke, from Tortoise Media, has been following the story for her podcast, 'Modern Family: I Had My Dead Son’s Baby at 68'. She tells Nuala the impact the story has had in Spain.Presented by Nuala McGovern Producer: Louise Corley

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Women in the north-east of England were 1.7 times more likely to have a premature death compared to women living in England and Wales as a whole. We're going to find out this hour why the authors of a new report say the triple shock of COVID, austerity and cost of living are factors in those early deaths. Also, as you might have heard a few moments ago, we have two female plumbers joining us this hour. They're very much in a minority. We'll hear about how and why they chose that job.

And also, you know, how did they find it in such a male dominated industry? It's just 2.4 percent are women plumbers in the plumbing industry. And I want to hear from you. Is there a skill that you have managed to learn to avoid calling out a tradesperson as one of my guests did. Maybe it's plumbing, maybe it's plastering, maybe it's electrical skills. I want to know what you have mastered and has it changed your life? You can text the programme, the number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website. For the WhatsApp message or voice note, that number is 03700 100 444. Maybe you are part of that minority

of 2.4% and would like to get in touch. Also today, the journalist and activist Uchira Gupta on her compelling coming-of-age young adult novel, I Kick and I Fly. We're going to hear about escaping child sex trafficking and the power of kung fu

for bodily autonomy. And we also have the story of the Spanish actor Ana Obregón, who became a mother at 68, but really also a grandmother as the baby, born through surrogacy, was fathered by her dead son. So what does her experience tell us about the future frontiers of fertility? We'll talk about that too. But first, as you will have been hearing in the news bulletin, the BBC presenter accused of paying a teenager £35,000 for sexually explicit photos is facing a new allegation in The Sun newspaper. And it is that he called the young person twice last week after he found out about

the story. The newspaper also says that the family of the individual, who is now 20, are unhappy with some of the corporation's statements. The male presenter, who has not been named, has been suspended. There's been huge speculation throughout the weekend, especially on social media, about who the presenter is. On Woman's Hour today, we are going to look at the effect of being a victim in high-profile cases. The facts in this story still need to be established. But how does a media storm affect a victim as due process takes its course?

Earlier, I spoke to Nazir Afzal, who is the former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West of England and who has worked to bring grooming gangs in Rochdale and Rotherham to justice. Now, of course, we don't know if any offence has been committed yet, but once an allegation becomes public that is making headlines, how does it affect an alleged victim in the middle of it? It is probably the worst thing that you have to deal with in your life.

And we have an enormous amount of untreated PTSD in society, abuse victims of all forms over the last, well, over the decades that we've been keeping tabs. Just imagine what it's like to finally report your abuse. That takes an enormous amount of courage. And when you are finally able to share what you are sharing, you are re-traumatised in the process of sharing what it is that you say has happened, which is why it's quite important actually that the police are involved because the police have

expected protocols in place which will enable you to access services which are provided invariably by non-governmental organizations charities and the like who are able to give you that support if the police aren't involved then it's a bit a bit more uh hit and miss really as to whether or not somebody gets any support but they're in desperate need of it because uh they're trying to unburden themselves of of something that that has been the marker that's defined their recent existence. They've probably never not been believed by others around them whom they trusted. Experiences told me that people feel that actually not being heard is worse than the abuse itself. And when they are finally heard, we have to provide them with what could amount to lifetime support.

Some of the examples of people I've dealt with in the past are still receiving treatment 10, 20 years after the justice was delivered. So we have to recognise that this is not something that will just go away. It's something that requires ongoing counselling and support. And I worry sometimes, Nuala, that we have the right services available in this country. Well, that was to be my question. Are we any better at caring for alleged victims in what can be long, protracted legal cases? And there have been so many high profile cases, of course,

whether it's Rotherham that you will know intimately or Me Too for example. Yeah I don't think well because we haven't of course we haven't I'm really privileged to be patron of nine women-led charities that provide support to victims and women and children in the main but men. And they spend half their lives fundraising because they're in the gap that the government won't fund. So they spend half their lives fundraising. The other 50% of their time providing support, often relying upon volunteers,

often relying upon medics who are giving up their time as well voluntarily. And so we don't have anything like the amount of support available. And just thinking about one figure which always haunts me, the ONS, the Office for National Statistics, in 2021 found that in this country, in this country, at least 3.1 million adults were sexually abused as children. That's one in 20 of us. Now just think of that number and think, do we have anything like the services that we might need for anything like that number? No, we don't. And it's not just about the trial process or the investigative process. You know, when a circus leaves town, are you in the cases that have been done with? They still need support. I can, there are some

of the victims that I've had the privilege of working with 10, 12, 13 years ago who are still in touch and they're still receiving counselling and care. And often they're having to pay for it themselves because it's not available to them free of charge. And that is shocking. It's shameful. Let me come back to the social media age that we are living in at the moment. How big a worry is it protecting the anonymity of the victim now? It's extraordinarily difficult. People, these keyboard warriors think they can say anything they like without accountability, without any worry. They can name individuals.

The social media networks have not accepted their responsibility, which is to police it and regulate it to ensure that these names aren't published. And in the meantime, names are being bandied about like confetti, and that one of them will be true. One of them will be the victim or the alleged victim of this case. One of them will be the alleged suspect in this case. But there'll be so many others who aren't, who will be named, and they will be re-traumatized or made worse by their experience of having been mentioned in these posts. It really is a worry for me that I've looked at it over the weekend people are just going wild and uh and saying stuff without thinking one second about whether or not how would they feel if it was their name plastered over twitter or facebook you know they don't think that they don't think about this

and uh and it's almost like a game for them and it's not a game for any victim i can assure you or even alleged suspects. Remember, they're innocent or proven guilty. And they shouldn't be bandied about in a way that names are being bandied about. And of course, people's names are being given who've got nothing to do with this. And their reputations are being damaged, and their careers ultimately are being damaged too. It is a perfect storm, a nightmare scenario, and one that I'm afraid will only get worse, not just for this particular case, particularly when there could be an alleged victim in the centre of this that has rights to anonymity?

That's the thing people don't understand or need to understand, or maybe they do understand and they ignore it. Now, if you're the victim of sexual abuse, you are given lifetime anonymity. A lesbic victim, you're given lifetime anonymity. A lesbian victim, you're given lifetime anonymity until you yourself decide if you want to allow your name to be published. And anything that might remotely damage that

or in order for people's names to be out there, it's illegal, never mind wrong. And I think, you asked the question, has anything been done? No, why am I having to tweet over the weekend reminding people they'll be bankrupted if they start putting names out there? No, it shouldn't. The publishers, the social media networks, have not accepted what their responsibility is

and they ought to have large groups of people who are looking day in, day out at this stuff, deleting it as soon as it arrives, perhaps farming it off to some regulator who will look at it. The police don't have the resources to sit and watch in every single post that's put out there. But at the end of the day, it comes down to education. We need to educate our citizens, our communities, our own people, that doing this has massive consequences for justice. It has massive consequences for the individuals concerned.

And it's not something that we should be resorting to at all until such time as social media regulators start doing their job. Nazir Afzal speaking to me earlier. The BBC have said that it is working as quickly as possible to establish the facts into the unnamed male presenter allegations. And the BBC is due to meet the Metropolitan Police today to discuss the issue. Let me turn to my next guest. She's a journalist, social justice activist

and Emmy Award winning documentary maker who has dedicated her life to fighting for the rights of women and young girls. Uchira Gupta is the founder of Upne App, Women Worldwide, an anti-sex trafficking organisation that has helped thousands of girls and women in India leave a life of forced prostitution. And she joins me to discuss her first novel, I Kick and I Fly, love the name, which tells the story of a 14-year-old girl, Hira, as she tries to escape the fate of women in her

community who are sold into the sex trade. The book, which Hira says, is based on real-life events she has witnessed as an activist. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you. Good morning. So lovely to have you with us. I want to give our listeners a sense of your central character, Hira, and the life she has been born into, 14 years of age and a member of the so-called Nat community. And this book, I should say, is also geared towards young people. It's young adult fiction. So I have written I Kick and I Fly with young people in mind

because human trafficking is the second largest crime in the world, according to the United Nations. And the majority of those trafficked are very young girls. According to the UN, again, the ages of those who are trafficked are between 9 and 13. And they are all female. So this is something which is happening all around us. The purpose is mainly for sexual exploitation and also sometimes for labor trafficking. And there's an overlap of the two. But we don't talk to people about this. We don't talk to young people about something which happens in their lives.

And we don't talk to young people about what's happening to young people around them. So I wanted to break this culture of silence and share a story through which young people would find clues and answers to something which is going on in their own lives, like bullying, body shaming, sexual abuse, and be able to tell it through a story which is true, based on courage, hope and triumph. And that is what I Kick and I Fly is about. So this is based, Hira is a fictional character, but based on girls and women you have met? Yes. So Hira is a 14-year-old girl who wins a Kung Fu medal. But the story for her to win the Kung Fu medal behind that is really hard

because she comes from a nomadic tribe which is trapped in intergenerational prostitution. That is prostitution passed down from mother to daughter over generations. And she is about to be sold by her own father, who works for the local crime lord, into the sex trade when the cattle fair comes to town. School is her only source of food. And when she's expelled from school, she knows her days are numbered. But a woman's right advocate enrolls her in a Kung Fu program.

And through the practice of Kung Fu, she discovers the power of her body and learns to fight for it. And there's a sentence in my book in I Kick and I Fly, which says self-defense taught me that I have a self worth defending. And that's what the story is about. And it's based on the truth. Because in my own NGO, Apne Aap, I did have girls just like Heera, who were homeless, who were hungry, who were going to school, dropping out. And I wasn't sure if they would finish school, because the traffickers would jump over our school walls to kidnap the girls and beat up the mother. I mean, that is shocking. And I began writing I Kick and I Fly when a girl just like Heera won a gold medal in karate because I thought she's done it.

You know, I need to share this with the whole world. A couple of issues that I think for my listeners, you say prostitution, you do not call it sex work very explicitly. Do you want to explain why? Because the inherent body invasion which happens in prostitution is something which cannot be legislated away. So if I look at it from the labour movement perspective, it can't be dignified as labour because it's inherently harmful. Body invasion has both physical and mental health consequences, which last a lifetime.

But you're talking about all sex work for using that term. Yes, that's right. I'm using it for all of anyone whose body is invaded, whether it's paid for or unpaid for. The physical and the mental health consequences cannot go away, even if we give it a different name. So for me, it is sexual exploitation. And for some others that may be listening, may have a different take on that. But what we are concentrating on the book is trafficking, which is when young girls and women, but particularly young girls, are trafficked to different parts of the globe. And I think that about your book, it's a small village in India. We're also talking about New York, where we can see these lines of where girls are sent around the world against their will. But you talk about the Kung Fu and Karate. You do believe in martial arts as a way to

experience bodily autonomy. I absolutely believe in Kung Fu, Karate, Martial Arts as a way to experience bodily autonomy, because not only does it teach us balance and flexibility, but it uses different parts of our body, including the mind and the heart, because you need to harmonize the energy within with the energy outside. And the philosophy of martial arts, especially Bruce Lee, who I quote extensively in my book, is about centering your chi. And that is what my character Hira constantly tries to do through the book is that, you know, she's impulsive, she's a street fighter, and she always loses the battle because she jumps in. And this woman's right advocate who teaches her Kung Fu slowly teaches her how to control herself and channelize her energy. So this is very important.

And I think that's why martial arts for me is very important. You know, there's so many unsavory characters you talk about in your real life experience of people climbing over the walls to try and access these girls. Baba, for example, the father of Hera comes across as, I don't know, what would we call him? He's definitely not up for father of the year, as are many of the others that are there, that we come across fathers that are ready to sell their daughters into prostitution.

But how do you begin to unpick such deeply entrenched views in your work? I knew many of these characters close up because of my own work with my NGO for 20 years now, Apne Up. And I used to meet fathers who were willing to sell their daughters. They were so dehumanized that they didn't even see the woman crying or the child crying. And yet, you know, when I did manage to save their daughters, keep them in school, suddenly they were proud. So I used to think, are these multiple people living in the body of one person? And I began to understand the damage that poverty and oppression does to human beings, and especially if it goes on for years and years and years and generationally. So I saw this in characters like Baba, Hira's father, who wants

to sell his own daughter and then suddenly goes and saves her from a kidnapper later in the book. Now, the thing is that it doesn't mean that I don't want Baba to be held accountable. I do want him to be held accountable. And I don't want impunity for any of the people who are selling girls, because after all, the sale of human beings is both illegal and immoral. And our bodies belong to us and nobody else. So the kind of punishment for the different kinds of people who are involved in the sex trade, who are traffickers, has to vary according to what level in the hierarchy they are. Are they the cold and callous organized criminals who are just turning a profit?

Are they the sex buyers who want very young girls, which is very common? Or are they people living in these very deeply entrenched, oppressive systems who can't even imagine a life outside this? And there's a dialogue, I don't know if you remember, between Baba and Hira, his daughter and the father, where she says, why did you want to sell me, Baba? And why were you always so hard to me? And he says, because why did you want to sell me baba and why were you always so hard to me and he says because i knew i had to sell you that i was harshest with you because i thought if i have to let you go it was like a foregone conclusion he had other children he needed to support and they decided she's a young girl she would be the person who would then be

able to support really the rest of the family who were starving and almost homeless. Exactly. And that's when she asks him a question, which is an unanswerable question, right? She says, but why me? Yes, I loved her spirit in it and the other girls and women that were around her. It did come across in the book to me like the people that were perpetrating sex trafficking were the men, while the women were trying to get the girls out of it or try and find another way. Is that what you see in real life? Are there women also involved in the sex trafficking industry? There are women involved as brothel managers and sometimes even as pimps in the sex industry. But they are survivors of sex trafficking who have

aged out and they are the ones who sort of become people who help the big organized crime rings. That's what I've seen. They don't do it out of choice, but they do it out of survival strategies. And so very often we'll see the face of a woman in front in the trafficking rings, but the real people making the money and turning a profit are mostly men. And that's I've seen something again and again. What about that? Just coming back to, as I mentioned, the book is set in India, it's set in the United States. But is there a link between the two when it comes to sex trafficking that you've looked at? Yeah, international crime rings operate across countries.

And so there's also a link to UK or US or to Europe. And girls from India, Nepal, Bangladesh are trafficked across the world. And they're taken on flights, they're taken on ships, they're even taken inside containers which are dumped inside ships and suddenly they'll find themselves in Hong Kong. And then from Hong Kong, they'll be in Los Angeles. And, you know, suddenly they'll come out of the container, looking at the blue industry and locked up in a brothel. So I wanted to show the universal nature of sex trafficking, how it operates across the world. And no country is immune from it. No girl in any country is immune from it. No boy even now, and especially, you know, sexual minorities, because they seem to become more vulnerable. And the way I define those who are the most vulnerable to human trafficking, I call them the last girls, the last girl,

because to me, she is the most vulnerable of human beings, because she's poor, she's female, she's a teenager. And on top of that, she could also be from an indigenous nomadic group or a refugee or from in America, of course, black or Native American. So I think also with the book, what struck me is food, that we realize so many of these decisions are being taken horrific decisions, because of hunger, because of just not having enough to eat on a daily basis. That's absolutely right. And that's why when you asked me that, why don't I use the term sex work, I use prostituted woman or prostituted child, because sometimes it's individuals who force women and girls into such a situation,

but sometimes it's circumstances. And the circumstances are very often hunger, unstable housing, you know, even controlled by people who are terrible people, right? So hunger is very, very central to survival strategies. And that is why I always say prostitution is absence of choice. It's not a real choice. You have met with many in the upper echelons. Let's go back to the United States, Hillary Clinton, for example. But do you feel there is movement on this?

Because what you illustrate in the book is that it's obviously so interlinked globally. You can't stamp it out in one spot without seeing exactly where it travels to in another part of the world. Absolutely. I see there is movement and which is why I have hope. And I have hope because I've succeeded girl by girl through my NGO, get them into schools and into college. And now they have jobs. And the red light area in Bihar, in Forbisganj that I describe in my book, it used to have 72 brothels and now it just has two. And I think the last two are also ending because I heard two weeks ago that they have signed a pledge. The entire lane has signed a pledge. And how did you change the attitudes there, though? You know, I've described it in my book, but it was through starting martial arts

classes, you know. So, for example, when a girl came home with a gold medal, it suddenly gave pride to the community, to the school, to the village that these communities are worth more than just prostitution. So it changed things. Also by providing food. As you mentioned, hunger was such an important thing. So I made sure my community center had food. The women's hostel had food. I also tried to link the women to other livelihoods so that they would not be dependent

just on listening to these terrible organized criminal networks saying this is your only source or the only way out of poverty. But also I work law by law. So I went to the United Nations and showed my documentary for which I'd won an Emmy. And I also, and I went to the US Congress, and I've even testified against pornography to your UK parliament. And all the while asking for an end to the impunity that those who use these little girls and buy and sell them get away with. I want them to be punished. I want them to get justice because that is the biggest deterrent. Before I let you go, are you never afraid? Because these are pretty nasty people.

I am afraid, but something in the moment helps me overcome fear, the rage and the anger and the determination that I've got to do something about it. So once I had a knife pulled out at my throat and I was inside this tiny room in a brothel in Mumbai with iron bars in the window and one exit where this man was standing and blocking the exit. And I thought, I'm cooked. And suddenly there were these women I was interviewing. They surrounded me and they said that if you want to kill her, you've got to kill us first. And that's how I escaped. And, you know, that's when I realized the power of women's collective action in very practical terms. And that has stayed with me all my life as an activist. And here I am also like, see, Women's Hour. So the radio program that I am on is talking about women's issues. And this is the connection and the power of my story that now it's getting into your story. And it'll get into the homes of so many women who are listening in. Right.

And so women's collective action. And with my book, I Kick and I Fly, that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to pass on the baton to everybody who's listening to the program that join the movement and let's create a world in which no child is bought or sold. It is compelling, a page turner. I loved it and very uplifting as well, I should say. I know we're talking about these very difficult issues, but thank you so much, Ruchira Gupta, for coming in. Thank you. Now, let me turn to new research that is out today.

It has found a rise in vulnerable women dying prematurely in the North East of England. The report by the charities Changing Lives and Agenda Alliance says that a woman

in the North East in 2021 was 1.7 times more likely to die early because of addiction, suicide or murder by a partner or family member than women in the rest of England and Wales. To discuss, I'm joined now by Laura McIntyre, the head of Women and Children's Services at Changing Lives. I will say currently on a train if the line drops out a little bit, because on the way to the House of Commons, I believe, for the launch of the report. Welcome, Laura.

Hello. Hello. I hope you can hear us okay. We can indeed. Well let me get to what age are we talking about here? I said dying prematurely but give me the figures Yeah so Changing Lives also did a bit of research running alongside this where we worked

we looked at the women who had died across our services nationally and from 2019 up until 2021 the age range was around 37 years old so women aren't reaching their 40th birthday which is one of the most shocking statistics that was shared throughout this report and that's really what we mean about premature death, women not reaching that age range. And what led you to do this research and how did you do it? Yeah, so because of austerity across the North East region and, you know, seeing that reduction in public funding across the local authorities across Tyne and Weir in Northumberland we see a damaging impact across our communities and on women's lives women just not being able to meet their basic needs and being driven further

and further into poverty we also seen and still do see the impact of COVID-19 around how women access support and how support is offered to women. And again, the cost of living crisis, which is just an ongoing issue for all regions, but especially across the North East. So I think those three things together, which we've called the toxic trio, austerity, COVID-19 and the cost of living have been the biggest things for us to do,

this piece of research, to try and really understand what it means for women in the North East. The study I was reading, Laura, involved 18 in-depth interviews and 47 survey responses. There were focus groups and various meetings with affected women.

But some might say that's a very small study. And can you be accurate that this is something that's happening more widespread? Yeah, you could argue that the numbers are small. But I think the stories and the narrative and the experiences of those women's lives are really, really important to listen to. We work with a range of stakeholders across the area on an ongoing community of practice where services were routinely telling us what it felt like for them in terms of delivering the services and it was an ongoing piece of work where it wasn't just a one moment conversation or a one moment meeting it was an ongoing community of practice and really directed by women who have lived experience, who've been through the services themselves. And what do they tell you, Laura? And I know you refer to vulnerable women. First,

I'd like to know what you mean by that and also what is their lived experience? Yeah, well, in this report, we talk about women with multiple unmet needs. And often the other narrative that often is used is women who have complex needs. And we've tried not to use that narrative because it often creates a bit of a victim blaming stance where women are too complex to work with.

But actually, in reality reality what we're saying is their needs have not been met multiple needs have not been met and the types of experiences that we're talking about are women who've experienced trauma throughout their life not just as an adult but also in childhood where they've been routinely missed and often seen as the complex or you know didn't engage woman um what we see is women who are in and out of the justice system for committing real like lower level offending where alternatives to custody could be offered to really understand the route to offending. We also experience working with women who've had multiple children removed from their care and women feeling like failed a mom um so could you repeat that laura sorry people feeling like yeah people feeling like um

women feeling like failed parents are not good enough to be a mom because of repeated child removal and services um needing to take a you know, trauma-informed approach around how can we make these women be great mams? Because they are great mams, but actually they've been experiencing quite a lot of abuse and trauma and are victims and we need to use that lens rather than unfit mams. I understand.

So these are some of the women and then you have gone on to see some that have sadly died prematurely. What are your recommendations? Because you're on the way to the House of Commons and on the train at the moment for our listeners who are just tuning in. I mean, what are you hoping to achieve? Yeah, so we've got national recommendations in this study, but we've also got some local recommendations, which is great. And we're going to really use those as part of the leveling up agenda and really thinking about the devolution deal as well as part of the process

but nationally we're looking and we want the government to look more deeper at prevention interventions so how we can prevent women from getting to this point and recognizing risk and vulnerability at a much earlier stage we also want the government to have a statutory definition around what trauma responsive care really means. So often that word can be used really, you know, just as a word and have no meaning behind it. But we want all professionals and practitioners to really have a strong narrative and delivery model

on what that means for women with multiple unmet needs. What does it mean? What would you like it to mean? I would like it to mean? I would like it to mean being kind to women, not judging women, not closing your door and not using that really old-fashioned approach around they've had three appointments we'll have to close the case, don't send letters out to a woman's address when she might be repeatedly moving around the area or has a different telephone number think creatively think beyond

those systems and how the services can reach for women and not what works for the service um and yeah that's that's just i guess a really brief overview but generally and using consistent approaches the other um couple of about how we work together around the combined authorities. So working across the six local authority areas and using the same approaches, making sure that we all have a consistent way of working for when women might be transient in their way of living, but also that we get it right as a region. And also co-production um and again what we really mean by this is that

women who have those experience direct the service and models all the way we don't just create our own models and ways of work and we're absolutely listening to women all the way through and women are part of our um board meetings community of practice meetings delivering the work through and through so really um by women for women approaches and then sorry the national the final national recommendation is around long term sustainable funding for services in the region um you know and really we want to influence that leveling up agenda um where we're not getting one year funding bids to do this critical work it needs to be much longer than that. How longer do you want?

How much longer do you want? Five years. Five years. Three, five years, yeah. Let's see the response that you get on your way to the House of Commons. Laura McIntyre, Head of Women and Children Services at Changing Lives. Thanks so much for joining us. And I'm delighted that the line stayed up as well on the train journey as she makes her way.

Now, an awful lot of you have been getting in touch about my next item must be maybe you spent a fortune on a plumber and you thought you would just love to be able to do the job yourself apparently so with the messages that are coming in um i'm going to speak to two women who took the plunge and became plumbers there aren't many women who have opted for the same career as them. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, 15% of the construction industry workforce is female. Okay, that's low. But then look at plumbing and that drops to just 2.4%. So why is that figure so low low and do those already doing the job recommend it to other women well i'm joined by a survey berry man who joins who runs the company excuse me plum made and is

based in cornwall she trained to be a plumber in her mid-40s i'm also joined by lizette hacker lizette worked as a plumber for six years before becoming a lecturer in plumbing at calderdale college in halifax in yorkshire Great to have both of you with us. So, Vei, why did you train to be a plumber? Hi. So, a few things led for me to start training. I'd been an artist for about 20 years and austerity, again, funding cuts impacted that.

Also, I live in Curnow, Cornwall, where it can be hard to learn a living earn a living and I wanted to work in an area that could have direct social impact. I'd experienced some terrible plumbing in my own home, flooding, unsafe appliances and yeah I kind of thought hang on a minute I think I could very likely do better than that so I looked into training courses at my local FE college. And went to it and how do you like it? I love it it's great it's full of practical problem solving it's really fulfilling people like are happy to see you when you turn up and they pay you for the work you do which is always a

bonus i think you think that's different to perhaps some of the work you're commissioned to do as an artist uh yeah i mean it's quite traditional within uh visual arts you can you can wait for your invoices to be paid for quite a long time but with the whole other campaign about that but with plumbing they pay and they want you back uh i'm sure let's say what about you so you're hearing a little bit of surveys experience there what was your path um so i did my apprenticeship with my dad um i got into it really because my dad used to take us at the summer holidays and i really enjoyed it it was something so fulfilling about coming back after a long manual day and you just you feel like you've done a good job. And so I really enjoyed it and went down a different path and thought, no, it's not for me.

So I came back to plumbing when I was 20, did my apprenticeship with my dad, stayed on site with him for a bit. He didn't have enough work for the both of us, so I ended up being made redundant. When I was applying for jobs, I was really struggling until I changed my name to Elle Hacking rather than Lissette Hacking. Oh, my goodness. And that was how I got into education, really. My other half said, well, why don't you go into education and change it from that route? Make it easier for other women.

So that's how I ended up here. So did you encounter, you obviously encountered sexism with the name. Did you encounter it when you were working? Rarely. There were a few occasions. So I knocked on a customer's door and said, I'm here to change your tap, your landlord sent me. And the homeowner laughed and shut the door in my face. So I knocked on the door again and said, no, I'm really here, the landlord sent me.

And again, he closed the door in my face. So we had to ring the landlord. He was so apologetic afterwards. And I believe his missus told him off a little bit as well. What about that? Have you encountered any challenges like that? Yeah, not not quite, because I'm self-employed and I've been self-employed all the way through. Kind of people know who they're getting but I have had um situations where um maybe yeah like a male female couple the females invited me to come along to do price up for like a heating system job or whatever and when I get there it's just the guy and he's not uh that welcoming or that convinced that I can do the job and you can you can pick up the vibe and you just know like that I I don't want to do this job actually and

you know there's plenty of other customers who really want me to be there and I imagine you can pick and choose because we all know it's quite difficult to get a plumber yes definitely but I've got to say like this is like stop cocks um have done some research around women in the industry and they say that an awful lot of women are self-employed and this in itself was like someone like me I love that but it's a problem lots of women don't want to be self-employed they want to get a salary job where they're working for someone else for a larger company and um like I was turned down by lots of people when I was looking for training work and other plumbers I know were were as well turned away um there's a company called your energy your way which is specifically sort of aiming to challenge

that to offer training opportunities um for women and make a more comfortable environment for them to work in do you see more is that more women coming in to to your courses on plumbing yeah definitely so i've been working here a while now and i've seen a steady increase so we've got four or five female students at the moment two of which are apprentices but out of how many um out of 70 right so we're still a long way to go but it it's definitely improving you know we were asking our listeners you know did they ever decide just to get trained up in a in a trade and do it themselves? Do you want to hear some that are coming in? Let me see. Here's Sonia. I've done a two day plumbing course as I want to be able to change taps.

I'm in my 60s. Alison says since 2021, I've learned and finished how to mix different types of cement and when to use them, how to lay a damp proof membrane, lay floor insulation, lay under floor heating install an mvhr system i don't know what that is floor tiling it's using two types of decoupling layer and what i really learned many traditional so-called unskilled women's jobs sewing and cooking are more skilled than most traditional skilled jobs and also alison has learned i can do anything what about that lizette i can see you're smiling. I just, there's something so empowering about being able to just fix something yourself or, you know, not having to wait for someone else to do it for you.

I'm starting a women's DIY course at college, which is something I've been pushing for for a while. Just because I want other people to feel that feeling. You've got a dripping tap. Well, you go and fix it. You can do that. There's nothing stopping you. Would you like to hear another few?

This is on behalf of my mum who is 95 now. Back in the 1970s, she mastered the basics of window glazing. This is because my brother who's severely autistic kept breaking windows and it would have cost a fortune to have a tradesman keep repairing and replacing our smashed panes. Well done, Mum, don't you think? Yes, I do think. Here's another. As a soon

to be 66-year-old single lady, I recently mended my constantly running toilet by looking on YouTube, taking apart the flush pipework in the cistern, cleaning off the limescale that had blocked the seal and putting it all back together. And it works. I am so pleased, she says.

So, what do you think when you hear these women that have decided to, you know, take the bull by the horns and fix it? I love it. I absolutely love it. Yeah, there's so much information out there. Like YouTube is full of videos. Like Mumsnet is full of like practical problem solving it's really satisfying

there's a lot of sort of social dialogue about women being um particularly great at what's called softer skills but i mean women as one of the listeners said there have loads of really practical problem solving abilities and practical school skills. One of my my tagline is good with tools, you know, like love, love using some tools. What about this one? I am a lady decorator and I've been doing this job for the last 10 years. I'm now 60 years old and love the job and intend to continue for as long as I am able. Widows especially like having women as they feel safer and don't like having strange men in the house.

And I like to chat as I work so it becomes company for them and many say they will miss me when the job is finished. Many of my customers have become friends and I never need to advertise as I'm always busy. It's a great job if you don't mind hard work. And that's from Janet. What about that one, Sophie? Yeah, I think this is a particular

particular sort of area where having women not just in plumbing and heating but in loads of different trades is these kind of sort of mundane practical vital jobs are often understood to be just male dominated areas and there's a whole host of people who do feel more comfortable with a a different gender coming in and doing that work for them um have you found that very much very much i have a range like customers who have perhaps experienced domestic violence or customers who identify as part of a queer community who feel much more comfortable with a non-traditional trades person coming into the home. Morning, says Kate from Dorset.

I am a female electrician. I've been at it for 28 years. I've had a wonderful varied career. I would highly recommend a trade as a career. What about that, Lizette? Would you recommend it? Definitely. I think when you look at the traditional jobs that women are sort of funneled into, the minimum wage jobs, the care jobs, whereas there's this whole avenue of construction that's well paid. It's really rewarding to just do that work and you feel empowered because you've done that. It's something that traditionally you're told you can't do, but absolutely you can. There's nothing that's stopped me so far. Here's another one from Debbie I went to college for four years at the age of 40 to study site carpentry and furniture making I did this as I was a single mother and had a loft

extension and had the worst builder I knew he was trying to pull the wool over my eyes I knew he was but I couldn't explain why as I didn't have the knowledge it was the worst nine months and I thought this will never happen again and it hasn't. So many people getting in touch I have to say with what they are able to do and I am very impressed. Sophie Berryman and Lisette Hacker

thank you both so much for sharing your expertise and let's see if in fact the numbers go up more than 2.4% in the plumbing industry in the UK. 84844 if you want to add your story. Right. In April, the Spanish actress Ana Obregon made headlines all over the world

when she revealed she was a mother again at the age of 68. A week later, the story got even bigger. In a glossy Photoshop for Hola magazine magazine she revealed that the baby was actually her granddaughter born via surrogacy using a donor egg and her dead son's sperm. The news caused a national debate in Spain. The journalist Patricia

Clark has looked into the story for Tortoise Media and her podcast Modern Family, I Had My Dead Son's Baby at 68 comes out today and Patricia joins me in the studio to discuss the impact that Anna's decision has has had welcome Patricia um she's a huge star in Spain really and isn't she just to put it in context for our UK listeners she is I mean it's hard to overstate how famous she is there I grew up there and she is like our Kim Kardashian if Kim Kardashian

was 68 she's a TV presenter she's an actress She was on a daily sitcom that she's really, really famous. So let's talk about it. Because at first I remember reading she became a mother at 68. But then as I mentioned, her dead son was also involved in it. But what are the specifics of what happened? So the story I came across a story in two parts. Firstly, she announced, well, it came out on the cover of Ola magazine that she had had a child via surrogate at 68. At that point, there was a huge national debate about it. People were upset about her age, and they were upset about the fact that she'd used a surrogate because surrogacy is illegal in Spain, all forms of it. And then a week later, this whole debate is kicking off and she's on the cover of Ola again.

And she announced that it was her son's child. So just to be clear, she is the legal mother, but the biological grandmother. And she used a donor egg. So it's her son's sperm and a donor egg. And at that point, the story morphed again. I was quite interested in what it meant, not only because of the surrogacy debate and her age, but also these fertility technologies, the fact that you can have a child posthumously is really, really interesting.

I did see that one Spanish minister said surrogate pregnancies were a form of violence against women. Would that be a sentiment echoed in Spain? Certainly a lot of people feel that way. It's actually the way it's categorised in Spanish law is under a form of violence against women, which is why she said that. It's worth noting that this story came out just before a local election. So I think people latched onto it because Ana is so famous as a way of kicking off this debate in a way of sort of getting their voices out there. It was a bit of political theatre as well. It was very sad. Her son died from cancer at the age of 27. Her only son and she was grief stricken, as I understand, so deeply before this birth, as of course she would be. But what about the use of posthumous use of sperm and eggs? What did you find out? Yeah, this is really, really interesting. I was quite surprised by how how lax the law is in this area. So in certain countries, in certain countries, I should

say, but you'd be surprised how many. So we spoke to several doctors in Miami and California, these are states in the US where surrogacy is legal. And several of them had had carried out treatments in which the parent had died. Now, in some cases, they had signed a consent form, making it clear that this is what they wanted to be done with their gametes after they had died. But not always. And that was what really surprised me. In some cases, there were people who had passed away and their partners or in some cases, their parents had said that they'd argued that they should be able to use the sperm and that had been allowed, the sperm or the egg, I should say. And what was most interesting of all is that in some cases, the sperm had been extracted after the person's death. So some people didn't have to consent to have their sperm used.

And in some cases, they didn't even have to show intent necessarily. There was a 2019 case of a cadet who very tragically died in a ski accident and who had their sperm extracted by his parents after his death for use. Yes. And I know there were a number of examples that came up with men that were in the military, for example, in various countries. In the UK, the Human Fertilization and Embryology Act says it's only possible where there's written signed consent to post-death use from the person who has died. So obviously every country is different. But do you think you're seeing that the laws perhaps are not able to keep pace with the desire for assisted reproduction. Certainly. And I would add that in 2022, there was a High Court case last year in the UK of a man who was able to use an embryo that he had conceived with his wife. She passed away and he was still able to use that embryo here in the UK.

So the law is really still catching up when it comes to these cases. We've got, you know, in the months I've been working on the story, they've announced that they've created a synthetic embryo. They've had two male mice, which they created a child mouse out of. There's been amazing advances in reproductive technology, and we're still figuring out what the law should be. What I thought was interesting is Naomi Campbell announced that she is having another child at 53.

We don't know whether it's through surrogacy. She doesn't go into details. But what I thought was interesting about it this time, because she announced it, I think, 50 with her first child, that there was very little fanfare this time compared to the first time. And that now we're talking about Anna Obregón at 68. And I think the question which you raise in your podcast is, at what age is it too old to be a mother? And is that age different to what it is to be a father?

Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, when we started working on this podcast, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino both denounced that they'd had children at 79 and 83 respectively. And some people sort of reacted to that with a bit of unease. But when Anna announced her pregnancy, there was real shock. And I do think, obviously, men can have children biologically much later than women. But I do think that there's an element as well of people feeling like the woman should be the caregiver. And Anna, as a single woman, having a child at 68 is breaking away from that convention. De Niro and Pacino both have younger wives who can take care of the child after they're gone. What's going to happen with Anna? I do think that there is a social response as well as a biological response.

There was an interesting comment from one of the doctors you spoke to that there was an unwritten rule that when they were treating couples that the combined age should not be over 100. Yes, and that's actually still the rule for adoption, certainly in Spain. I'm not sure what the rules are in this country. The combined age? I hadn't thought about that before. Yeah, it's really, really interesting. But I think they were saying, a lot of the doctors we spoke to said,

you know what, that doesn't matter anymore. We're happy to carry out the treatment. In Anna's case, she's a very wealthy woman who has plenty of resources to take care of this child. And she will have signed a consent form making it clear who will take care of her child when she's gone. So they'll carry out those treatments regardless of the unwritten rules. And I suppose also that is another issue that is raised when it comes to fertility is what wealthy people are able to achieve compared to others. Yeah, that's the big question in this podcast, I think, is that regardless of the law in Spain,

regardless of the furore around surrogacy, which kicked off, Anna can go and have these treatments all above board so long as she can afford to do so. In the US, surrogacy is on average $120,000. Anna is worth $33 million. So, you know, wealthy people can move around the law, I guess. I know this conversation has continued in Spain. And her being, of course, such a figure. She was also at a press conference. I think you got to ask her a question, but you weren't that happy with the answer. So yes, I tried to have I wanted to have a one on one interview with her.

Unfortunately, that wasn't possible. So I traveled to her press conference for a memoir, which she's written about her son's cancer journey. And I asked her what she said to people who, you know, people have used really strong language. They've said she's bought a baby. How does she respond to that? And she said, when you bury your only son, anything, any criticisms you receive feel like, in Spanish, you use the word cosquillas, it means tickles. And it's also quite strange in Spanish, but I think she basically means she can laugh it off. It's not, it's not important. And that it doesn't affect her. But do you think, in our last minute, the fact that she has done this might in any way influence public opinion when it comes to surrogacy in Spain, which is

illegal? Do you know what, despite the negative backlash that Anna received, I think ultimately, the fact that she appeared on Hola magazine, it's the second most read magazine in the country. It's what people aspire to, they aspire to be in Hola magazine and to lead these lives. And so despite the anger, I think actually, it was a sort of tacit seal of approval. This is something that people who are wealthy can do, they can access these technologies. So in any way, I think she might have shifted the dial towards what is socially acceptable,

which I think is very interesting. It is indeed. Thank you so much for speaking to us. Thank you for having me. You're so welcome. Journalist Patricia Clark, and she's been looking into that story for Turtide's Media, and the podcast is called Modern Family.

I Had My Dead Son's baby at 68. Do join me tomorrow. I'll be talking to the comedian Rosie Jones who has cerebral palsy. She's made a personal documentary about the online abuse and ableist slurs that she and other people with a disability are subjected to.

So I do hope you'll join me for that. I want to read some more of your comments that have been coming in. I'm 55, started doing my own DIY after being constantly let down by tradesmen, either by not turning up or doing a bad job. I thought I can do better than that. So I started tackling everything that needed doing around my home and there's nothing I won't try. I've installed extractor fans, showers, decorated my whole house, flooring, wallpaper, plastering, tiling. There is nothing I won't do.

I have even started doing jobs for my neighbours. Maybe I could start a new career. Donna, maybe you could. Thanks for listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Ince.

Welcome to this very professional trail for the infinite monkey cage summer run and this is just gonna be information we will be talking about wasps bees super volcanoes mushrooms and sharks ancient dna and are we what we eat and we'll be joined by Harry Hill. Chris Van Tilleken. Ben Wilbond. Rachel Parris. Dr. Nair. And Professor Nair. They're very good.

The new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. If you're in the UK, you can hear it all. Right now on BBC Sounds. Do you know what? We nearly did a really professional trailer, but then that last bit is a spoil tip. I think we're going to get told off again. Yeah. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

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