Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Baroness Theresa May, Edna O’Brien documentary, Girl choristers

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

The Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking has issued a "wake-up call" to the world to act on what they deem "one of the most pervasive human rights issues of our time." The report makes several recommendations specifically for women and girls who make up 54% of the estimated 50 million people trapped in slavery around the world. They are more frequently targeted for forced marriage, sexual exploitation, and domestic labour. Nearly one in four victims are children. To discuss the topic Nuala McGovern was joined by the former Prime Minister, Baroness Theresa May and Nasreen Sheikh, who is a survivor of modern slavery.The Irish writer Edna O'Brien died last year at the age of 93. The last person to be granted an interview with her was the documentary maker Sinéad O’Shea. Her new film Blue Road weaves those final interviews with archive and readings from Edna’s own diaries to tell the story of her extraordinary life.For the first time in its 900 year history, girls will be singing in the choir at St Paul’s Cathedral on Easter Sunday. We hear from some of the girl choristers, and Kylie Pentelow speaks to Dr Katherine Hambridge, Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Durham and Carris Jones, Vicar Choral and Girls' Voices Project Manager at St Paul's Cathedral about the significance of this moment.Presenter: Kylie Pentelow Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Emma Pearce

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. On Monday, six women blasted into space with Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by the billionaire Jeff Bezos. The women, including pop star Katy Perry, spent a total of 11 minutes in space. So what was the point of it all? I'm William Lee Adams. On What in the World, we're going to find out. What in the World is a daily podcast from the BBC World Service. We go in depth on a different topic every weekday in under 15 minutes. That's longer than their spaceflight. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to a selection of standout moments from the week.

Coming up today, the former Prime Minister Theresa May, who is now Baroness May, is the chair of the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. She joins us to discuss the findings of the commission's recent report, calling modern slavery the greatest human rights issue of our time. Also the director Sinead O'Shea on her documentary Blue Road about the groundbreaking and rule-breaking Irish author Edna O'Brien. And we'll hear from the girl choristers of St Paul's Cathedral, who, for the first time in its 900-year history, will be singing in the choir this Easter.

Lots to discuss, so let's get started. If we fail, millions of lives are at risk, the words of a report out by the Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. The group, chaired by the former Prime Minister, Baroness Theresa May, has issued a wake-up call to the world to take action on what they deem one of the most pervasive human rights issues of our time, modern slavery and human trafficking. The United Nations has set a goal of eliminating modern slavery by 2030, a target the former Prime Minister says is in danger of not being met, as the issue, she says, has dropped down the international agenda.

Now the report makes several recommendations specifically for women and girls who make up 54% of the estimated 50 million people trapped in slavery around the world. They are more frequently targeted for forced marriage, sexual exploitation and domestic labour. Nearly one in four victims are children. When Nuala was joined by the former Prime Minister, the first woman to hold two offices of state, Baroness Theresa May, who is now chair of the Global Commission, and also by Nazarene Shaikh, who is a survivor of modern slavery and the founder of Local Women's Handicrafts, a social business venture in Nepal that empowers marginalised women through traditional craftsmanship.

She began by asking Baroness May about the issues she wants to highlight and why now. Well the main aim of the Global Commission is to raise the issue of modern slavery and human trafficking up the political agenda. Ten years ago when I was Home Secretary I launched, introduced the Modern Slavery Act here in the UK which was groundbreaking legislation at the time. As Prime Minister, I then launched a call to action at the United Nations. There was a sense, politically, that people saw this as a key issue to address, hence the United Nations goal in the Sustainable Development Goals to eliminate modern slavery and human trafficking by 2030.

But sadly, in recent years, we've seen the issue fall down the political agenda. So we want to raise that momentum. We want to say to governments, you need to act on this issue and you need to act now. Because I think it would shock the listeners that there are 50 million people, and that's an estimate, it may be more, 50 million people trapped in slavery around the world today. Why do you think it fell down the agenda? I think there were other issues that came up the political agenda. Governments often find it difficult to focus on lots of things at the same time and so issues like climate change, conflict, Covid of course, but all of those issues actually

exacerbated vulnerability to modern slavery and human trafficking. And one of the messages of our report to governments is that as you deal with those issues, don't deal with them individually. Think of their implications for modern slavery and human trafficking and deal with these issues holistically. I want to bring in Nazrin. Nazrin, you're very welcome to the programme. You advocate now for women in this position and you also have a personal experience of it. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about the damage that can be caused by modern slavery for women. Definitely as a survivor of child labour and forced marriage, it takes away the dignity from within and outside.

And it takes a lot to survive and come through this. And the fact that 54% of the total 50 million of the modern slavery is women. And so they play a huge role in contributing on this suffering. And the fact that survivors, I feel like, they have the absolutely understanding that this is not just about the few people who are doing wrong thing. This is a systematic issues that runs through every layer of our global supply chains.

And we know this because we have moved through those supply chains. Ourself, we have seen it as an eye witness from the inside and the crisis that demands comprehensive prevention and protections measure to mitigate its impact and reduce this likelihood. What would you have liked to have seen perhaps for somebody who is in your situation? What could have helped? You mentioned forced marriage, for example, perhaps that first step in the path that you went on when it comes to modern slavery.

There are so many things that could help. One of the things that I feel like the women are the largest impacted by the modern slavery and they are the most influential consumers in the global economy and this movement really calls on all women and their families to take a stand and by leveraging our purchasing power we really can demand transparency and ethical responsibility from corporations and ensuring that the clothes that we wear like the food that we eat, the jewelry that we cherish and even the materials that build our homes are free from forced labor.

If people knew what are they consuming, they would not contribute in child labor and forced marriage. And the fact that 28 million people right now, currently as I'm speaking, are in forced labor. And also at the same time, 22 million girls are being forced marriage. And I call it, this is basically to preserve the forced labor because these young girls

in these undocumented rural village where I come from, which is on the border of India and Nepal, young girls are being forced into marriage. They have absolutely no rights. So as consumers, we do have an opportunities to ask questions. It's really interesting point you bring up there Nazreen, because it brings it back, instead of being this hidden in plain sight, you're talking about the things that we wear,

that we buy, that we consume. And I'll throw that back to you, Baroness May. Nazreen brings up an important point there. I think she's looking for the individuals as well as corporations and global entities but the individual to make a difference. Absolutely and can I just say I mean it's great to hear Nazreen. Nazreen is a member of the Global Commission and her understanding and has been a huge influence on what we've been doing. You're absolutely right.

This issue cannot just be solved by governments. It can't just be solved by businesses. It has to be governments, businesses, civil society, individuals acting together. And one set of recommendations from our global commission report is for companies. It's for companies to play their part in actually properly looking into their supply chains and identifying where there's forced labour and not just withdrawing but actually then doing something about it to make sure that the conditions for those people working in those factories in those fields are actually the right ones and fair ones. Why do you think that transparency isn't there at the moment for the consumer? Because I'm sure people do not set out intentionally in any way to practice in a way that would harm people like Nazarene, for example.

Well, I think first of all, there's a complete lack of awareness really from people about the fact that slavery exists in these numbers around the world. And it's very easy when you're looking at cheap fashion for example, but perhaps you know when your cost of living crisis you look for that cheap fashion you don't ask where it's come from. How many of us actually ask where our clothes are made, where our products are made when we're buying them? There are some companies that now actively have taken the opportunity to look at their supply chains, they'll make sure they're fair, they will reflect that on their packaging. But it's really an awareness raising it need for people to look out

for those, to know what's happening and to think about it before they buy. Nazreen, would you be able to tell us what happens in some of the factories, for example, that you've seen? My own personal experience was a 10 by 10 room with six others where we worked like 15 to sometimes even 18 hours a day and we would not get paid until the entire piles of like it would be mountains and piles of clothes that we had to finish in a week. And if we don't finish those quota on time we would not get paid at all and forget about you know the basic hygiene and basic you know basic tools or

anything like it was very very harsh conditions so these are extremely traumatic experience that many of these victims it will take thousands and millions of dollars to actually solve these issues. And if you see the situation with the forced labor, it's basically creating about 200-something billion dollars of economic profit that, you know, Lady May will talk very well about it, because that's what we are trying to tackle with understanding with the Global Commission report around human rights due diligence to really understand the company

that how your bottom of the supply chain is bringing, using these forced labor to create this profit which is unnecessary, which is, it's not going to help basic, basic people. It's taking away cultures, it's taking away people, you know, ancient heritage, crafts, and it's making them into a machine. Basically, when I was working in the shortstop, I did not felt like human. I was a machine because I was just making and producing over and over and over. And that's something that I feel like the world really needs to hear that everything that we purchase and consume it's made by somebody, someone, somewhere and that's people behind it. It's not just machine made, it's the people like me, the girls like me, the women like me around these areas and if we want to see them we must ask questions. Nazreen Shaikh and Theresa May there.

we must ask questions. Nazreen Shaikh and Theresa May there. Now to the Irish novelist, Edna O'Brien, who died last year at the age of 93. Edna's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960. It became part of a trilogy that was banned in Ireland for its references to sex, social issues and publicly burned in some quarters. The last person to be granted an interview with her, just shortly before her death, was the documentary director Sinead O'Shea. Sinead's film Blue Road, the Edna O'Brien story, has just been released. It weaves those final interviews with archive and readings from Edna's own diaries to

tell the story of her extraordinary life. From a difficult bookless childhood in rural County Clare to becoming a controversial prolific writer and glittering London society hostess. Here's a clip from the film. How would you describe a country which has been ravaged? Isn't there some peculiar way in which you yourself are doing the same thing? I mean aren't you stealing from yes Yes, I knew I knew you would ask me that why did you know that I felt it I felt it in the air coming. I Have to defend myself. I don't think I do me. I'm not attacking you. No, I'm state. I'm trying to make a statement

It is true. I take from the fund of history and geography and stories and I make of it, or would like to make out of it, my own song. Warnoola asks Sinead O'Shea what Edna O'Brien means to Irish women now. I think she means so much to Irish women and she can mean a lot as well to any woman who wants to pursue a creative vision because she faced so many obstacles and she actually did succeed in being her own woman and I just

think for that she deserves to be so lauded. Why do you think she was able to overcome those obstacles? It wasn't like her background set her up for that success. Not at all. I think she was exceptional. I think she had extraordinary brain power, which is something which is very overlooked when people consider Edna O'Brien, because obviously there are so many big headlines.

She was so beautiful. Her lifestyle was so glamorous, she was so prolific and people I think seem to think it came about, it just happened. These books just came out of her and certainly she had these incredible instincts but she also had a great brain and I think she just wasn't able to endure the Irish life that was being presented to her even as a child, you know, this sense that she must defer to everything, she must defer to all authority, no matter how idiotic that authority is. You know, she grows up in a household with an alcoholic father, a mother who defers all the time. All of society is supporting and

propping up this really woeful man. And she, as any sensible person might, didn't like it and she just couldn't live with it and I think then, you know, she fell into her very abusive marriage. She couldn't live with that either. But she had to be accountable to her own self, her own brain power, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. So interesting. Do you remember when you first became aware of Edna and her work? Yes, I do, because it was so belated. The shame has never left me. I studied English in university in Dublin, so it really is remarkable how I came so late to her. But I also think maybe it's a part of the story that, you know, my sense of Edna always when I was in university was that she was quite fluffy and quite lightweight.

And then I was assigned by Publishers Weekly, an American magazine, and I was asked to write a profile of her. And I remember thinking, oh, it's going to be really boring, to write a profile of her. I remember thinking, oh, it's going to be really boring, which is just such a terrible attitude because, I mean, I was just so incredibly wrong. She's the least boring person I feel that ever lived. And then I read her book, Country Girls. And, you know, it was just such an amazing experience for me because, you know, not

only does it still feel so fresh and it's so beautifully written and it's so funny, but it also seemed to speak directly to my own adolescence, which was in the 1990s in rural Ireland. And, you know, all those tropes were still there, you know, just covering up for violent men and toxic friendships and a society that's really complicit in the worst, worst matters. And then I met her and I just, you know, I still feel I haven't recovered from that first meeting. You know, she's so charismatic. We talk about the fact that she had an unexpected life considering her home life and also her upbringing.

The other part which is so surprising about Edna, you talk about writers and the influence and how erudite she was, but she grew up with no books in the house. No books, prayer books only and blood stock manuals. You know, what a thing to come from a house that kind of deplored and certainly distrusted literature and learning and she herself was so resolute about it and she saw a path and she was so determined to do it. And you know, it's so touching. I got to read her diaries as part of making this film. And you can see she's teaching herself, you know, she's teaching herself new vocabulary,

newer, more challenging words. And it's like, you know, she's been trained as AI and quite a fascinating artifact in the sense. I want to get onto the diaries actually, because when I think of your film, I think of a lot of things. But I very much think of these diaries and her short little notes to herself about stuff that happened. But also her husband, Ernest Gabler, who has read writing on top of some of her black pen filled notebooks. Talk us through that and how you came to be in possession of them. So I had started filming with Edna and she decided I should read her diaries. They were all kept in an archive in Emory College in Georgia.

So I began to transcribe these diaries and I realized that somebody else had been annotating them and this was the red handwriting and I realized it had to be her husband, Ernest Gabler, but I had to verify this and so I had to ask her son Carlo. He said yes that's my father's handwriting and I think he was quite accustomed to this because Ernest was actually a great annotator. And he never stopped. Like he would take Edna's books out of the library in Dublin and annotate them and like point out terrible passages of writing in his opinion.

But in the diaries, he just basically tries to undermine everything that Edna says. he just basically tries to undermine everything that Edna says. But in doing so, I think reveals himself to be a terrible bully, a real narcissist and a very jealous man. Because he thought he should be the writer and not her. Well, he was the writer. So you see, he had sold five million copies of his first book, The Plymouth Adventure, and it was turned into a film. And he was a really big deal when Edna first met him.

And then she began to eclipse him and he he just really short circuited. And so my sense is that he she eventually walked out on him in 1962. And I think he found her diaries. She left very abruptly. I think she was really frightened for her own safety. And he found the diaries and he left very abruptly. I think she was really frightened for her own safety and he found the diaries and he decided to rewrite what had happened, I suppose. His version of events. Exactly. But it's so ironic because I think he thought by doing so he would position himself, you know, as the kind of moral centre of the marriage when it's just anything but.

of the marriage when it's just anything but. And we see, obviously, what a prolific writer she is. The work was always there churning out book after book, right to the end. But there's that other part of Edna, the bon vivant, the person who, through these parties, I mean, there is one little anecdote. She talked about taking LSD and living many lives within 24 hours. Then she talks about, you know, Sean Connery coming

to visit to check that she's OK after taking this drug. But that's actually not a hallucination. That actually happened, which gives us an idea of the craziness of one part of her life at times. Yeah, it was very heady and there were a lot of parties. It's really funny because Edna says, oh, people have overstated this, but I don't know if they have because I've met so many people subsequently who've talked very fondly about the parties they had with Edna. So, yes, she was a bon vivant.

She loved life. She loved parties and people. And yet, as Sasha, her younger son, points out in the film, she was writing a book a year at the height of this. So, you know, she somehow managed to be very productive while partying with Paul McCartney and Marlon Brando and Richard Burton et al. That was Sinead O'Shea talking to Nuala there and her film about Edna O'Brien's life and career, Blue Road, is out now. Now it is the most important festival

in the Christian calendar. And this weekend at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, for the first time in its 900 year history, girls will be singing in the choir this Easter. ["We are the Church of God"] ["And in Jesus' name"] The St. Paul's Cathedral choir has performed at events such as Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer's wedding in 1981, the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 2012 and

Baroness Thatcher's funeral in 2013. But this is the first time that the girls will sing in the Easter service. And earlier this week we also talked to Andrew Carwood, the musical director at St Paul's, about the significance of this moment preparing the girls for their Easter service. I do daily rehearsals with the choristers in the morning and there are services nearly all days of the week at five o'clock principally for even song and on Sundays we do three services. We do matins and Eucharist in the morning and even song in the afternoon so it's a pretty full on schedule. Preparing for Easter is absolutely huge.

So lots of people think it's just about Easter Sunday, but in fact, yesterday we had Palm Sunday, of course, and we have services on Maundy Thursday, two services on Good Friday, Easter Vigil on Saturday night, and then three services on Sunday. So it's very full-on. The great thing about Easter is it's such a joyful festival anyway and in a sense without having had girls in the past we've been incomplete so having them here for the first time is absolutely it's brilliant and it's a key part of what we are and

what we've been moving towards for for a little while so yeah it's it's a terrific good news and feel-good thing for us. Getting girls to come forward for audition has actually been surprisingly easy because there's a lot of girls who a terrific good news and feel good thing for us. Getting girls to come forward for audition has actually been surprisingly easy because there's a lot of girls who are keen to do it. So we've had a large number of families coming forward, quite a lot of auditions. We have had to think about their workload whilst they're here with us and learning things for the first time, but apart from that it's been a very smooth start. Well the church hasn't always been very good at inclusivity and equality and has been much much better in the

last, let's say, 20 years. We're a bit late to the party on this one but then we are now setting up the largest and busiest Cathedral Foundation I would say of anywhere in the world. Well that was Andrew Carwood, the musical director at St Paul's and joining me to discuss this further is Dr Catherine Hembridge, Professor of Musicology at the University of Durham and Carys Jones, who leads the Girls Voices Project to get girls into the traditionally all-male choir at St Paul's Cathedral. Thank you for joining us. Let's start Catherine with you. Is this a significant moment that, particularly at Easter Easter the girls are included in the choir?

Yes, this is definitely significant. As you say, St Paul's has not previously given opportunities to girls to sing in the choir, let alone at a service of such significance as Easter. Of course, it is important to say that there have been girls in cathedral choirs in the UK for around 50 years by this point. So Manchester and St. Mary's Edinburgh, for example, had girls on their top line already in the 1970s. And particularly from the 1990s, other cathedrals have been setting up girls' choirs.

So with Salisbury in 1991. But I think I see this as highly significant because of St. Paul's status. It's in the capital city, it's where you have a lot of royal occasions, these royal occasions are televised, this is a site of tourist prominence. So this is a version of English Cathedral music that is highly exported and highly symbolic in other words. So I'd say this is significant. And Carys, let me come to you. Could we say an embodiment come to you. You're, could we say,

an embodiment of things changing. You were the first woman actually appointed to the Adult St Paul's Choir in 2017. You spoke to our programme about that. But you now lead the outreach project to find more girls for the choir called the Girls Voices Project. Can you tell us a bit about it? Sure. I mean, it's been one of the great privileges of my career, really, to be in the right place at the right time to help bring girls into the choir. Really, we've been establishing what we think is a truly equal and equitable offering so

that girls can benefit from these extraordinary transformational experiences as choristers. And that's involved all sorts of things from looking at providing new boarding space in the school to recruiting new choristers and indeed new staff to support them. So you were saying this isn't new as in bringing girls into the choirs, but I wonder how it has been received in more recent years. Yeah, I mean, it's been highly controversial. You'd be surprised how much controversy can be generated by church music. People think of the church as a site of stability.

But these changes, you know, were highly debated. Particularly since the 1990s, once you start getting girls choirs introduced, and I'd say this backlash, interestingly, the backlash hasn't largely been along those historically Interestingly, the backlash hasn't largely been along those historically religious lines about the need for women to be silent in church, which is evoked in the context of women's leadership as priests. It's more to do with arguments about preservation of a tradition, which if you actually look into the instability of the tradition, sits on slightly dicey ground. But also, one of the things I find interesting is that the defence of boys choirs and the exclusion of girls from these choirs

as the preservation of tradition puts a lot of emphasis on gender being the defining element of the tradition, rather than the act of daily worship or the repertoire or the sound or the training, etc. So that's one of them, you know, the desire just to keep everything the same regardless of the injustice of excluding women. Dr. Catherine Hembridge and Carys Jones there. Now make sure you join us on Monday when we'll be taking a deep dive

into our clutter for the Easterbank holiday. Nuala and her guests will be exploring the psychology of stuff and the impact that clutter can have on our lives, with plenty of expert advice too. That's coming up at 10 a.m. on Monday. Thank you very much for listening. On Monday, six women blasted into space with Blue Origin, the aerospace company founded by the billionaire, Jeff Bezos.

The women, including pop star Katy Perry, spent a total of 11 minutes in space. So what was the point of it all? I'm William Lee Adams. On What in the World, we're going to find out. What in the World is a daily podcast from the BBC World Service. We go in depth on a different topic every weekday

in under 15 minutes. That's longer than their spaceflight. Listen wherever you get your BBC podcasts.