Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour - Carla Bruni, Working from Home, HIV and Bame women

Episode Date: October 17, 2020

We have music from the former supermodel Carla Bruni who tells us about her new album.We hear from the Conservative MP Laura Trott who is trying to get a law passed to stop under 18s accessing filler treatments and other cosmetic procedures. We also hear from Ashton Collins from the organisation Save Face who have had reports of injuries caused by botched cosmetic procedures. A journalist who writes about paramilitaries, has made a formal complaint to the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland because investigations into threats made to her and her baby have come to nothing. She tells us why she believes her gender means she receives more threats than her male colleagues.We discuss why three-quarters of women living with HIV in the UK are of Black, Asian or minority ethnic background. We hear from Dr Rageshri Dhairyawan, a consultant in Sexual Health and HIV Medicine and two women living with HIV: Mina Kakaiya who's a mental health and mindfulness trainer of South Asian heritage, and Bakita Kasadha who's a British-Ugandan poet, activist and researcher. They discuss the stigma around the illness.Onjali Rauf tells us about her new children’s book, The Night Bus Hero, which is told from the point of view of a bully. And with so many of us working from home, and who knows when it will end, how's it going for you? We hear from clinical psychologist Linda Blair, and Chloe Davies, Head of PR & Partnerships at MyGWork.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Siobhann Tighe

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. Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's A High. In a moment, we'll hear from the Tory MP who wants to make it illegal for under-18s to get access to cosmetic treatments like fillers and Botox. We'll hear too from the journalist Patricia Devlin, who will tell us about her baby being threatened in abuse she got. I have been abused more online than my male colleagues. I have seen female journalist colleagues suffer the most horrendous abuse

and I do believe my gender plays a role in being a target to some individuals. More from Patricia Devlin later. We'll talk too about the black, Asian and ethnic minority women who get left behind when it comes to accessing treatment for HIV. There'll be music from Carla Bruni and we'll hear from the children's author Anjali Ralph about her discovery of feminism. I'm in an Asian family. We feed 10,000 people whenever we have guests over. And I have a younger brother who was allowed to just go off and play his computer games, but I was asked to kind of lay the table and clean the house.

So I was having a bit of a strop and an aunt just said to me, just looked at me and said, stop being a feminist. And the way she said it was so horrible. I thought it was a swear word. Anjali Ralph later in this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour. So why are beauty salons still allowed to give Botox and dermal fillers to people under 18? Earlier this year, we talked to a woman whose daughter of 17 got more than 30 different procedures without ever having to prove her age,

even though she had mental health issues. And we should say that none of the salons and practitioners involved were doing anything illegal. This is the problem that none of the salons and practitioners involved were doing anything illegal. This is the problem that the Tory MP Laura Trott is trying to do something about. She's the MP for Sevenoaks and she wants the industry properly regulated. Her private members bill was back in the Commons on Friday. She's getting help from Ashton Collins of the organisation Save Face. I asked Laura whether there was any opposition to her parliamentary bill. I think the most common reaction, for understandable reasons,

when I tell people about this bill is, I cannot believe that it's not illegal already. And there's been a huge amount of cross-party working on this, so I'm hoping the passage will be relatively smooth. All right. Why do you feel so strongly about this particular issue? I've been working on women's health issues for the policy area for a long period of time. And I think it is an area that has historically been overlooked by government. I think that there are not adequate protections in this area for what is a procedure which is generally done by women. It's

about 92% women. And this is a particularly egregious area, I think, for the under 18s. The fact that there are no protections for them from what are unscrupulous providers, because no under 18 needs cosmetic Botox or dermal fillers. Right. Let's bring in Ashton Collins from Save Face, which is an organisation that has been informing Laura Trott, I think it's fair to say. Ashton, let's pick up on that. The notion that a girl of 16, 17, they are almost always, whether they know it or not, and of course they often don't, breathtakingly beautiful. Why would they need this sort of stuff or even start inquiring about it?

They absolutely don't need it, like Laura said, and I think that the problem stems from what they see on social media. It's flooded with reality TV stars and influencers posting about them getting procedures themselves and the filters that they can use enhance their lips and cheeks to make it look like they've been augmented. So that fuels a desire to want these treatments and they have no perception of the risks. And so they think they're going along for something that is a general beauty treatment as opposed to a medical procedure that can have devastating consequences if it goes wrong.

What is a dermal filler? So dermal filler generally is made of something called hyaluronic acid. And it's injected most commonly to plump or augment certain features of the face. Like the lips? Yes, most popularly the lips, yes. And what would you expect to pay for that? A legitimate treatment would cost anywhere between about £300 and £500. Right. And the person doing it for you, who would they be?

The industry is unregulated, which is part of the problem in a wider scope. But we would only recommend seeing a registered healthcare professional so a doctor, nurse, a dentist or a prescribing pharmacist because not only are they familiar with a facial anatomy but if something did go wrong they are able to identify and prescribe the drugs needed to rectify the complications. Right but I mean the problem is I gather your organisation has collected any number of situations and complaints relating to botched procedures tell me about that. Absolutely and it's just the tip of the iceberg really but last year we had 1600 patients come forward who'd suffered very serious complications like blindness and permanent tissue death and the vast majority of those were treated

by people who are unregulated, unaccountable, often untrained and uninsured and when something goes wrong they find themselves being ignored by the person who treated them in absolute turmoil and having to navigate their way then to somebody who is able to manage that complication for them. It's bizarre Laura Trott that this has been allowed to continue as a kind of Wild West of treatments when the tattoo industry, for example, has got its act together. I completely agree. It's unbelievable that something that you can get done in your home

by anyone could potentially blind you is legal, but it is. And I think this is something that definitely needs to be looked at. What my bill will do will make sure it's regulated for under 18s. But there is undoubtedly a case for looking at the wider issue as well. Well, the wider issue being? The fact that this is an unregulated area, that products which are incredibly dangerous, as Ashton outlined, can cause serious complications for people, are widely available, and yet have absolutely no regulation whatsoever. So I think it's something that definitely does need to be looked at more

widely. My bill, because it's a private member's bill, has to be very limited in scope. So I've just focused on the under 18s, but I'm hoping this will start a wider conversation as we're having today about the industry as a whole. Right. And about a society which makes young women feel this way about themselves, Laura. Completely right. As we've been discussing, it's really awful that any under 18 feels the need to go and have these procedures and then that people are taking advantage of them

because that is what is happening and taking their money to carry these procedures out and they can go so wrong. And as Ashton rightly says, people just think they're going in to get something which is a very minor, minor procedure. And it's just not. And the horrific, horrific case studies that Ashton's have are enough to turn anyone's stomach. So I'm really glad that I've got the opportunity to be able to do something about it. Do you think we keep referring to Zoom? Of course, it's been become something of a trope, I think, particularly across radio because we've been using it so much. But do you actually think, Laura, that this is having an impact, the so-called Zoom boom in cosmetic procedures?

Because so many of us have been forced to see ourselves and we don't like it very much. Having to look at yourself on a computer screen all day is definitely not a pleasant experience for anyone. I think the sooner we can get away from that, the better. I think as a whole, if people want to have treatments, this is not something that I'm necessarily against. And I have no judgment on it whatsoever. But what I do want is where they decide to go and have them. It needs to be safe in the same way that if you buy nail varnish from a pharmacist, you don't expect to burn your fingers off if you go and decide to get botox or get feathers it should be safe for you to do so and we should be very clear that no under 18s need this and that is what my bill will concentrate on

and just briefly how will it work in practice will local councils be responsible for policing all this and how will they do it so it will work in the same way as you do with tattoos at the moment so local authorities will have the power to investigate complaints and to regulate the industry to make sure that under 18s are not being taken advantage of in the way that they are at the moment. Also police can be involved there'll be unlimited fines for where providers do break the law, as it will be the law. So it will be both local authorities and police involved in regulating it. That's the Conservative MP Laura Trott, and you also heard from Ashton Collins of Save Face. Here's an email

from Anna. I used to have Botox and fillers, but recently, and I can't really explain this, I've started to love my face with its lines and its wrinkles possibly even because of the wrinkles so anyway now I just don't bother I do wonder if I'll swing back the other way but thinking back when my Botox was due I used to have that haircut feeling when you suddenly really love your hair the day before you get it cut. I'd think, should I bother? But then I'd go ahead anyway. Lockdown forced the halt and now my face is mine again and I love it. Sue says, women of the world, for goodness sake, your face is part of you. It makes up your personality. Why change it to be a cloned fish lip look? Stop worrying. stop judging, embrace your face. Sound advice from Sue.

Now to the Irish journalist Patricia Devlin, who's made a formal complaint to the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, because she says investigations into vile threats she's had have come to nothing. A year ago, Patricia, who's a crime journalist for the Sunday World, was sent a message on Facebook, and I'm going to read it, but it is deeply offensive, I should say. The message said, don't go near your grannies, Tricia, you will watch your newborn get raped, combat 18. This isn't the first threat she's had, but it was the first time her baby has been threatened. What did she do when she first got that? When I received it, Jane, I was absolutely shocked.

I felt physically sick. And the first thought that came into my head was, I need to report this to police. And that's what I did do. I went straight to the police station with the threat. And I filed a formal complaint. And then what happened? From then, an investigation was launched. I was told that the suspect who I believed was behind it couldn't be approached until they had evidence. So in early January 2020, I was told that they had that evidence, that they had information to link this individual to the phone that sent it. And from there, Jane, absolutely nothing has happened.

This person hasn't been questioned, let alone arrested. And since then, I've received more threats. I've received two formal notifications from police that my safety is at risk. And nothing has been done. And I don't know why. And unfortunately, I had to take this decision to file this complaint with the police ombudsman in a bid to find out exactly why police have not done anything in this investigation to bring this individual to account.

Right, so to be clear, the same police force that you say has not done much in terms of the investigation has also told you that there are other threats that have come your way. It seems rather odd. Yes, well, I report on crime in Northern Ireland and a lot of that crime involves paramilitary crime and I report a lot about loyalist paramilitaries as do my colleagues and those threats that I received, the formal notifications from police tie in with that but unfortunately so does this threat that I received in October.

Right, well, we have got a statement here from the Police Service of Northern Ireland. They say PSNI encourages anyone with a complaint regarding police actions to contact the police ombudsman, which is indeed what you have done, Patricia. Do you think, or perhaps I should say really, to what degree do you think there is a gender element here? There is absolutely a gender element.

I have found I have been abused more online than my male colleagues. Her Net, her Right campaign has said that women are 27 times more likely to be abused online. I have seen female journalist colleagues suffer the most horrendous abuse. And I do believe my gender plays a role in being a target to some individuals, unfortunately. Well, presumably the ultimate aim of these people is to stop you doing your job. That's it. And the thing is, there is a danger that women will stop doing their jobs. Any woman with a public profile seems to be a fair game to these individuals. And unfortunately, we've seen female politicians move away from politics.

We've seen journalists, a recent survey revealed how they've suffered depression, anxiety. And there's a real danger of self-censorship here, which is a threat to democracy. So we have journalists now thinking, and mostly female, should I post that tweet? Should I share that story that I've worked on? Because they now expect to receive abuse online and it's unacceptable and it's a danger to press freedom. Have you thought about changing your job? I have to be honest when I received that message and it is the most horrendous message I've ever received in my life. It crossed my mind because these people are not only threatening you, they're threatening the most vulnerable members of your family

and people who can't defend themselves. So it does cross your mind, but then you have to remember the goal here is to make you stop doing your job, to stop reporting, and if we let them win, then they'll carry on doing what they're doing. There's no end. So we have to fight this. We have to speak out. And unfortunately, it was a very hard decision to make, but it's resulted in me having to put a formal complaint in against the police. What do your family make of your decision to do that and also to carry on with your professional

life? They're very supportive. They understand my job. It's not an easy job. Working in a male-dominated industry is very difficult, but they're supportive and they don't want to stop me from doing what I do. I do my job to help not only my children, but other people's children, because we're voices for people who can't speak out. So absolutely, they're supportive of me, and especially in taking this complaint through to the police, because these threats need to be taken seriously. People need to be held to account. Oh, yes. I don't think anyone listening would disagree with that, Patricia. I don't think anyone listening would disagree with that, Patricia.

I don't expect you to have seen the Boris Johnson press conference last night, and I'm not comparing the two experiences, but the Sky correspondent, Beth Rigby, asked a question of the prime minister and was trending on Twitter afterwards. And yes, she did get some support and some praise for her questioning, but an awful lot of critics, largely male, felt they had the right to have a go at her. And this is it is a regular thing, isn't it? This sort of stuff happens very regularly.

How do we stop it happening? That's a good question, Jane. And it's not going to there's not going to be one solution. Certainly, social media companies need to have a greater responsibility. I think the campaigner just last week, Gina Miller, said that social media platforms have a duty of care and responsibility to users. And quite rightly asked, why should they be able to profit and become billionaires while so many in society are being victimized and they are um carlin spellman uh former cabinet minister asked the question after stepping away from her role which she said was crystallized by the decision um her her decision was crystallized

after coming becoming under intense scrutiny during the Brexit debate. And she said, and I think this is a great quote, the nation needs to look into its soul. What is it about our makeup that is driving misogyny? And that's the question. How do we change attitudes? Because attitudes need to be changed. How do we do that? The government needs to help. It needs to be better deterrence and social media companies need to be held responsible. Well, bearing in mind that that awful threat to you was made on Facebook, what have they done about it? The threat that came through to Facebook was from a profile that deactivated straight away after it sent the message.

Now, Facebook were contacted and they were able to trace it. But, you know, in terms of that someone is able to go on, make a fake profile, send a message like that and then deactivate it and go into the abyss, that's not acceptable. That can't happen. So although Facebook, I suppose they couldn't do much, that shouldn't be allowed to happen. People shouldn't be allowed to go on and set up fake anonymous profiles and send those types of threats. The Irish journalist Patricia Devlin, who writes for the Sunday World newspaper. Three quarters of the women who have HIV in Britain have black, Asian or

minority ethnic heritage. The vast majority come from the British black African community. But are they getting the right health care? Sangeeta Maiskar spoke this week to Mina Kakaya, who is British South Asian and has been living with HIV for the past 16 years, and to Bakita Kasada, who is also HIV positive. She is a poet, an activist and somebody who campaigns on HIV issues. First, here's Dr Rageshree Dharawan, a consultant in HIV medicine at Barts Health NHS Trust, on why BAME women are over-represented in the statistics. In the UK, probably about a third of people living with HIV are women, although they make up a global majority. And of women

living with HIV in the UK, we know that about three quarters are from ethnic minority groups. And I think it's an interesting question. I think there's probably quite a few reasons for that. And we know that, for example, we know that some of it may be cultural. We know that in some communities, talking about sex and sexual health and sexuality can be quite taboo. And this means that people may be less likely to think about their sexual health than getting HIV tests. And I think we also need to think about the way in which we, as public health and sexual health communities, really have the right information in the right languages for these communities so that women can access information about HIV. Now your biggest concern and I think that you've been talking about a lot in the media on Twitter which is actually how I

first came across you is your worry that health outcomes for this group of women are poorer than they are when compared to other HIV patients. Just tell us a bit about that. So I think in terms of HIV, I think we just have a lot more knowledge about men than women. And we have really great treatment for HIV in this country. Treatment is really successful. But most of the research trials in terms of who takes part in them, it tends to be men. And that's not just in HIV, that's in many other disease areas as well. So as our treatment is more successful and. And that's not just in HIV, that's in many other disease areas as well.

So as our treatment is more successful and we have women getting older living with HIV, we don't have as much research information about how well they do in terms of drug side effects, for example. So that's really where there is a gap at the moment and where we need to do more work. I'd like to introduce Meena. Now you've been living with HIV for 16 years. You've got a South Asian background, same as me. But it's only in the last few months you felt comfortable talking openly about it. What is it that's brought about this change? Was there a turning point for you?

I think it's been incremental. And I have, I think like anyone living with any kind of long-term condition, particularly around HIV, I think it's a journey of yourself first that you have to kind of go through your own emotional barriers about, you know, the barriers and the stigmas that you have within yourself and the fear of being judged and not being accepted or being, you know, approved by other people. And I felt that for me, it's been a journey where it's been an emotional rollercoaster. It's been an emotional journey.

And I'm at a stage where I am myself a well-being coach and a mindfulness and mental health trainer. That's my background in health and social care and a training and a life coach. So for me, it's been a journey of self-discovery to really now talk about it. And obviously, my family members know. I have to say my mum doesn't know, but I know she

doesn't listen to the radio, so it's okay to do this one anyway. But I think also, I want to be a voice for women as well, you know, because I've also been a peer mentor and that's somebody like myself living with HIV, supporting other men and women living with HIV who are struggling with the status. Vicky, I just want to bring you in here because actually, if we look at HIV, it's actually been a modern medical miracle. I remember growing up in the 1980s and we were given the impression that, you know, this was going to be an illness that would affect a vast number of us. Actually, science has really pushed the boundaries. Anti-retroviral drugs are incredibly powerful.

They have helped a lot of women. Vicky, what is your medical regimen and how do you experience um being hiv positive at the moment i take and always have done take one pill a day and i find the taking medication has worked for me doesn't always work for everyone but it has been all right for me and i think as you've mentioned the medical advancements have been incredible and research has been key to that. And I'm a researcher at Terence Higgins Trust. And I know that especially when it comes to black and brown women living with HIV, it's crucial that we understand and conduct the research that will work well for us. So on medication, we can and are living long lives. We can't pass on HIV via sex.

We are giving birth to babies without HIV but there are other things that are important to women such as the quality of that long life and there isn't enough known about what aging looks like for women living with HIV so at the moment I'm genuinely good and I'm very healthy but I have a lot of questions around what life is going to look like when I'm older and living with HIV for many, many more years, hopefully. And it is a complicated subject, isn't it? Because you're talking really about the buzzword of the moment, that intersection between being a black British woman of African heritage, growing older, a lack of data, a kind of data vacuum around all of that stuff. Why do you think that there are so few voices talking about this within Britain, given the fact, actually, that there are a disproportionate number of black women with HIV status? It really touches on what Ragesh you were saying earlier on. I think, you know, as you're saying as well, the disproportionate impact on us has been spoken about for a long

time. The majority of women living with HIV are black women. And I think some of those barriers are definitely discrimination. So the impact of patriarchy, sexism, transphobia, racism cannot be understated. And I think it's one of the difficulties as to why this isn't being spoken about as much and why some of our experiences as black women, as brown women living with HIV are not humanised as much as well. And I think it's really important. Sorry, but what do you mean by that? Because actually, we often hear these terms thrown around, you know, it's systemic, it's the patriarchy, it's blah, blah. What does that actually look like and feel like? What it looks and it feels like it's how we engage and how we access sexual health services, whether or not they are created for us in mind. So, for example, if a healthcare professional is likely to offer a black woman or a brown woman an HIV test, based on how communities, different communities understand the impact of HIV may determine whether or not we are likely to accept an HIV test,

whether or not we think we are more at risk of living with HIV. So it's some of these and all of those things are underpinned by, yes, those big terminologies, but are important to say the discriminatory barriers to accessing appropriate health care. And it's one of the reasons why there are collectives, say, for example, like decolonising contraception. It's one of the reasons why they are so important, because they're addressing some of these additional barriers that black and brown people face when accessing wider healthcare and services and research. Rakesh, if I've understood this correctly, then what Bakita is saying is, more effort needs to be put into accessing communities

and and communicating with them in a way that uh welcomes them in to the conversation is that right and in in data terms in a medical sense what difference would that make to the outcomes of these women yeah i think what bakita said is absolutely right. I think having focused culturally targeted campaigns is really important. And for example, a sexual health charity in London called NAS has been doing culturally specific campaigns for communities for a long time. I think it would make a huge difference. So stigma is really important in terms of HIV. Stigma can put people off getting tested because they may not think that HIV could affect them or they may be worried about being diagnosed positive and what it may mean for their life. As a clinician, we still see people on the wards who have quite advanced HIV and AIDS related

diseases. And these are people who are having difficulty living with HIV, taking their medication every day, attending clinic because of the stigma they're experiencing. So they may be living with their HIV in secrecy. And this means it's really hard for them to carry on engaging in their care and attending clinic, as I've said. So stigma is really important. And I think, you know, programmes like this today, in terms of talking about these issues, are just so important in terms of normalising HIV. And, you know, Everyone should get an HIV test and know their status. The most important predictor of good health is knowing your status and getting on treatment, and people can live long, healthy lives with that. Dr Rageshri Dherawan, Bakita

Kasada and Mina Kakaya talking to Sangeeta Maiskar on Women's Hour this week. Anjali Rao is a children's author. Her first two books dealt with the refugee crisis and domestic violence and her latest, The Night Bus Hero, is about homelessness and bullying. The hero of the story is a little boy, Hector, who bullies a homeless man and it's written from the point of view of the bully. I just thought it'd be so interesting to see an interaction between a main character who's a bully and someone that he picks on which in this case is a homeless man and I associate bullying with homelessness quite naturally

in a lot of ways because I think anyone who's ever been homeless whether they're a refugee or a woman fleeing to a domestic you know to a shelter or a homeless person has had to deal with bullying in so many forms. So I just wanted to tackle the story from that angle, just because I thought it would be very interesting to see if I could make this person who's a bully have another side, have another insight into what it's like to be someone who's being bullied. Were you ever bullied? Or were you ever the bully? I hope I was never the bully. I have been kind of bullied. I'm Asian. I have a scarf in my head. So in school, I'd be told all kinds of things like, you know, go home. Also, as an adult, you meet people that are not particularly nice, whether they're

managers in jobs or whether they're people who just seem to have some reservation about you for some reason. But yes, but I don't think I've ever been the bully. I hope not. I would hate to have that, be that kind of person ever. We do have the chance, though, to listen to a short extract from the book. It's where Hector and his bullying friends, Will and Kate, approach the homeless man, Thomas, for the first time. We reached the top of the hill where an old bench stood beneath the oak trees. And that's when I spotted him, the old man. I'd seen him there before, lots of times, sitting on the bench

next to a trolley piled high with rubbish. He was in his usual long old crumply black coat that looked as if it had been pulled out from a bin and was wearing the bright yellow woolly hat he always had on his head, even in summer. And without even trying, I had the most genius idea that had ever been born. In fact, it was so genius and so out of the box and so unexpected that I knew it would be enough to make Will and Katie shut up once and for all. I stopped walking, which made Will and Katie automatically stop too. Want to have some fun? I asked. Will nodded, a smile breaking out across his face and making him look like a hungry

fox that had sniffed a chicken coop up ahead. See that old man there? I asked, pointing towards the bench. You mean the old trolley man? Asked Katie. We're going to let him know he's not allowed here anymore. How? Whispered Katie, leaning in towards me. She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. I waited for a few seconds to keep them guessing and then whispered back, I'm going to take his hat. So Anjali, we hear Hector in his full bullying force there. And he feels quite unredeemable as a character at the start of the book. But actually, he goes on a journey, doesn't he? And that journey is one of learning empathy. Why was that important to you? I think we have so many stories in all of our worlds of people going through really hard times,

especially right now in the world's history. And we want to help, but before we can really help in a way that will really make a change, we need to truly understand what someone has been through, what they're going through. And to do that, we need to have wells of empathy, to understand the story from all angles. So I think it's really crucial that everyone spend time and effort to develop that particular wonderful side to themselves in order to be able to help people deal with issues that they're really dealing with in a way that will be fruitful to everyone. Now, Anjali, you're certainly an author that's not afraid of tackling really difficult subjects in your books. The first book that you wrote, The Boy at the Back of the Class, won several awards, and it follows the story of a Syrian refugee in a British school.

How did that idea come about? I've been working voluntarily in the refugee camps in Kelly and Dunkirk since 2015. Through those years, I've met so many children who are completely stuck, completely struggling, are on their own, need so much help. And in about 2017, about two years after I'd started work there, I had a period in my life where I couldn't really work. I couldn't go out to the camps and I couldn't stop thinking about this one particular baby that I'd met in the camps called Rehan, and the book is dedicated to him. And baby Rehan was living in, you know, one of those really horrible, swampy, disgusting areas that refugees often push back into. I couldn't stop wondering what was going to happen to him if he grew up to become an eight or nine year old and had to travel to somewhere safe, but without even his mother to help and support him, and who was going to be his friend and who was going to take care of him and understand his story.

And literally, the boy at the back of the class, the title just jumped into my head, and this character jumped out at me. And it was, for me, the story is really my imagining of what might happen to a young boy, and what might happen to baby Rehan, and all the baby Rehans of the world, if they ever had to go somewhere and walk into a classroom where they knew no one and nobody knew them and they couldn't speak the language. And transitioning those subjects into literature for children must, I imagine, be quite an interesting process.

Well, it's so interesting because I think kids are so aware, more than I ever was at their age, because they have so many information portals coming at them all the time. And the books are always developed around questions that I get asked by the kids in my world. So my nieces and nephews and godchildren and children of friends, they're always hungry, they're always wanting to know what's going on. They want to know why it is we have refugees on the news. They want to know why it is we're speaking about women going through particular problems.

They want to know about things that are happening. and there's very few safe spaces that they can go to with their questions so I don't find it very difficult because I'm surrounded by kids voices asking and wanting to know and I suppose the books are in some way trying to answer the questions that I'm I'm hearing um but I don't think they're they're not frightened when they're asking the questions um And most are very sad when they hear the answers. But then you see this kind of really amazing push to want to do something about it. And you were that kid yourself, weren't you? Yes, I was very annoying to all my family and all my teachers, bless them. Is it true that you discovered the word feminist when you were seven? Yes. And committed?

I was heartily committed. So basically I was, you know, I'm in an Asian family. We feed 10,000 people whenever we have guests over. And I have a younger brother who was allowed to just go off and play his computer games. But I was asked to kind of lay the table and clean the house and do all the things that I imagine Cinderella had to do. So I was having a bit of a strop and an aunt just said to me, just looked at me, said, stop being a feminist. And I'd never heard the word feminist. I'd heard loads of other ref words, but I never heard of the word feminist. And the way she said it was so horrible. I thought it was a swear word. So I asked my mum,

and my mum's lovely. She always answers my questions. Mum, what's a feminist? Because, you know, auntie so-and-so just called me it. And she's like, oh, that's just someone who, you know, believes in women's rights. And called me it and she's like oh that's just someone who you know believes in women's rights and I was like what's wrong with that then so at dinner that you know that day when everyone was around the table and I just stood I said I'm going to be a feminist I'm a feminist everyone I just thought you should know and then sat back down so from that day it's been a key word in my life and it will always be so and it really did become your life's work you go off to Oxford you study there. And then what happens in your own family is that there is a shocking example of gender-based violence within your extended family when your cousin's husband killed her. That incident had

a huge impact on you. And what's interesting is that you turned it around and you founded your own NGO. I really was just absolutely flabbergasted that this could happen in my family. We regard ourselves as quite educated. My mum's been working for human rights for all of her life. So we were just absolutely shocked that this woman came into our life with so much trauma and abuse. And even after five years of trying to fight for her life and fight for her to keep her children away from him, etc., none of it worked. My cousin passing away in such a way and her life being taken in such a horrible way led me to really open my eyes and think, wait a minute, I'm working for all these NGOs, but why aren't all these NGOs working together? I don't understand it. And really making her story, which is what's been set up in her name and is her legacy, that set up as a book club had one aim we're going to raise as much money as we can raise as much

awareness as we can and get some help to women's shelters because that's where we first came to know of my cousin and it just it just spiraled from there suddenly all these people were coming forward with their stories people were coming forward saying really worried about this friend and we started trying to signpost people and it just grew and grew. It really angered me that agencies weren't working together. Women are still going into court with absolutely nothing to hand even though they have social services and police and GPs with all this information and we're still losing women because information isn't being shared. Anjali Rauf and her children's book is called The Night Bus Hero.

Now, how are you getting on working from home if you are able to do so? Obviously, we appreciate that many, many of you are not in a position where that is even a remote possibility. I talked about working from home on Friday's edition of Woman's Hour to the clinical psychologist Linda Blair and to Chloe Davis, who's head of PR and partnerships at MyGWork. And we talked to Chloe about her experiences back in May. We'll hear that in a moment or two. First, I asked her how she was now. Let's say number one is about the lowest working from home ebb you can be. And 10 is the highest.

So how does she rate herself? We average between a three and a five. Good. OK, well, let's hear you back in May. So I spend a lot of my time doing webinars or private sessions. And as you can imagine, with a four-year-old and a two-year-old, it's having to get really inventive about where I can go for an hour's silence. So, you know, I'm grateful we have a garden. We've tried putting them outside when the weather is really nice.

But my go-to space has now become the loft. So I'm currently speaking to you in our loft with the latch slightly up because they can't climb the ladder. You claim to have written a couple, at least three emails, I think you said, with a child on your head. Yeah, that's my youngest son, Theo, who has no respect for boundaries at all. Chloe, where is Theo now? Theo is thankfully at nursery today. Oh, have you? OK. So your coast is relatively clear.

Absolutely. I think there was an element of novelty about all this, I gather, for those people who are working from home at the start. Seriously, is it becoming a real grind now? Yeah. I mean, we are, I was saying earlier, potentially looking at the possibility of, I mean, we rent, so now moving hopefully somewhere where we can turn one of the bedrooms into an office, simply because the longer that we will be working from home,

it's getting quite difficult, whether it be the weather or quite simply, I've got growing sons who are being more explorative. They want to do more. They can now climb that ladder. Yeah, I bet they can. And remind us about your partner. So they they're working. Also, we both work from home. So he is actually we've now set up an office space, but we take it in turns. Who gets to use the kitchen? So, yeah, we just are running out of room. Yeah. OK, Linda, I think I'm right in saying the novelty is all over for all of us in every aspect of this wretched affair. What would you say about how the nation is coping in terms of those people

who are working from home? Well, they're being amazing. Absolutely amazing. Yes, we should say that, shouldn't we? Yeah, I think so. But you're right. The initial reaction is almost euphoria. You know, we're going to make this work. We're going to because we're in shock and we don't get any emotional input at that point. But now we have the emotions and we are aware of what we're missing out on that we need, like social contact with other people who are doing similar things, direct emotional contact. So that's hard. On the other hand, we now have habits and habits help us a lot. She says, endless online video meetings, constantly trying to keep our elderly and somewhat needy cat from joining his meetings, being aware of having to stay out of view of the camera. So in fact, she's also having a daytime sleep disturbed because she does night shifts. It's an issue

for everybody, isn't it, Linda? What do you do if in fact you're not the one homeworking, but you have to live around somebody who is? Well, I always say that there are four words that kind of help us do homeworking. One is structure. Another is good communication. Well, that's a phrase. And the other is mutual respect. And it's hard to have mutual respect all the time when you feel like you're the one who has to be quiet. And you must remember from their point of view that you're the one that has to be quiet and you must remember from their point of view that you're the one that gets to go out so I think regular discussions of not directly about the issue but just time to talk is really important like I get a lot of my clients to go on a date you at the moment I don't know if we can leave the house,

but at least once the kids... Yeah, you can leave the house with your person that you're living with. Yeah, and not... Not much of a novelty, is it? But yeah, go on. Well, no agenda. You can make a nice meal once the kids are in bed,

you know, something where you just have a good atmosphere and just see what comes. And I think that is one of the best preventative measures possible. I imagine, Chloe, to a degree, you'd acknowledge this, you're in the happy chaos of family life, aren't you? Do you have peer group friends who are living alone and finding it tough? Yeah, you know, I think even to a certain extent, you know,

I'd be lying if I said it's not all happy at all times. You know're we've both been working full-time we've both um got children and uh trying to find space to just have a moment for ourselves where you know we can't apply self-care I I can't have a bath by myself anymore so um you know when you're I'm speaking to friends who are alone and they're trying to buddy or bubble with others you know before we could go for a walk or at least you know possibly go and have a meal and and so the more restrictions that come the less that we can do to just keep ourselves on track at this time when we're under such you know

constraints it is more and more difficult for everyone much more so if you've got dependents but not easy for anyone no i don't I don't think it is easy for anyone. I just wonder, Linda, whether we'll know the full weight of this. Well, when we'll know it. I mean, it might be in, I don't know, 15 years' time when we look back and think, oh, 2020. Do you think we'll ever fully understand the impact all this has had on us? I hope so.

But I don't think we're going to feel the full impact for once restrictions are lifted and we feel safe again for another year after that, I don't think. It's very like a grief. It's a mourning. We lost something really big and we've got to go through the process of coming to terms with it. I mean, I keep referring to this, but we often have these sort of corona moments, don't we? I mean, I'll just sort of come to on a station platform and think, why am I the only person here at 10 to 7 in the morning?

I live in London. It's all just very, very peculiar. And I just, we're missing each other desperately, but we don't quite know how to express it, Linda, I sometimes feel. I know. And just keep trying, because even those words can

mean so much. Of course, the best thing is a good old hug, but we'll get that. Will we? When's that going to be, Linda? Oh, gosh, if I knew that, I would be on the radio all the time. I hope, I hope for the people who really need it sometime in the early, early spring. And I hope for the rest of us by the summer. Clinical psychologist Linda Blair and Chloe Davis on Women's Hour on Friday. Lucy says, in terms of working from home, I think it's safe to say it is affecting everybody very differently. We are all fighting our own battle. I can't imagine having to parent small children through lockdown, but I also wouldn't wish on anybody else the genuine mental pain of going several months without human touch, huge stretches

of time without real human interaction, especially in areas that haven't been allowed to return to normal, and the fear of being left with your own thoughts when you have a pre-existing mental health problem. We are all experiencing this very differently, and slotting everybody into a hierarchy of suffering helps nobody. Lucy, thank you for that. Chrissy says, I love working from home. I never, ever want to go back.

Sometimes I get a dog on a keyboard, but I think it's a small price to pay. Yeah, perhaps, though, Chrissie, you're not on your own at home while you've got your dog, for a start. It can, of course, be very different if you are feeling somewhat isolated. Colin says, my wife and I would get up at six and not get back home until after six.

When working from home started, one of us was in the kitchen, the other in the living room. I then spent many days, weeks and months getting a room in our house done up to convert that to an office space. And now we're spending longer and longer in it as we feel like it's a snug as well now. We are lucky, of course, having a house with room and the decision not to have children helps when full-time working from home. But it's not all bad and we need some balance to the very real negatives around at the moment. Colin, thank you too. Let's have some lovely music.

Let's have some Carla Bruni. Carla Bruni Quelque chose de tendre s'est levé Quelque chose qui nous hante, qui nous plaît C'est quelque chose qui nous creuse, qui nous fond Et qui nous va comme un gant Quelque chose nous dit que c'est perdu Que l'on va s'adorer sans issue Et que l'on va se croquer à un baldon

Quelque chose obstinément Mais qu'elle est donc ce quelque chose C'est la question que tous se posent Qu'elle se doute quelque chose là Everything sounds better in French, doesn't it? Croque monsieur. Quelque chose, which means in English, something. It's not as good as it. That was Carla Bruni.

Quelque chose is the name of the track. She was really, really mega famous back in the 90s. Supermodel all over the glossies. Then she quit for a music career in 2008. After a whirlwind romance, she married the then president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. When he left office, she went back to singing and composing songs. Sangeeta Maisker asked her

about the main themes of her new album. Mostly the album is all about love and desire. So it's not very original, but I believe love and desire are our best energy and fuel and best thing to pass time, you know. You say it's not original, but it's wonderfully French, Carla. What can I say? You've written all of these songs yourself. How much of your personal life has been material for this album? Well, it's always coming from personal life, you know, like it's always written in a place

that is quite intimate for me. It's very close to me. But then while I'm writing the song, I sort of try to be a little wider and to talk also about other people's life. But, you know, the beginning of the song is always coming from something personal. You know, I can never write by thinking. You know, I never really write with my brain anyway. I always often write with emotions, you know. There's a song on the album called Un Secret, which many people will probably assume is a reference to the secret that you discovered in your life as an adult,

which was that the man who had raised you was not your biological father. Is that the right assumption? A little bit, but also, yeah, see, that's exactly what I was trying to explain. But my English is very poor. But I was trying to explain exactly what you said. You know, it is a secret that was revealed to me quite late because I was, you know, in my late 20s. Actually, my father said that to me quite late because I was you know my late 20s actually

my father said that to me when he when when he died and then I met another father right but um it's not only about that secret it's also about the pleasure of the secret because I'm I sort of like secrets you know because we're in a world where everyone is exposing himself and people are always talking. And there's such a taste for showing things and there's such a noise all the time. And to me, secrets are like mystery or silence. They're sort of precious. But you know what I hate that can be related to secret is lie. So I like secret, but I don't like lies.

How do you make that distinction? I mean, when I was reading your story, what struck me was that when you discovered that you had a biological parent that you hadn't known about, you dealt with it with such grace, a kind of acceptance. And I can imagine that someone else in that situation would feel that their parents had lied to them. But that wasn't your reaction, was it? No, but I do feel like they've lied to me. But I mean, it doesn't make me feel bad because I wouldn't judge them. You know, it was also other times, you know, it was the 60s, the 70s. And maybe, I don't know if I would have done the same thing. I don't think I hate lying, you know, but also because my life was built on a lie. But no, I have no bitterness because it made me feel good when I discovered that. And also, just when I lost my father, I met like another father. So it was like a gift, you know. Talking about men in your life, in 2008, you met Nicolas Sarkozy.

And within months, you were married to him. He was already the president of France at that point. Yes. How did it feel to have the political spotlight thrown on you with such short notice. You'd obviously lived your life on, you know, in the full gaze of cameras, but this was an entirely different creature. So different. Oh, so different. You're so right. It was quite an adventure, I must say.

It was like another world, you know, that I never really I never really got close to politics, never, ever, you know, I would. So being at the Elysee next to my husband was at the same time, an incredible adventure. And at the same time, you know, it was quite a stress, I didn't want to make a mistake, you know, can you imagine like, if you make a mistake, if we make a mistake, you and I, let's say, talking on the BBC now, it would be bad. But when you make a mistake there, it's, you know, everyone knows about it. It's just a drama. You know, I spent four years trying to be good and not making my country and my husband embarrassed.

So I kept more or less very quiet. But the nice part was that I could help a lot of people because when you're in that position, you can really help people. And that was the good, you know, You were one of the top earning supermodels of your generation. You are hugely creative. You've been making several albums. Was that difficult for you to take a step back? I understand. It wasn't so difficult because I believe in professional people, you know, and my husband is always was a very, very professional politician, you know, and head of state, you know and my husband is is uh always was a very very professional politician you know and head of state you know he had an incredible career so to me to take part and to interfere with his job you know um at the time would have been a great mistake just as if he was coming up on stage with me when I'm, you know, when I'm playing a gig. It wasn't difficult for me because it was not my part of the deal. And, you know, in France,

they're very, very judgmental about the husband or the wife getting into the political life. And I believe it's right. You know, I believe one person is elected and the person who is married to is not, it's not like in America. Do you understand? It's not like monarchy. This is like it's election. So in America, they really have a first lady place, you know, and she's important and she has to give speeches. But in France, it's not at all like that. You know, the first lady has to be laid back and basically helping people and helping her husband. And I'm looking forward to see when a woman will be elected, what would happen and what we will ask to the first gentleman. So am I. Getting back to the music, you mentioned laid back, and that's very much your style. you have written one song on the album in English

why did you decide to do that well it's a song that is sort of coming from the past and I play that song first of all it's my dream to write in English because obviously English is the language for singing you know it has so much rhythm and so much, you know, simplicity. I love English, but, you know, I'm not so fluent, you know. So that was my first song. So it's a song about impossible love, which I really like, you know, because writing about impossible love, living impossible love is horrible. But writing about it is nice, you know. I agree. It's very much inspiring because, you know, happiness, you know, is not so inspiring, right?

But, you know, you know, heartbreaking feelings and impossible love always gives you something romantic to write about. So it's a song about impossible love. And it's my first English song, and I hope it won't be the last. It's a small blues, I would say. So I'll never be your lady And I'll never be your girl Although I love you madly I'll never be your pearl

And when you come home at night It won't be me, it won't be me It won't be me who holds you tight And it makes me wanna cry And wanna love and wanna die Because without you nothing's right. Well, that track was called Your Lady. The songstress was Carla Bruni

and the album is also called Carla Bruni. Join Women's Hour Monday morning, two minutes past ten. Amongst other people, we're going to be talking to Jasper Rees, who is the official biographer of the great Victoria Wood. That's on Monday morning. 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's 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.