Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: climate activist Vanessa Nakate, rogue landlords, deepfake porn, Goth fashion, the state of child care

Episode Date: October 29, 2022

According to the OECD, the UK is the third most expensive country for childcare. ‘March of the Mummies’ organised by the campaign group Pregnant then Screwed are demanding for government reform. Its founder Joeli Brearley told Elaine Dunkley why. 25-year-old Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate who launched her own climate movement in 2019 protesting outside the gates of the Ugandan parliament. Now a UNICEF ambassador she joined Jess to discuss her book ‘A Bigger Picture’ and what COP27 next week. A new BBC documentary looks at how deepfake technology is being used to create hardcore pornography of women without their consent. Presenter of the documentary Jess Davies and leading deepfake and synthetic media expert Henry Ajder joined Krupa.In a report out this week, MPs say too many women who’ve survived domestic abuse are ending up in appalling accommodation operated by rogue landlords who exploit housing benefit loopholes to cash in on a ‘gold rush’ of taxpayers’ money. Krupa talked to Becky Rogerson, CEO of Wearside Women in Need & the Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Select Committee for Housing and Communities, Clive Betts Labour MP.Fashion librarian Katie Godman's book 'Gothic Fashion - From Barbarian to Haute Couture' traces the roots of this long-lived, popular and adaptable look. She joined Jess and listeners share their stories of when and why they went Gothic.Flo & Joan, the multi-award winning British musical comedy duo Nicola and Rosie Dempsey. They cover everything from women’s safety to dating apps to mental health through their witty comedy songs. Their sell-out 140-date international tour, Sweet Release, has just been extended.Presenter: Elaine Dunkley Producer: Surya Elango Editor: Lucinda Montefiore

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Elaine Dunkley and you're listening to Weekend Woman's Hour, a carefully created selection of some of Woman's Hour's best bits from over the week. Coming up, climate activist Vanessa Nakati on what she wants to hear from world leaders ahead of the COP27 summit next weekend. A new BBC documentary looking at how deepfake technology is being used to create hardcore pornography of women without their consent. Plus, why too many women survivors of domestic abuse are ending up in accommodation run by rogue landlords. And are you partial to

a black lipstick, laced up boots, a corset? We look into the roots of gothic fashion. But first, we did a deep dive into the state of childcare in yesterday's programme. According to the OECD, the UK is the third most expensive country for childcare. An estimated 1.7 million women in England are prevented from doing more hours of work by childcare issues, while a UNICEF report this week shows that almost one in five parents on low incomes are skipping meals to pay for it. Today, 12,000 mums will descend on 11 locations across the UK to demand government reform in a March of the Mummies, organised by the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed. Its founder, Jolie Brearley, told me why.

We are planning this march because we want government reform on childcare, parental leave and flexible working. So there's thousands of us that are going to take to the streets because mothers are furious. We have had enough. We feel like we are being set up to fail by this government. And I mean, it's impossible for most families to survive without two incomes. Yet we've created a scenario where it's in many cases impossible for mothers to work or they're having to work much fewer hours than they want to. And by that, I mean, we have the second most expensive childcare system in the developed world. We have a parental leave scheme that is impossible to survive on for most families. It pays so little maternity benefit, 47% of the national minimum

wage, that women are pushed into debt or pushed into returning to work, while men get only two weeks of paternity leave and are not encouraged to take any longer. So it's entrenching gender inequality. And then there's little or no access to flexible working, which, you know, of course, most families need to be able to manage their unpaid and their paid responsibilities. Only 10% of jobs are advertised as part-time. And the government made a manifesto pledge on this that they just haven't fulfilled. So the whole structure is just not working for families. It's pushing children into poverty. It's pushing mothers out of work. We've also been hearing from mums who've had to quit their jobs or reduce their hours because of childcare

issues. Here's Felicity's story. I was a teacher since 2016, so seven years. I had my first one, she's three now. Went back to work, there were no problems. She was in childcare. And then when I had my second child, obviously the childcare costs went up a lot. So I was traveling into London, we lived on that out. Childcare in London was unaffordable. The childcare we did have was taking my entire salary, there was nothing left afterwards. And so I requested flexible working so that I could leave earlier to try and reduce the hours of the childcare.

I thought I could leave half an hour early, but from the new academic year, I wouldn't be given this opportunity. One of my children was entitled to 15 hours free funding from the government, with that cost us £1,950 for a month. Give up my career due to the childcare cost. Obviously going into teaching is not a career you take just to pay the bills, it's something that I was passionate about. So having to give it up and not have that part of

me anymore, it does feel a little bit like I've lost a bit of my identity. I've had to sign up for universal credit, fill in the money that I would be getting if I was working. So we're relying a lot on universal credit benefits to get through each month, pay the rent, things like that. And it's not only affordability of childcare that's impacting mums, but accessibility. We hear from listener Charlie, who struggled to find childcare to suit her job. In 2015, I started training as a midwife. My children were then five, one and two. struggle to find childcare to suit her job. In 2015, I started training as a midwife. My children were then five, one and two.

And my husband left and didn't come back for about six months. We're now divorced. And it was really difficult. I was working full-time and doing a full-time degree. And it's challenging in the NHS because there are no childcare providers that work that early or finish that late. And I remember having a colour coordinated spreadsheet identifying which child was where. They were all at different childcare placements. One was at nursery, one was at preschool and one was at school.

But somehow by the skin of my teeth I managed to qualify. And over the last three years, still a single mum. I've been working in Bristol which is 80 miles away from where I live in South Dorset in Bridport and I had to leave at 5 30 in the morning and would get back at 10 o'clock with very little help from my ex-husband so I ended up paying a neighbour who would come over at 5 30 in the morning because even babysitters struggle to get up that early but it meant I was paying out about 180 a month for child care minimum along with fuel and being a single mum on universal credit that kind of maxes out all of my income so it's a challenge but I love my job.

Jolie what are we hearing from mums who may be on lower incomes or receiving universal credit? Is the system working for them? No, absolutely not. The way universal credit works is you can reclaim 85% of your childcare costs, but you have to pay upfront. And of course, many nurseries need a deposit and they need you to pay a month in advance. So that can be £2,000. When you're on a low income, you just don't have £2,000. So it's locking low income families out of the childcare market, and therefore locking them out of the economy. For single parents, I mean, the OECD suggests that childcare costs in the UK are 30% of household income. So that's for two earners. Of course, that's a much larger percentage if you're a single earner household. And so it's no wonder why we have half of children in single parent families are living in poverty, because if you cannot access childcare, you cannot work and therefore you have to live on benefits. that often with single parents, they have this really complex patchwork of informal childcare

that they're used to trying, you know, be able to earn a living. And that's so incredibly stressful, as we heard in that story, you know, colour-coded charts and beg, borrowing and stealing bits of childcare here and there, which puts so much pressure on single parents. And what are the challenges, Jolie, facing parents, specifically parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities? So mothers with disabled children really do have an impossible challenge. Many nurseries aren't equipped to deal with disabled children, in part because it doesn't make financial sense. So some parents have to hire a nanny or another specialised

professional so that they can go to work. But that comes with its own set of problems. You become an employer. But also many nannies aren't Ofsted registered, so parents then can't access the government subsidies. There was a report done by the Papworth Trust in 2018 that found that 84% of mothers of disabled children were not working and only 3% were working full time. And yet it costs parents of disabled children three times as much to raise them as it does to raise non-disabled children, which again is why we have so many parents of disabled children and disabled children living in poverty. What are your demands then, Jolie? What are the benefits of an affordable, accessible childcare system?

So it would mean, of course, that more parents can work and they can work longer hours, therefore contributing to the economy. If we look at what Canada has just done, they've invested $30 billion in their childcare sector to create a system that costs no more than $10 a day. And they've done this because they crunched the numbers. And for every dollar they invested in childcare, they got between $1.50 and $2.80 back into the wider economy. This is an investment. It is not a cost. The government really needs to do something urgently. And we need huge amounts

of investment to make it affordable. We would like to see it cost no more than 5% of household income. We need to make sure that when subsidies are paid, they're paid at the rate it costs for those providers to run those places. We need to make sure childcare workers are paid properly for the really valuable job that they do because most of them are on minimum wage, which is why we're seeing a mass exodus of childcare workers from the workforce. And we need to make sure there is enough provision for disabled children. And it is all good quality. So all of the options that have been put on the table by the government so far will not work.

They will reduce quality. They will not invest in this vital infrastructure for our economy and for our future economy in terms of investing in children. Well, we asked for a government minister to join us on the programme, but no one was available. But we have got a statement. The government says, We have spent more than £20 billion over the past five years to support families with the cost of childcare. The number of earlier places available remains broadly stable,

as it has since 2015, and hundreds of thousands of parents are benefiting from government support. We're investing millions in better training for staff working with preschool children and have set out plans to help providers run their businesses more flexibly. Jolie Brearley speaking to me on a special Woman's Hour programme dedicated to childcare on Friday. You can listen back to the whole programme on our Woman's Hour podcast on BBC Sounds. Climate change is in the news even more than usual recently, with just over a week to go until the climate summit COP27 takes place. You might have seen activists throwing cake at the

waxwork model of King Charles at Madame Tussauds earlier this week. This year's COP conference is in Egypt and we'll lead as an activist. We'll discuss how best to deal with rising temperatures. A key topic of conversation will be who pays for the damage caused by climate change in countries across the world. One woman who speaks a lot about this particular issue is climate activist Vanessa Nakati. She's 25 and from Uganda, and in her book, A Bigger Picture, she focuses on the need for the communities most affected by climate change to be central to conversations on solutions.

Jess started by asking Vanessa, what was it that sparked the climate activist in her? Well, in 2018, I started to do research about some of the challenges that were affecting the lives of the people in my country, Uganda. And in that moment, I realised that climate change was one of those challenges. And some of the impacts were already evident, for example, the landslides and the flooding in some parts of Uganda. And that really, when I saw that, I realized that I had to do something about it. So I started the climate strikes in Uganda from inspiration of Greta Thunberg from Sweden.

And what were you doing in those strikes in Uganda? What was happening? Well, for the very first strike, I had some of my cousins and siblings join me. And then the follow-up strike, sometimes I would do it by myself. Sometimes a friend would join me. But then later on, I started to go to schools to organise the strikes within the schools and carry out climate education. OK. Were they successful?

I believe they were. Now, when many people talk about climate change, it's almost seen as a future problem, something that will happen rather than something that is currently happening. Is that the case or are we already affecting the livelihoods of so many people in the global south, speaking from, you know, what is happening in Uganda with the floods and the landslides. And also when I start to speak about across the African continent, I recently made a visit with UNICEF to Turkana, a region in the Horn of Africa. And this region is experiencing the worst drought it has seen in 40 years. And it has left so many people devastated.

They can't access food, they can't access water. And many children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. We've seen the cyclones rip apart large parts of the southern part of Africa. Cyclone Idai in 2019 left more than 1,300 people dead. We've seen the flooding in Pakistan, the water crisis in the Niger Delta. I think it's really evident that the climate crisis is impacting lives right now. Many lives right now. And in your book, you speak about a key moment that changed your approach to activism when you were at the World Economic Forum in January 2020. You had your photo taken

alongside some other climate activists. And then when you saw the photo published, you had been cropped out. You were the only black activist in the photo. You were the only African activist in the photo. The Associated Press apologized. But what impact did that photo, that moment have on you as an activist and as a person? Well, definitely that moment, you know, it's such a powerful moment in my life as an activist, because when I saw, you know, that picture, I just wanted to know why I had been removed from the picture. And when I asked the question, many people were very supportive, especially online. And they were asking the same question as well.

Why was Vanessa removed from this picture? And for me, it really, you know, sparked off a very important conversation about the different intersections of climate change, for example, with racial issues, and to really understand that those that are on the front lines of the climate crisis, most often, they are the ones that are not on the front pages of, you know, the world's newspapers. Like who? And these are the communities that are least responsible for the climate crisis. So poorer, less developed economic countries, is that the ones you're talking about specifically? Yes, because the countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, these are countries that you find, you know, mostly in Africa,

mostly in the global south. And I've also visited some communities of, you know, black people within the United States. And one of the regions I went to is called Kansali. And I met some of the leaders of environmental movements there. And they explained to me that this is a region that has about 150 chemical plants, and it has really affected the water and the air in the region. And most of the families have, you know, someone suffering from cancer as a result of the pollution. So it's not

just communities of, you know, in the global south, but it's also communities of black and brown people even in the global north um when you spoke out about that crop photo in particular that that moment that that that changed you as an activist you received an onslaught of negativity mostly on on social media but also with that negativity came a wider audience. So do you think you were able to turn that experience into a positive? Well, I believe that support from the people, especially, you know, online was able to turn that moment into something, you know, positive, because there could have been a possibility of me asking that question. And I'm the only one who asked that question and no one says anything. But when I asked that question, I didn't stand alone. Many

people stood with me and that's very important. And I think that's what really defined the moment. There's a chapter in your book called COP. And of course, the annual summit is just about a week away. It's being held in Egypt, in Africa. What are you hoping will be achieved? Are you hopeful that what you want to see happen will happen? Well, when you come from a community that is on the front lines of the climate crisis, hope becomes a choice. You must hope if your community is to survive.

And for me going to COP, I must be hopeful because that's where I find the strength to speak up and advocate with, you know, fellow activists about the issues to put an end to all new fossil fuel infrastructure, the need to transition to renewable energy, the need to address mitigation adaptation, you know, for developing countries and also a loss and damage facility. Loss and damage is happening right now. And for people who may not understand what it is, loss and damage is, you know, that situation where the climate crisis pushes communities beyond adaptation. And for me, that is what I hope to see at the COP, a loss and damage facility. In your book, you talk of your admiration for the many female leaders who have brought attention to climate change around the world. If there were more women leading countries, do you think more progress would be made?

Well, I believe so. I believe so. I am very inspired by, you know, so many women. And again, one of the young women that has really inspired me in my activism has been Greta Thunberg from Sweden with the climate strikes and one of another woman is the late Wangari Mathai from Kenya and those are those are some of the women I wish I got to learn about in school like Professor Wangari Mathai. So I believe more women leadership would give us a better world. Jess speaking to the climate activist Vanessa Nakati on Tuesday. A new BBC TV documentary Deep Fake Porn Could You Be Next looks at how deep fake technology is being used to create

hardcore pornography of women without their consent. This technology enables the creator to replace a person in a video with someone else's face to make convincing fake content. All that's needed is a photo, which can be taken from Instagram, Facebook or even Zoom, and then turned into a porn video. The documentary has found that women are being deep faked, not only by strangers, but by family members and colleagues too. On Monday, Krupa spoke to the documentary's host, Jess Davis, as well as deepfake and synthetic media expert, Henry Ida. Krupa started by asking Jess, what is a deepfake? So a deepfake is a video or an image where someone else's face has been put onto someone else's body using artificial intelligence

and traditionally it was celebrities that were targeted because you needed a lot of content to create these images and videos because of the technology but as we look at in a documentary technology has come along so quickly that it is just one or two images that you need now to create this content. And it's not just celebrities as as you've highlighted. It is ordinary folk, mothers, daughters, sisters, friends. Yeah, absolutely. It was something that really shocked me when I was investigating for this film and looking into all the forums that it was a lot of, you know, family members that were being targeted, women that these perpetrators knew.

They were posting Instagram links, social media links of the girls that they were requesting to be deepfaked and then asking other members to then go and share this content. So it seems like there was a real malicious drive to the content that they were creating. Malicious is a key word because I want to better understand the legal framework around this, which you do get into in your documentary. What is the current UK legislation surrounding this? And if there isn't, why isn't there? So when it comes to deepfake porn, there isn't a targeted offence. So it isn't necessarily illegal to create and distribute this content.

When it comes to the upcoming online harm safety bill, it's suggested that it will be included in that. But it falls under similar laws to revenge porn laws. So you need to prove that there is intent to cause distress and harm when it comes to creating and distributing this content, which, as we all know, with the Internet is extremely difficult to prove. And as we've seen with revenge porn laws, this acts as a loophole that allows paper traders to get away with this. And this loophole, it's seeing the industry increase, develop in extraordinary ways. You have the opportunity to speak to some people who are behind some of these websites. It made for extraordinary listening and viewing. What did they share with you?

Yeah, so we spoke to one of the biggest uh the founders one of the biggest deep fake poll websites and some of the creators on there as well and what they shared with me and my team was that they didn't see an issue with this they felt like consent wasn't required they felt like because they knew these images and videos were fake that it wasn't a big deal that women should just get over it and i think it comes down to a huge conversation on consent that's needed within society, because women aren't just objects. You can't just swap our heads like Barbie dolls or trade our images like Pokemon cards. We are real people. And unfortunately, in these conversations, in these forums, women aren't looked at as real people. They're looked at as commodities

and just objects for these men to do what they want with it. And that could be deep faking you into a porn video without your consent. Jess, you've got personal experience of your own images, in which case they were of you being stolen and shared. How different do you think it is that these women's images aren't real and are being shared around? It was extremely difficult for me to see my images being used in a way that wasn't something that I consented to being sold and traded online but I think knowing that they were

real and knowing that they were mine even though it felt a loss of control you weren't having that added worry of where these come from what are they and I think with deep fakes it's just another layer of trying to take control away from women and saying, I don't even care if you have taken this image or not. If it's real, I'm going to put you into that position anyway. So I can imagine the trauma is even deeper, really, because you don't know where this has come from. And it's a constant worry added onto that. I want to bring in Henry Ida here, who looks specifically at the technology around synthetic media. Welcome to the programme, Henry. How exactly does this technology work?

Sure, yes. So deepfakes use a specific kind of artificial intelligence called deep learning. And when deepfakes first emerged in late 2017, this used a specific kind of deep learning called an autoencoder. And what this technology does is it takes source footage, images of a target, and it takes a destination video where the face is to be swapped. And it trains on those different images and essentially learns to map the face from the target to the destination video. And as Jess mentioned, when this first emerged, this was an incredibly intensive process. You needed quite a lot of computational power,

you needed lots of different images, and even then the results weren't of the highest quality. Whereas what we've seen over the last few years is that these technologies have become much more efficient, you need much less in the way of training data or those images. You can pre-train models now, so you only need one image in some cases. And we've also seen new techniques emerge. One specifically to the problem of deepfake image abuse or deepfake pornography is called a nudifying app, which uses an image translation algorithm, which is originally designed to, let's say, take a photo and make it look like a painting. But what it's been used to do in the context of image abuse is synthetically strip images of women again in a few seconds. Because what we're seeing here, Henry, are apps that are easily accessible from regular app stores,

not intended for this purpose, but being used for this purpose. There is a clip in the documentary when Jess manages to create content in a mere eight seconds, something along those lines. So whilst what you describe is extremely complex, it's getting easier and easier to create such content. Absolutely. The kind of gamification of this technology has been critical to its mass adoption. Again, when this was first developed, this was people who had to have some knowledge of programming to make it work. It was very un-user friendly, took a lot of time to get the results.

Whereas now it's easily accessible through really user friendly apps and tools online. And that's led to a massive scaling of the problem. Back in 2019, I did a report which found 96% of deep fake videos online were pornographic. But we were talking about 10,000, 15,000 videos at that time, whereas now we're talking about millions of images and videos that are out there. And these aren't being created by computer science experts. These are being created by everyday people looking to target non-consensually, as you said, people they know or celebrities. And so it's scaled massively in a very short period of time. Back to the legal framework, which I touched on earlier with Jess and Kate.

It almost feels like the technology is far ahead of the legislation. I mean, are we ever going to get to a point where the legal framework can catch up with what is what is happening here? Yes, it's really challenging. And if I'm completely honest, it's quite a depressing landscape, which is even if the legislation can adequately capture the harms that are being caused by deep pay pornography, actually using this legislation to make change and hold people to account and bring them to justice is very difficult. As Jess found, a lot of these people are anonymous online. It's hard to identify who they are. They may not even be in the same jurisdiction as you. And also a lot of these tools, you know, they may get taken down, but they'll pop up somewhere else. It really is a bit like a game of whack-a-mole when it comes to trying to stop people accessing them. And again, with these nudifying apps,

back in 2019, the most popular one was taken down, and about 10, 15 other services came up in its place. And so you can't really regulate mathematics, which is essentially what these tools are, right? It's code. And so if one person gets their service taken down, another person can just rebuild it from essentially from scratch, or download it from another place where it's been essentially stolen or repurposed. So it's really, really challenging. And you know, I really do feel for the victims that I've also worked with on this space, who are looking to try and get that justice. But ultimately, the legal framework, it's not particularly well equipped to both take down the tools and also identify perpetrators. And Henry, is that just in this country?

Because this is happening across the world. Are there any countries where that framework is on the same level as the pace of technology? Yeah, absolutely. It is a truly global problem. Again, something that the study I did in 2019 found one area in particular that was interesting was K-pop stars in South Korea were a really big area where victims were being targeted. There is legislation coming forward across the world. Again, we're seeing in South Korea, in Japan, on the state level in the US, and also in the UK, there's been a recent recommendation by the Law Commission around intimate image abuse. So there is a global shift towards recognising this as a serious problem, but the same issues still apply, right, in terms of actually getting that legislation to work for victims and to hold perpetrators to account. There have been a

couple of cases that have been reported in the global media of people being arrested and identified. And again, perhaps in the case of revenge pornography, it's slightly easier to kind of understand who that might be who's targeting you. But it's very, very challenging to make it work and to kind of provide a conclusive case. Deepfake and synthetic media expert Henry Ida and presenter Jess Davis speaking to Krupa about deepfake porn. The documentary Deepfake Porn Could You Be Next is available to watch on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer now. Still to come, a listener on why even in her coffin she will be a goth. We talk goth fashion and why it's not just a passing phase. And remember that you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day.

If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via the BBC Sounds app. But first, we're going to revisit a story we first brought you here on Woman's Hour at the start of the year about rogue refuges, housing women who have escaped domestic abuse. Hundreds find themselves in a type of supported housing known as exempt accommodation. This week, a committee of senior MPs branded this current system as a complete mess and a gold rush for dodgy landlords raking in millions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Their report is calling for change. Rogue landlords claim they're using enhanced housing benefit payments to support survivors of domestic abuse,

but instead just pocketing the money. Here's a young woman called Charlotte, who we spoke to back in February. She waived her right to anonymity and chose to speak to Woman's Hour about her experience of living in one of these so-called rogue refuges. In one weekend, I was both sexually assaulted and I was stolen from. It's only now I look back and I think I wasn't capable of declining that accommodation, of advocating that it wasn't appropriate for me to be in a mixed- sex environment with no staff. I wasn't able to advocate what happened to me that one weekend. And that's just one weekend. What did they promise would be offered to you to support you? And what did it turn out to be

in reality? They just said to me that I would be given somewhere of my own to sleep. So not somebody else's sofa. And I was put in with a man. I was in one bedroom, a bedroom with a locked door. And I was told that that would be sufficient, but it was dangerous. Someone had put a sofa up at the back of the doors in the living room because it was a known drug house. People had tried to burst in the back door, so there was a sofa. And I did end up leaving after the assault. I went to stay with an ex-boyfriend. Why would I not? Because it's better the devil you know. And I said, I'm not coming back unless I can be where there's some staff. Except accommodation I went to first was not staffed.

It was part of a conglomerate of properties that was owned by a provider that on paper, it was ticking boxes. So I never met a proper manager. I only ever met people that were on really, really low wages. And often they probably did go above and beyond what they were expected to do, but they just weren't required to do very much. You know, supporters, I will be in the office and you will present for a breathalyser and I will document it. But that's not support, that's administration. You know, what is support? Is it having a chat with me for 10 minutes? The rule says more than minimal support. That's the guidance.

And I think that's too subjective. I would say that getting two toilet roll a week and a washing tablet is not enough. And I don't believe that two toilet roll and a washing tablet cost £230 a week. The fact you can put a wash on is the least of your worries. You know, what has happened to make you get here? This is not a hotel. It was beyond abhorrent. And what I would say needs to change is that what looks good on paper is not being translated into real life. How can a woman, whose life has got to the point where she needs to be in exempt accommodation, you know, it's not gone great. For whatever reason, how can I be expected to live with a population of people who are allowed to be 20% sex offenders, male sex offenders, mixed at all? It's noisy. It is chaotic. People fight. You don't know if they're shouting

to be heard or shouting because they're arguing. And if you've come from an environment where everything makes you jump, you know, you're a wreck. I've often said if I wasn't a wreck before I went in, I absolutely was when I came out. I've recovered in spite of going in there. That was Charlotte, who bravely explained how she was badly let down because the support she was expecting never materialised. On Thursday, Krupa spoke to the chair of the Leveling Up Housing and Community Select Committee, Clive Betts, the Labour MP for Sheffield South East, as well as Becky Rogerson, the chief executive of Wearside Women in Need in Sunderland,

which operates three refuges supporting 24 women and 20 children. She's worked in the sector for 20 years. Krupa started by asking Becky what she's seeing on the ground. Well, I probably get approached about once a week by landlords seeking referral pathways from our service to fill their properties, sometimes two or three times a week to be honest, in different patches. Yeah so the first question that we would ask is, as part of our sort of due diligence, is you know, where is this property? And it's quite interesting that that's rarely disclosed, mainly because we've got landlords buying up properties in high crime areas, low demand areas. And we would also ask for their policies and procedures.

And I can honestly say in three years, I've never received anyone's policies and procedures. That's usually at the point where it goes a little bit cold. So, you know, as a specialist provider, we would always be looking at where are we sending people? What's the crime area like? And we would liaise with police and other partners and work closely with our local authority. That's not happening with these providers. So it's, you know, the Wild West. So it sounds like they call you up, they express interest, you then challenge them or ask them the necessary questions, ask them for the evidence.

And then that is where, in many cases, that journey ends. And what I want to better understand from you is why it is they are calling you up and why it is that you need to turn to them. Is that partly because there are not enough refuge spaces and suitable accommodation for women who are escaping domestic abuse?

Well, I think there's been an underinvestment in the sex of three years, as there has in many other similar service areas. What we've seen is a percentage rise year on year of domestic abuse reports to police, which is the most consistent sort of figures that we have and I don't think that the provision has sort of kept pace with the increase in demand. I guess there's lots of other it's a really complicated area of practice because there's lots of other complications in terms of refuge provision. Move on slows down. Obviously, that means that length of stay in refuge is longer, so our turnover is less. So there's lots of other issues, many of which I think the report's picked up really effectively. So increasing unregulated supported accommodation takes other housing stock out of the market and therefore slows down the move-on process.

So there's lots of factors here to take into consideration. But often these landlords, they do find these women and they do manage to claim that enhanced housing benefit, as Charlotte told us. And often, like in Charlotte's case, they aren't able to turn down this accommodation. And also in the report specifically, the CEO of Women's Aid said that it takes an average of seven years for a woman to leave an abusive relationship. And often when it goes wrong like this, it just means that they will go back to that precarious situation. How does this impact your services when these scenarios end up as they do?

Well, it's an absolute tragedy, isn't it? It's a travesty of justice. And Charlotte's story is not an isolated case. I could recite a number of stories very similar to that. Typical cases of prison leavers being picked up at the prison gates, transported miles away, no local connection. And, you know, to be taken somewhere where you actually don't know where you're going, you don't know that area at all, is, well, just disconnects, basically. There's no sort of community there. So that's a um job for us to then unpick and as charlotte said that you're not only escaping a vulnerable position but then to be put in a more dangerous position we're unpicking a number of layers there so we're repairing the immediate harms that have

happened when they should have been in safe accommodation and of course the immediate harms that have happened when they should have been in safe accommodation, and of course the historic harms. So what tends to happen is that the unregulated accommodation is picking up people, allegedly offering support that doesn't happen, and then they're contacting our services to say, we'll continue to accommodate, but can you put the support that's required here because this person's asking for support. That puts us in a really difficult position, because another provider is being paid to put the support that's required here because this person's asking for support that puts us in a really difficult position because another provider is being paid to offer the support

and then we as a as a charitable organization that actually cares about people and their experience end up using our resources to put the support in that they're not delivering that's interesting that puts a huge strain on services i can imagine um so ellen's been in touch to say i used to work as a domestic abuse charity the council pay for hotels um at bed and breakfast that's a part of temporary accommodation but instead of a cooked breakfast the family's got one slice of toast and a glass of water also oh that is just jumped. And she then adds, also, a lot were calling themselves women's refuges, but they had male tenants. And another one here says, regarding the supported housing discussion, who sets the rules in the first place?

Who agrees that they are appropriate? No regulation, no control, says Clive. But why not? If inadequate rules are in place, how did they get passed in the first place? That's one for you, Clive. Well, they don't get passed. That's the simple answer. Because there aren't the controls, there's not the regulation. And what we're calling for is that all these properties and providers ought to be registered. So we know who they are. Currently, we don't know how many there are, who they are, how many people are living there. We think there should be standards laid down for the

accommodation itself, standards laid down for support and local authorities should be able to oversee this and have enforcement power so they don't pay money out where these standards are not and very importantly with a particular recognition of women fleeing domestic abuse there should be proper referrals processes so women in this situation indeed anybody with vulnerabilities doesn't get referred to accommodation and providers who are not appropriate. Let's talk about money because how much do you think this is costing not only the women but the taxpayer? We've no idea. We've asked government repeatedly please tell us how much you're paying out in housing benefit because in the end it is housing benefit paying this money out and they can't tell

us. And why is that? Because they don't collect the figures, they don't collect the information. It's not been seen as a problem in the past worthy of particular uh investigation they are starting to collect the figures now and there have been some estimates in the past i think the national audit office said um around five or six years ago it was probably costing two billion pounds a year it's gone up a lot more since then almost certainly so billions not millions of pounds being spent on inadequate accommodation, no support in many cases, people being put in completely inappropriate accommodation. And at the end of the day, rogues, and in some cases, criminals milking the system for millions of pounds of profit. Another message and thank you to all of you for sending in your thoughts on this. This one writes, local authorities do have some control. The one I work for has subcontracted out the

provision of temporary and emergency housing which they have a legal duty to provide to a totally unscrupulous company who provides poor quality housing and scant support. Vulnerable people are placed wherever is free, not according to vulnerability or need. The amount of housing benefits pouring into this company is eye-watering. And another here who writes, I am a nurse in Bedfordshire. We had raised multiple safeguarding alerts against an organisation like this and I've never had to do that against an organisation in my long career.

It's worse than awful. It is very dangerous. Let's look forward. I mean, what are the next steps, Clive, in terms of recommendations when it comes to housing survivors of domestic abuse? What needs to happen? Well, we need all those controls and those standards laying down. But specifically, before any money is paid out in housing benefit for accommodation where domestic abuse survivors and people fleeing domestic abuse are going to be housed, then there has to be specific standards of support in that accommodation that meets part four of the Domestic Abuse Act. In other words, there's a recognition that women in these circumstances need particular care and support to a particular standard. Those standards are laid down in legislation and they should be applied in all cases and local authorities should be given the powers to check and apply them. Of

course, local authorities are going to need resources to do that, but as we've said, there's so much money in this system being paid out inappropriately to rogues making enormous profits, there is money there to make sure this can be done properly. Clive Betts MP, chair of the Leveling Up Housing and Community Select Committee, and Becky Rogerson, chief executive of Wearside Women in Need in Sunderland, speaking to Krupa Pardi. Now, were you ever a goth? Maybe you still are. Were you a fan of the black clothing, big boots, bold eyeliner and black lipstick?

It's a look that has morphed and changed over the decades. There were the magic influence goths, the burlesque look, the vamp as seen by Morticia in The Addams Family. Fashion designers like Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood have even referenced it on the catwalks, but its roots very much belong in the streets and clubs. And it's not just young people sporting this look. As we'll hear, many women have continued their love of goth fashion as they've got older. Joining me now is Katie Godman, who is a costume librarian and her book Gothic Fashion is subtitled From Barbarians to Haute Couture. Jess started by asking Katie, what is

goth fashion as we know it today? I think gothic fashion as we know it today comes from the 1980s, late 1970s club scene, a bit of a cousin of punk originally that then evolved in its own right and draws a lot on historical fashion and has since, even since the 80s, had quite a few other mutations and other offshoots such as steampunk and witchy goth and just sort of celebrating all things dark and historical and moody within fashion. Goth means different things to different people. So you identify as a goth? I would say it's quite a difficult question and part of my book covers that

because goth means different things to different people. I think when I was a teenager and a student, I was definitely more of a goth. I think as I've grown older, I still incorporate gothic elements into my fashion and I work with and I love historical fashion. So I think still like big boots and long dresses and lipstick, but perhaps if you saw me walking down the street normally, might not say that's a goth but I have been

also told that I'm a goth so it's a bit of a contradiction. I suppose so it's an interchangeable term yeah people use it in different ways I think that's certainly the case for our listeners because we asked for their stories about being a goth Let's hear from Jess from Winchester. I was a bit of a quirky child. I loved Halloween and vampires and dressing up, I suppose. So 13-year-old me did not realise I was gothic at all until we had a school free dress day and a kid in my tutor group shouted, you're a goth, Jess. And I argue like you do look down at my charity shop leather trousers and thought well yeah you're right I liked that as an angsty teenager I had a kind of uniform that was easy to follow and at the same time if people laughed at me I didn't have to take it personally you know you can put it down to i was wearing big black leather coats and boots

so it was like an armor in that sense and it's really hard not to feel powerful in huge leather shoes my friend group were a bit like the breakfast club and i was very much the only goth in our village. There's a photo at our prom and my friend is wearing this gorgeous gold prom dress, like blonde hair. And I'm stood next to her in purple five inch PVC platforms and this lace embroidered corset I'd bought from Camden. But I felt great. That is quite the image. And I suppose for for Jess it was quite an empowering look for her but Katie just tell us about the roots of this style of gothic fashion and where it dates back to because you go very far back in your book. Yes so when I was my idea for the book originally came from looking at gothic fashion in the 1800s but as I got into it I sort of found out it goes back

even further than that and in the 1800s they were I got into it I sort of found out it goes back even further than that and in the 1800s they were referencing medieval fashion and renaissance fashion so I was just trying to trace it back as far as it went and then you're thinking where does the word goth actually come from and goths were originally a sort of northern European tribe that went to war with the Romans and things that goes all the way and they were the barbarians that you know brought about the fall of Rome so to speak so I sort of vaguely wanted to go all the way back there and then trace the sort of stylistic things that we associated with goths that mostly come from the dark ages and then bring it through to the 18th century when people really consciously started to dress in a gothic fashion and that's

when it's applied to architecture and to fashion in terms of trying to dress historically and then bring it through to the 20th century as well. So, yeah, it's a very long history. And would you say it's still influencing mainstream trends today? Definitely. I think there was an article. It was maybe February or January in The Guardian saying goth is back and sort of looking at modern pop stars and celebrities like the Kardashians have dabbled with goth and Rihanna's definitely had a goth phase. And I think it's something that never quite goes away. It just keeps getting reinvented and restyled. And I think human nature and a lot most cultures kind of have a fascination with kind of dark mystical stories and then also the styles that go with that in different incarnations. Tell us about the roots of this style of Gothic fashion and where it dates back to, because you go very far back in your book.

Yes. So when I was, my idea for the book originally came from looking at Gothic fashion in the 1800s. But as I got into it, I sort of found out it goes back even further than that. And in the 1800s, they were referencing medieval fashion and Renaissance fashion. So I was just trying to trace it back as far as it went. And then you're thinking, where does the word goth actually come from? And goths were originally a sort of northern European tribe that went to war with the Romans and things. And they were the barbarians that brought about the fall of Rome, so to speak. So I sort of vaguely wanted to go all the way back

there and then trace the sort of stylistic things that we associated with goths that mostly come from the dark ages and then bring it through to the 18th century when people really consciously started to dress in a gothic fashion and that's when it's applied to architecture and to fashion in terms of trying to dress historically and then yeah bring it through to the 20th century as well. Wow, it's a very long history. And would you say it's still influencing mainstream trends today? Definitely. I think there was an article, it was maybe February or January,

in The Guardian saying goth is back and sort of looking at modern pop stars and celebrities like the Kardashians have dabbled with goth and Rihanna's definitely had a goth phase. And I think it's something that never quite goes away. It just keeps getting reinvented and restyled. And I think human nature and a lot most cultures kind of have a fascination with kind of dark, mystical stories and then also the styles that go with that in different incarnations. And tell us about the use of the colour black as well because I think it has a different meaning today

as to what it had previously when they used it. Yes, I find this really interesting. I heard a lecture about it once and then I really got into researching it. But originally, if you think of medieval Europe, medieval times, dyeing, they would have been using natural fabric and natural dyes, so woad and sort of fruit and vegetable dyes. So to get black, to get dark black is really hard. So it actually used to be a

sign of wealth as well as authority. So it was associated with the church, but the wealth within the church and also the professional classes, so lawyers and doctors. It was a colour for mourning, but it was really the Victorian era where mourning, sort of these prolonged mornings and widows wearing black for two or three years really came into force because the Industrial Revolution started fast fashion. So darker clothes and dyeing clothes with chemicals became cheaper and more widespread. Before that, black was a lot more ostentatious, a lot more fancy, and a good way to show off your jewellery as well against black velvet, for example. And because of the use of the colour black,

I think today perhaps goths have a reputation for being a bit dark, a bit sombre, a bit miserable. What's your experience, though? I think there is a hashtag now, it's hashtag happy goth, and I find, yeah, I think there's a lot of goths that enjoy dressing in a gothic fashion because it's quite theatrical and it's quite fun. It's just like dressing up on Halloween every day. So i think there's definitely an element of fun and playfulness

to gothic fashion which maybe doesn't always come across um in the media but most of gothic fashion i would say is about having fun and there's a writer called leela taylor who kind of describes them i think she says like the dark peacocks or black peacocks says that's definitely a fun way to be i think yeah um as i before, it's not just young people. Older people are still continuing their love for Gothic fashion. Let's hear from one of our listeners called Janet, who has just turned 60 this year. My wardrobe really still reflects the Gothic image that I adapted in my late teenage years and early 20s. Obviously, all that changed when I became a teacher.

I still sported the bright red lipstick along with my hair which was still dyed outrageously red, dark, purple or black and one of the things I could really get away with at school was boots. Still had to wear a suit but the Edwardian style ankle boots or the calf length boots with the laces and the small heel they still defined my gothness along with my hair one incident that really stood out for me during my teaching years was when I bumped into one of the kids that I told in the high street his mum was going that's never your teacher and this kid was going it is it is it really is I was going through what I call my corset years so I was wearing a goth. I gave my son really strict

instructions and I know that he's going to follow it. I'm going to wear my black bat t-shirt and the back wings are spread across a chalice of blood. The t-shirt glows in the dark and I'm going to have a long floaty lacy skirt. It's all in a plastic bag in my wardrobe, labelled death clothes in death, as in life. I will still be a goth. You could just hear the love and the passion in her voice. Wasn't that brilliant? Yeah, brilliant.

It's something that she's going to continue and something that I assume you will continue. It's not just a passing phase, is it? No, will continue. It's not just a passing phase, is it? No, definitely not. It's not just a passing phase. Definitely continue. I even got married this summer and I wore a purple wedding dress.

So yeah, it's carrying on the goth tradition. Absolutely fantastic. And if someone is looking to buy a few standout pieces, what could they do? What could they buy to emulate the gothic fashion? Boots are good, but you can often find black dresses quite cheaply in charity shops. And then they can be altered in a really fun way with jewellery and cheap brooches and things like that if you're just trying to get started.

So I would say a black dress for a girl is quite a good way. Or, you know, non-binary, a normal way to go. Yeah, black dresses. The author and costume librarian Katie Goodman. That's all from me today. Tune in to Woman's Hour on Monday morning at 10 with Emma Barnett, where she'll be speaking to the actor Katie Braben, playing Tammy Faye in a new musical at the Almeida Theatre. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I'm Sarah Treleaven, 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.