Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Raising the ‘Sen-betweeners’, Signs of teenage exploitation, Formula One, Nussaibah Younis, Egg-freezing

Episode Date: February 22, 2025

'Sen-betweeners' is the term Lisa Lloyd, a mum of two autistic children, uses to describe her children. She says their neurodivergence is too severe to fit easily into mainstream school, but not severe enough for a special school, so they fall between the gaps. Lisa has written a guide for other parents on ‘Raising the Sen-betweeners,’ in which she, whilst recognising that all children are different and there can be no rules, offers tips and advice for how to handle behaviours. Lisa joined Anita to share what she has learnt.The Children’s Society are training staff at the fast food chain Chicken Cottage to spot signs of exploitation amongst their teenage customers. Nuala discussed the initiative and issues with the charity’s Head of National Programmes, Lisa Witherden, and Chicken Cottage franchise manager Georgian Balog.Formula 1 has just turned 75, but how much headway are women racing drivers making? Nuala was joined by Jamie Chadwick, one of the leading British women in this sport, and BBC reporter Charlotte Simpson, who has spent months talking to a wide range of people trying to support more young women to become involved in the sport.Nussaibah Younis’s debut novel Fundamentally is based on her own experiences working as a peacekeeping consultant in Baghdad. The book follows Nadia, a British Asian woman working for the UN, and her relationship with fellow Brit Sara, a nineteen-year-old three-times widowed member of the Islamic State Group. Nussaibah joined Anita to discuss finding the comedy in a desperate situation.Harvest, a new documentary, shows the realities of the egg freezing process. Director and writer Sophia Seymour decided to film her journey of elective egg freezing. With the number of women choosing this form of fertility planning rising, Nuala was joined by Sophia to discuss why she decided to do, and film it, and also by Dr Ippokratis Sarris, Consultant in Reproductive Medicine and Director of King’s Fertility.Nao is a Grammy and Mercury nominated singer songwriter. She's described her unique brand of music as “wonky funk”. She joined Nuala McGovern to talk about fame, motherhood and her new album Jupiter. She performed live in the studio.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to a selection of standout moments from the week just gone. As Formula One celebrates its 75th birthday, Jamie Chadwick, one of the world's most decorated female racing drivers, on why there have been no female F1 drivers since the 70s. Debut novelist Nisabah Younis on her new book

Fundamentally, about a British-Asian woman working for the UN and her relationship with a 19-year-old, three times widowed member of the Islamic State group. We'll be looking at a new project by the charity The Children's Society that wants to target the exploitation of teenagers by training staff who work at chicken shops. And there's music from Grammy and Mercury nominated singer Nao Settlin. It's going to be a good one.

Now, there's a phrase. when you've met one autistic child, you've met one autistic child. All children are unique. Lisa Lloyd is the mum of two autistic children, one in primary school and one in secondary school, who she fondly labels as the SEN between us, SEN standing for special educational needs. Lisa describes them as being differently wired from other children, each with a neurodivergence too severe for them to participate in mainstream education, but then again each with a neurodivergence not severe enough for special school. Lisa co-founded the campaign group Send Reform England and she's now created a guide that she hopes will help parents like her. She joined me in the studio this week and I began

by asking her about her children and how they fall between the gaps. They sort of don't fit anywhere to be honest. So basically they're both autistic, both diagnosed, but you know especially my son Finn, he was, he's academic, he's verbal and he masked a lot of schools so he would sort of pretend he was okay, appear fine to the teachers and things, come home and have huge meltdowns and everything so nobody could actually see all the struggles that he had. So I call them the Senpitewiners because they're the children basically that can't cope with mainstream but also don't have complex enough needs for a send school. So, you know, it's sort of where do these children fit? And, you know, I've recently been diagnosed

myself and obviously I recognise that I was one of those sent between us now and if I'd had the right support maybe school would have been different for me maybe the problems that I had with jobs and things like that would have all been different. And you have a social media account you're very funny you make real light of it and I think it's probably your way of kind of making people see lights in it and help people communicate what they're going through, which is a very serious experience. You mentioned the word masking there, explain what that means. So basically it's pretending to be somebody you're not, it's you know desperately trying to fit the mould. From a very young age Finn would say to me that he felt weird and that he was different from all the other children.

And he would try and behave like them, try and blend into the background. A very quiet child, very well behaved, but he was often dismissed because of that, because he wasn't disruptive in the classroom and he slowly started to fail more and more with his schoolwork and get behind. Whereas he'd started off school actually advanced for his age, he was a year ahead so I could see everything that was going on but I felt like I was screaming and nobody was listening because I Was saying, you know, he needs help. He's struggling but nobody could see it and I'm not blaming the teachers at all because It's very difficult when you see a child that appears fine

But behind closed doors, I knew he was riddled with anxiety. He didn't want to go in And that was only getting worse. So when did you first suspect that your son was not neurotypical? Well actually really early on, really early on. As a baby he didn't like being cuddled so when he was crying and everything like that I used to have to lay him down on the floor to calm him down and strip him off to his nappy. You know, I'd go to baby groups and the other mums would look horrified at this mum that's not comforting her child, but I would know that it would

make him worse by cuddling him. He didn't meet the sort of social milestones, so he wouldn't smile back, didn't point, didn't answer to his name. So it was quite early on that I started to see these signs and he got referred at the age of two. But because he was verbal and because he was meeting sort of academic milestones, he wasn't actually diagnosed until four years later at the age of six. But when he was really little, when he was still a baby and you were suspecting that there was something that wasn't quite right, but your husband, your partner didn't agree? No.

What was the conflict? What happened? He, well, I had postnatal depression, so it was an awful time to be honest. And I didn't understand why I couldn't bond with my child and everybody around me was saying, he's fine, he'll catch up, it's normal, but I knew something was going on and unfortunately my husband, he didn't see it until he saw a horrific meltdown at our friend's house. And I think, you know, it started to dawn on him then that something was going on, and we needed to get that referral.

Because the problem is, he wasn't at the baby groups and things, so he couldn't see how the other children were behaving. But you were. But I was, and I was seeing there was something different there. You're brutally honest in the book about how tough it's all been for you, and I think you have to be, because you know who you're talking to. You're talking honest in the book about how tough it's all been for you and I think you have to be because you know who

you're talking to. You're talking to people going through the same thing as you but how much of a strain does it put on your daily life? You've got two children who are autistic. Yeah a lot. You know I look probably about 60. She doesn't look 60. Whatever 60 looks like you don't. You're radiant. You have to have a lot of patience. I mean you do with children anyway but especially with children with additional needs you need endless amounts of patience. You need to learn to pick your battles with things but the work you know it's not actually the children that are the hardest part of everything, it's the whole world around us.

You know, fighting for school places, fighting for EHCPs, judgment that you get from other people, from the general public, those are the main problems rather than actually our children. Can I ask you about one particular part in the book that really struck me is when you had your daughter and she was still a baby and it might be difficult to talk about it I don't know but you wrote about it and you were so distraught that that day you decided to take your daughter to A&E and hand it to a stranger can you tell us what happened? Yeah, it was probably one of the worst times of my life actually.

I probably will get a bit emotional talking about it. I was, I didn't know what else to do. She cried constantly and at that time we were trying to get Finn diagnosed as well and her crying was setting off Finn with his meltdowns because he couldn't take the noise. She wouldn't feed so she was losing weight and one night I just couldn't take it anymore and I drove her to A&E and I handed her over to the receptionist and I said take my baby because I cannot do this anymore. And to hand over your child to a stranger is a really, really difficult thing to do.

But I knew there was no other options out there and I didn't know what else to do and I felt so alone and that is one of the reasons that I wanted to write this book so desperately is because I didn't want anybody to ever feel the way that I felt at that time. Sorry, I don't want to cry on here. You don't have to apologise at all, you do not have to apologise. What support network do you have? Obviously friends and family are incredible. I literally couldn't deal without them and thankfully I've met some incredible friends online as well, people that get it. You know, my friends have got other autistic children themselves, some with high care needs, some like myself with low care needs. But you know, we have so much in common in the way that our life is a little bit tougher. And you know, even though our children are

very different, we just understand it and there's no judgment there. Yeah, yeah, I'm just wondering, because you give so much to everybody and here you are writing a book to help people. I'm wondering who is giving you the same? I honestly, I do have that support from people, luckily. Your eldest child left mainstream school for a special school eventually. How did that feel?

So he's actually at what you'd class as an in-between school and this is what I wish there were more of. But it's smaller classes, it's all designed around autistic people, they do horse riding there, farming, swimming and it has just been amazing for him. He's made friends finally, he's actually enjoying school and wanting to go in and this is all we ever want for our children. Lisa Lloyd there and her book Raising the Send Between Us is out now. And if you've been affected by anything you've heard then please go to BBC Actionline or consult with your GP about any issues you may be concerned about. And we asked the Department for Education

for a statement. A spokesperson said, The system we've inherited has been failing families with SEND children for far too long. This is unacceptable and that's why we set out our plan for change to ensure no child is left behind. We are already making progress by investing £1 billion into SEND, £740 million for councils to create more specialist places

in mainstream schools and through our Curriculum and Assessment review which will look at barriers that hold children back from the best life chances. And as always, please do continue to get in touch with your own experiences about CEND and the education system. You can email us by going to the website. Now chicken shops can offer a quick bite on a lunch break or maybe a solution when you've been out and are in desperate need of that deep fried chicken hit on the way home. But some chicken shops are trying to be something other than a place to just feed customers. The charity The Children's Society is training staff at the Chain Chicken Cottage to spot

signs of exploitation amongst its teenage customers. Nuala was joined by Head of National Programs at the Children's Society Lisa Witherton and Georgian Balog who manages chicken cottage franchises across the country and recently completed this training himself to find out more about this new scheme. We feel it's really important to reach children and young people where they are and if we know the spaces where children and young people are accessing then we want members of the public and chicken cottage staff to know what the signs and symptoms of exploitation are

and then crucially what they can do if they're worried about a young person. OK, so what sort of exploitation are you talking about? So we're talking about child criminal exploitation here and what I'm talking about when we're talking about children who are being criminally exploited is when predators are grooming children young people from all communities and that can begin as simply offering to buy them food or clothes to gain trust and friendship and then that might kind of turn into threats and violence to exploit them into crimes such as carrying drugs, money laundering, or for sexual or labour exploitation. And as you can imagine, this is hugely traumatic for children, young people and has a really

devastating impact on communities. So explain to us even a little bit further and perhaps bringing in the training as well, Lisa, in the sense of, is it groomers that are in the chicken shop that you're thinking about or explain to me exactly how you see it. So we know that groomers are in all places of our society, unfortunately, but really what we want to do by this training is to help chicken cottage staff identify the children and young people that may be at risk of this. So educating them about the signs that they might see in their customers in children and young people that might alert them that something's wrong.

Like what? What might the sign or symptom be? So for staff working in restaurants and fast food outlets, that could be things like children and young people who have lots of cash on them, it could be that they feel a child or young person is under control or duress and they might also notice that there's people that are spending a long time in the restaurant or the shop and have met lots of people in there. It could simply be that something just doesn't feel quite right and we'd encourage people to kind of trust that instinct. Let me bring in Georgian here. You have actually taken part in the training. What did you learn?

Yeah definitely I learned in the training it was very well organized and it gave us brief about how to deal with the situation. So it was about how to observe an approach with the caution if we see a person which is in need. Also how to use our body language when we approach, observe if they are alone or they are with somebody, how they, you know, if they're visiting the restaurant during the school time, this could be a flag. Also, if they are looking sleepy or tired,

they are with someone older than them, it doesn't seem to be relative, and also if they seem to be far from home. So I think it's essential to raise the awareness about vulnerability of the children's because we work in a restaurant where a good percentage of our customers are children and youths. So this will give us a unique position to notice

if something is not quite right. So you must also see this all the time, even before training Georgian, that you're familiar with young people and their habits and what they're like. But I was thinking it is quite a responsibility perhaps for people working at one of your branches to be thinking about issues as deep and difficult as this. about issues as deep and difficult as this? Definitely everyone should have a responsibility. You know that we believe in power of community. So it's all about giving back to the community and society. This partnership would allow us to support vulnerable young people and drive positive change, whatever is needed

the most and whatever we operate as stores. I mean, do you think in the stores there is a place for conversation with the young people? I'd be curious what your experiences have been. I was working before as a restaurant general manager and this was you know in different location across UK. And I would like to say that many area was quite difficult in terms of safety because of the social unrest I think can surely possibly have a children who have been case of abuse or this could be a result of their backgrounds, for example, maybe divorce in a family or broken homes. So obviously when we experience these situations, we have to be aware about that something is not right and we need to approach with caution. And in many cases was a case of antisocial behaviour and this was

produced mainly by young people mostly under 18. And if we have that training in place, we know how to tackle and support in these situations. So it's interesting you talk about some kids there that are maybe going through something difficult, personal in their lives or something instead that could be a more criminal type behavior of something that is anti-social behavior, obviously different situations there. I mean do you feel now that you'd be able to approach somebody? I believe so. So I believe that we can, you know, by putting this training in place from the children's societies is quite supportive and quite helpful and it gives us the ability to understand how

to approach someone and how we identify someone that actually needs the support. Lisa, let me turn back to you. I mean, is it going to be offered like on a voluntary basis to staff or more mandatory? So yes staff have access to online training and the first licenses have been granted so staff can now access that training. Only if they want though, is it just it's not mandatory? It will be available to all staff and obviously we'll be working with Chicken Cottage to identify who they sort of feel it's appropriate to prioritise that for and we would want to make it available to all staff and obviously if it can be made mandatory that's also really helpful from a safeguarding perspective. It will be e-learning so it can be really easily

accessed at any time which is obviously really convenient for the staff working in those outlets. Do you expect to roll it out further? We'd love to roll it out further. So this training which we call Act on Exploitation is built for the hospitality sector in particular and really designed specifically with audiences in mind who might not have had the kind of specialist knowledge and experience around working with children and young people that we do. Lisa Witherdon and Georgian Balog there speaking to Nula. Now buckle up as we head to Formula One. The sport has just celebrated its 75th anniversary,

but where are the women racing drivers? What are the obstacles that still stand in their way? Jamie Chadwick is one of the leading British women in this sport who's had to base herself in the US to enable her career to thrive. And BBC reporter Charlotte Simpson has spent months talking to a wide range of people trying to support more young women to become involved in what appears to still be a very male-dominated world. They both joined Nula this week and she began by asking Jamie what's the attraction of motorsport, particularly F1? From a young age, I fell in love with it. I was fortunate enough to start in go-karts, which is how most people get into the sport. And yeah, I loved it. I came from different sports, so I was competitive. But I think as a sport goes, it's at such a high level now from both a technology point of view, a competitive point of view, a sporting point of view. And so all these things come together, spread around the world at amazing, amazing racetracks

all over the world. It's incredible. So yeah, it's a great sport. I'm glad other people are starting to see how great it is as well. And yeah, it's a sport I've loved for so long now. And we'll get into some of the reasons why women aren't represented at the levels that they should be. But what was your path to becoming a racing driver? Yeah, so kind of slightly unorthodox in many ways. My parents weren't from a from a motorsport background but I had an older brother that started in go-karting and yeah, I just followed him into it initially. Very much the hobby, did it as something that I enjoyed but more for fun than anything else and I started progressing through. I was fortunate to win a scholarship in a Genesta Junior Championship which is a junior car racing series in the UK and from there it kind of just sort of escalated year on year and I'm very fortunate that

now there are a lot of initiatives and doorways opening for women in the sport and yeah I've been a big beneficiary of a lot of those. So yeah, fortunate enough to kind of continue my career along. And go-karting, of course, is a huge part of this path towards becoming an elite driver. Charlotte, 75 years of the sport, as I mentioned, its birthday, but women are barely represented, in some ways less than they were a number of years ago. Talk us through one of the main reasons that you feel that's happening. There are really multiple reasons. I think the main ones that kept coming up in my discussions were money. We've known that for a long time. It's an extremely expensive sport and that's also a struggle for male races as well as female

races but it's not like training for a marathon. You can't just pop your trainers on and train yourself for free. Every time you get in a go-kart or in a car in Formula 4, Formula 3, Formula 2, it's going to cost you. And so getting enough money and backing to be able to continually do that, to get time on task, to develop your skills is really difficult. And it's something that women have throughout this whole period have struggled from what I've been told more so than their male counterparts. It's a little bit unclear as to why for example maintaining sponsors has been

more difficult for women. As Jamie mentioned, carting is where most people begin their careers and we're not getting enough girls into carts at the moment. If you think about it's a bit of a needle in a haystack trying to find that one mega talented person to reach all the way to Formula One. Now you have thousands of boys willing and ready to do that compared to the pool of women is still very small. We will come on to talk about what's been done to do that but that those two are definitely some of the main reasons as well as sort of some of the persisting attitudes around women in this sport too. Misogyny, basically.

Absolutely. Because what I found fascinating is that you found, and we probably should say actually, and maybe Charlotte you want to do, Formula One is just one. There's F2 as well. There's F3, which are lower down the rankings, so to speak. Formula One is the pinnacle, and that people kind of go up from three to two, so to speak. Formula One is the pinnacle and that people kind of go up from three to two, two to one. And you found that women were included in Formula One at one point, they disappear.

Yes, across its 75 year history, only five women have actually had a chance to qualify for a Grand Prix. The one that people might have heard of the most is Italy's Lella Lombardi, who is to this day still the only and last woman to have scored points in Formula One. That was in the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix. Since then, we've had women take part in various F1 weekends, in practice sessions, female F1 test drivers where they get to jump in the car and test out components and get some experience. But apart from that, the closest we've had women to climbing the ladder, we had Tatiana Calderon, who was a Colombian driver who competed in Formula 2.

So that's the second rung of the ladder in 2019 and 2022. And up until recently, we had Sophia Flirsch, the German driver who's competed across three seasons in Formula 3. She's not competing this season. It looks like last season was potentially her last. So currently we don't have any women up and down that Formula Lada at the moment. But you did speak to one woman who's now in her 80s who is driving in the 70s and 80s, Davinia Galizia. Tell us a little about her and I believe we have a little clip as well. Yes, Davinia Galitza is fantastic. She was

originally an Olympic skier for Great Britain. She competed across four Olympics, the last of which was in 1992 when she was 47, which really I think completely sums up the type of woman she is. She lived fearlessly and she sort of fell into motorsports in a way at the age of 28 when she took part in a celebrity race and she was talent spotted. She then was someone took her under their wing and she was trained up and she can try to qualify for a number of Grand Prix's was unsuccessful, but she did have a chance to race alongside some of the greats, Nicky Lauda, Marianne Dretti, which she felt so honored

to do. And I asked her just, you know, how did those men treat her as she started to climb the ladder? And also, what was it about skiing that made her a good candidate for this? They were pretty good, although I did have one driver, he said, I don't believe your time. He said, you couldn't have possibly done that time. It was faster than his, obviously. I said, well, you can go and ask the timekeepers, you know, they do the times. Although in those days, it was hand timing, they'd hit the clock with their finger. So it might have been out by a tenth or something.

But I think the most important thing was I was so strong. I was so immensely strong from my physical training and fitness. And I remember the instructor who took me out in the car, he said, you're not afraid. And I said to him, how could I possibly be afraid? I've got brakes in this car. On skis you don't have brakes. So he thought that that and he thought that was quite comical. There we go Davina Galizia speaking about how the men treated her on the track. Jamie, let me come back to you. How have the men treated you? To be honest, I've not had too many issues, you know, in the sport.

And I think that's one positive thing is, I think the hardest bit is getting into the sport. You get into the sport and you're a young, well, young racing driver. I think now most start between the ages of six and eight. And really that's kind of the best stage to start. I was relatively late at the age of 12 and I had an older brother that definitely helped me through it. But I wasn't for that reason too intimidated by being in such a male dominated environment. I felt comfortable to kind of go about what I was doing. And I just did it because I enjoyed it. But at the same time, I think that initial bit is the tricky bit.

So that entry level. But you know what I'm fascinated by is what it takes to be an elite driver, particularly the strength. Talk us through that, Jamie. I mean, 12, like I was listening to your documentary and some are suggesting that, you know, young girls who are carting eight, nine, 10 should be lifting weights to be ready to go up to the next level. And that kind of blew my mind. But I see you're nodding, Jamie, so you're probably not that surprised. Tell me about what's what's required. Well, I think it's one of the biggest misconceptions with the sport is that it's not physical when reality is incredibly physical.

And I think we know that female bodies develop at different rates to the males at counterparts and like I say when you're looking at such young ages all these little details add up and there is for sure only just starting to become an increased kind of yeah awareness of this side of the sport and making sure that the right physical preparation is taken in order. I think for me, it's something I've massively struggled with throughout my career. For sure, it's a physical sport. Whether it's too physical for women to compete in, I don't think so. But at the same time, I think we don't really know. You know, you mentioned, you referenced Formula 2, Formula 3. We've seen such few women at these high levels,

and obviously Formula 1, that really until we get more women up to these levels and competing regularly, and ultimately competing and fighting at the front, I think there's still so much research that we aren't aware of yet. And I don't think we should be afraid to say that I think it's the sport that historically is male dominated, it's changing at a rapid rate. But I think we can just take our time a little bit now. I don't think we should rush this process. And for sure in Formula One, as you both mentioned,

there's only 20 seats, which is so few, really at the highest level. Yeah, definitely. I mean, in some ways it kind of gave me parallels to horse racing. I had a friend who was very into it and said, there was three things that she was never going to be, short, male, or rich.

So perhaps there are some parallels, but now you have Rachel Blackmore, who is, you know, this amazing champion. But let me talk about perhaps a glaring question in all of this, Jamie. Why isn't the sport segregated or would you like it to be? I think it's, as you say, if you look at horse racing, it's a sport that doesn't need to be segregated. I think at the moment it doesn't need to be, in my opinion,, as you say, if you look at horse racing, it's a sport that doesn't need to be segregated. I think at the moment, it doesn't need to be in my opinion, because, you know, to the levels that I've competed at, I've never felt like it's my gender that's let me down or anything like that. And I just feel like it's a lack of numbers.

You know, I can say you look at the top 20 drivers in the world, there's only 20 Formula One drivers in the world, rarely does that change year on year. So then you look at the amount of female drivers that start in the sport, naturally there aren't going to be many that filter through to the higher levels, let alone Formula One. So I feel like participation needs to increase. And that's the first thing. But I think in terms of the segregation side of it, I don't think it is too physical and I do think that it's a sport unlike a lot of other sports that women can compete equally against men. And isn't it a fact that women are better drivers than men? I think I read that somewhere. Jamie Chadwick and Charlotte Simpson, you can hear much more on the subject on Rebalancing the Grid, which is available on BBC Sounds now. Still to come on the programme, music from Grammy and Mercury nominated Nao.

And remember 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 BBC Sounds. Now Nusayba, Younis' debut novel, fundamentally is a rare thing. A genuinely funny book about an attempt to de-radicalise so-called Islamic State brides in Iraq. Based on Naseba's own experiences working as a peacekeeping consultant in Baghdad, the book follows Nadia, a British-Asian woman working for the UN and her relationship with fellow Brit Sarah, a 19-year-old three times widowed member of Islamic State.

Naseba joined me on the program on Friday and I started by asking her when she went to pitch the idea about a comedy about Islamic State brides how did it go down? Well people were definitely shocked and intrigued and wanted to read on and I think it definitely got a huge amount of attention the moment I went out to publishers and to production companies to have an option for TV. So it created quite a storm from the go, which was amazing. But yeah, it's an original concept. But I think people really loved having an entertaining and humorous way into quite a serious and substantive issue.

Yeah. So what came about first, wanting to tackle this subject or making a comedy? I always wanted to write a comic novel because those are the kinds of novels I love to read. I spent so much time flying to and from Baghdad, always with a novel on the plane. And I just loved reading books that were both really funny and made me laugh out loud, but that also really made me think and gave me a new perspective on the world. And so it was always an ambition of mine to be able to combine the like genuinely entertaining with the really thought-provoking. Controversial topic, to say the least.

Why did you want to find humor in something so serious? I think it's such a polarizing subject and the debate has become really devoid of nuance. And I think bringing humanity and empathy back into the story was something I really wanted to do. And when I, you know, I'd been working in Iraq for quite a long time when I was first asked to design a de-radicalization program for women perceived to have an affiliation with ISIS. And, you know, once I started working on that subject and the first time I met these women in, camps in Iraq, I realized just how easily it would have been for me as a teenager to have been tempted into a path where young girls were

told that they could change the world, that they could alleviate the suffering of fellow Muslims. And that kind of bleeding heart, empathy, and ambition to do good is what led me into a career in peace building. But had that sort of passion gotten into the wrong hands, it could so easily have gone in another direction. Explain more. Explain just how vulnerable you were then.

Talk about like your own experience when you were a young teenager. So I grew up at the time, you know, I watched the genocide of Muslims in Chechnya, I watched the invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq. And it felt to me when I was growing up as a very devout Muslim that Muslims were very much under attack. And I spent a summer with a cleric called Anwar al-Awlaki, who was such, I found to be such a charismatic and inspiring preacher. And he later joined Al Qaeda.

And I feel very lucky that nobody ever tried to recruit me, because I wonder what would have happened had I been told this is a way you can really make a difference and this is the right way to help people and instead I had the chance to go to Oxford University and do a PhD and and you know join the world of international affairs and and work for NGOs and to help people that way. But when I was 15 and my brain was quite confused and still half formed and I was quite naive and very idealistic, had somebody tried to persuade me that a jihadist route was the right way to go, I could imagine that that would have been possible and so I've always had so much empathy for girls who were so vulnerable

at that time in their in their teenage years and who didn't have a chance to to grow out of it and to find another way to put their kind of passion and their desire to help to use. How did you get into the line of work? Explain what you end why you ended up going to Iraq, working with me. I mean, I've just always wanted to help people who was suffering. And so I ended up studying Arabic and Middle Eastern politics and then international affairs.

I worked in think tanks in Washington, DC. I mean, you are such a high-achieving South Asian woman. Well like you, fakes want to know. Not quite like you though, I mean totally different levels here. I mean you studied Oxford, Durham, Harvard, PhD in International Affairs, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC and then went off to tell us more. Well and then went to do a stand-up comedy course to learn how to tell the nastiest sex jokes known to man. Plot twist. Very good.

I can't see any of my colleagues were expecting this. But so, what did you, you were brought into Iraq with your expertise to try to deradicalize Islamic State brides? So I was involved in a lot of different peace-building projects in the aftermath of ISIS in Iraq. So a lot of my work was around trying to figure out how to prevent a backslide into violence and to try and reintegrate communities

who'd been ostracized because of a perceived link with ISIS. And the most challenging group of people to reintegrate were women, Iraqi women who'd gone to Syria and were being repatriated to Iraq, and they are still being repatriated now to Iraq. And their local communities didn't want them to come home but for a lot of those women there was no evidence that they'd actually committed any crimes and a lot of them were forced by husbands and family members into an affiliation

with the group and so the Iraqi government was interested in demonstrating to the local community that these women were not a threat and didn't have an ideological attachment to ISIS. And so we were exploring how a program could work. The program I designed never came into fruition and my extreme frustrations with working in a mad and complex and infuriating bureaucracy definitely come across in the book, which is as much a satire of the UN as anything else. Well, yeah, the picture you paint of the people who are working for the UN and in aid work in general are pretty eccentric, to put it mildly. The lifestyle is very hedonistic.

How true to life is it? You know, my sister's a therapist and she always says, the bigger your problems, the further you have to run. And so if you've gone all the way from a very cushy life in London and you've ended up in the green zone in Baghdad, you've got personal problems. And I include myself in that. So yeah, I met just extraordinary people from very privileged backgrounds and you know, working at the UN, you've got to be really a high achiever you know so we're talking about people with quite privileged

backgrounds who've achieved a lot academically and have still chosen to work in a very challenging environment and often that is a result of fleeing personal life issues of wanting to get away from challenges at home sometimes of having a bit of a hero complex and, you know, I've definitely had my moments, you know, thinking, wanting to be important. And it's such a funny mix of personalities and often not everyone is driven by humanitarian principles. And I found that clash of different characters with complicated backstories and often conflicting motivations for being there. Very humorous and fun to bring out in the book. It is very funny, incredibly funny for me and it's a real page-turner.

You said you went on a stand-up comedy course. When did you manage to fit all of that in? When did you manage to fit all of that in? Well, I did two courses, one in 2019 and one in 2022. And I often had to miss the occasional week because I'd be in Baghdad, but it was such a great discipline for getting me to just constantly think about what was happening in my life in Baghdad that was really funny, because I was suddenly on the hunt for material. happening in my life in Baghdad that was really funny, because I was suddenly on the hunt for material. And so I loved having that lens. And so I'd be on the plane back from Baghdad, just typing in my notes, every absurd thing a minister had said, and the funny mannerisms of the people I'd been in a meeting with. And then I'd tell those stories to my stand-up

class and see which ones they really liked. And then I'd tell those stories to my stand-up class and see which ones they really liked and then I'd really centre those when I was writing the book. Nisabet Younis on her brilliant novel Fundamentally which is published on the 25th of February. Now director and writer Sophia Seymour decided to film the intimate details of her journey of elective egg freezing also also called social egg freezing, in a new documentary, Harvest. Egg freezing is not normally available on the NHS unless you're having medical treatment which could affect your fertility. It can also be part of IVF, but there is another

growing group of women choosing this as a form of fertility planning. While Nuala was joined by Sophiaiya and Dr. Hippocrates Saris, consultant in reproductive medicine and director of King's Fertility. And she started by asking Safiya why she made the decision to freeze her eggs. It was a combination of things for sure. I was 35. I just started my dream masters at the National Film and Television School. I'm ADHD and so really approached things in all sorts of unconventional ways. So I'd had a really exciting career, but then had decided to kind of go back and study in my mid-30s, which didn't sit entirely well with me when a doctor said that I should really

consider getting on with it if I wanted a child. And that really shocked me and sent me into a tailspin and so I started looking at the different options around I definitely didn't want to have a child at that point and egg freezing presented itself as a real way in which I could think about saving some time and buying back some agency. The film is beautiful I love the way it was filmed and watching it and it I should say every intimate detail is there. We go with you through this process day by day. What I took from it is that it is as much about being conflicted about motherhood as actually wanting a baby. The reason that you go to

freeze your eggs. Would that be fair? Yeah, absolutely. I think when people talk about freezing their eggs, it seems like it would be something you're doing because you really want children. But actually for me, it was kind of the opposite. I'd never really... I'd always erred on not wanting children and I'd felt very unsure about what that would look like for me. And so, kind of before even deciding to do the egg freezing process, I felt like I had to make a decision about whether I was,

if I even wanted them at all. And so the film became a way to carve out time, make space for that and interview those closest to me. So I interviewed my mum and my best friend. With my mum, I'm kind of being sort of almost asking permission from her to kind of not have kids potentially and then Lots of the film set in a swimming pool where I kind of set out these really intimate conversations with lots of different women and you Hear their voices

throughout the film and From them. I was kind of just reaching out and saying hey, you've had a child. What do you think? You haven't had a child. What do you think? And I was gathering together all these opinions and trying to make a decision because it's scary, you know, not knowing whether you're going to end up in the right place or not. But I suppose the question is, can anybody ever really tell you because it's such a personal decision. What did you think about the actual day to day off egg freezing? We see the realities of you injecting yourself again and again,

for example. Yeah, so in the film, the opening sequence or one of the opening sequences is me trying to inject myself for the first time, which felt like a monumental thing to do. I mean, who the hell knows how to stab themselves in the stomach with a needle? That was pretty grim. And there's a lot of hesitation around it, as you would expect. But then actually, as you get used to it, it doesn't would expect but then actually as you get used to it it doesn't really hurt and then as you get used to it you can you sort of have to do it twice a day so you just get used to just stabbing yourself and it doesn't really feel too bad. I was struck by something you said that that you felt it was tragic in some ways

because it was so far away from what traditionally would have been having sex basically to make a baby? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think when you're confronted with having to potentially think about freezing your eggs, it does feel very lonely and isolating. And then you're kind of in your room with this box of injections, trying to kind of fill your body with hormones to try and produce some eggs to eventually try and potentially have a baby in about five or ten years time it's it's not the best process to do and quite grueling and emotionally it takes its toll and so it makes you reflect a lot on where you are and I couldn't help but feel in some way a sense of failure or a

sense of shame that I was having to go through it so then making the film was almost like a taking back of that and saying okay I refuse to feel these feelings I'm gonna make a film about it put it on show so that we don't have to hide away from having to do it. I want to know how you felt when you saw the film off yourself because it is an invasive procedure. And at one point early in the film, actually, you are being given a general anaesthetic, so you are unconscious. And once you are gone under, they put you in medical stirrups as they retrieve the eggs.

And, you know, the vulnerability of you there, I found it very affecting. And I can't imagine looking at yourself going through that. Yeah it was definitely really tough to go through. I had an amazing crew I have to say who supported me through it. My editor especially sifted through hours of me talking on the video diary and footage of me at the clinic speaking to the nurse, being injected, getting tests and eventually the big operation. But something happens in filmmaking, I think, where you can somewhat detach. I think we had a sort of code name for me. I think I was referred to as Caroline or something quite like that,

so that I could sort of say, oh, she's really going on a bit in this take. Should we should we just cut it? And so I was able to detach a bit and and see see my body more as a vehicle to tell the story rather than it being about me, per se. And I want to bring in Dr. Saris here for a moment. Are you seeing an increase in women like Sophia, who are not sure about motherhood going through this process? I think, first of all, I want to say it's a fantastic piece of work, It's done because it's very important to demystify this and to make it more open to people to understand what we do because it is by the end of the day a

medical procedure. And actually, we have some data about it and we do see a year in year increase. So if you just look at the UK, the HFAA, which is a regulatory body, the last data had from 2022 showed that compared to 2019, there's been an 81% increase in the number of people come forward to freeze their eggs. And we've been seeing that trend increasing ever since. And actually, approximately 5% of all treatment cycles in the fertility sort of sector, so IVF and the rest, is for egg freezing for this exact sort of discussion we're having right now. But there are, as with all pregnancies, no guarantees and in the film, there

was one doctor who said they don't have as much research on egg freezing in this manner as they do on the IVF process for example, but they talked about one potential baby. Perhaps that's a big caveat from 20 eggs I Mean, do we have any idea how successful it can be? Just not there yet with the figures We have quite a bit of data. Unfortunately, I do not like using a total words either guarantees or insurance policy They're not success rates for egg freezing very dramatically based on multiple factors, including primarily the age at the time

that the eggs are collected and the number of eggs being frozen. That's more than when you actually come to use them. But if you want some very, very basic numbers to see how dramatically it changes over time, for somebody who's less than 35, who let's say wants a 50-50 chance of having a child from those eggs, they only need about 6 to 8 eggs frozen and if they

want a 90% chance, they need about 20 eggs. But let's go to 38 and I specifically chose 38 because that's the average more common age that women in the UK freeze eggs. To reach that same 50% chance, you need 12 to 14 eggs and to reach that 90% chance you're actually now talking about 35 eggs. So the numbers really changed quite a lot. I think it's important to make that very clear when people think about having egg freezing. And we're talking about thousands of pounds to do it because it's rarely available on the NHS unless you have some medical treatment that would be affecting your fertility. Absolutely. So unless somebody's going through medical treatment, maybe chemotherapy or surgery to the ovaries or other sort of conditions like that, it's not available in the NHS.

And although a cycle of IVF might be advertised to be around, let's say, three, three and a half thousand pounds, by the time you add the medication that can go anywhere from 500 to 2000 pounds, and then by the time you add the yearly storage fee which can be around 200 to 350 pounds and then using the eggs, we're talking really about 7 to 8 000 pounds per cycle of IVF. So it's definitely not cheap. And the process, I mean I kind of delve straight into it with Sophia that I mean I kind of delve straight into it with Sophia that you take hormones, follicles grow, eggs are retrieved which is an operation under general anaesthetic. What else is involved? So the process of egg freezing is effectively similar to doing a cycle of IVF except that

the 80% of it happens now which is the the collecting the eggs, and then 20% happens later. And as was explained, there are these daily injections that continue for a couple of weeks. And this is known as the stimulation phase. And during this phase, scans, ultrasound scans, are performed every a couple of days to look at the ovaries in order to monitor the progress of these growing follicles, which

is basically where the eggs are inside, and occasionally blood tests are taken to check hormone levels. So once these follicles have grown enough and sufficient size where we expect to collect mature eggs to retrieve them, you get this final maturation injection and you collect the eggs two days later. So this entire process takes approximately two weeks during which one has to visit the clinic for scans every two to three days followed by this egg collection procedure Which is exactly as you mentioned done under anesthetic

Where with ultrasound guidance a little needle through the back of the vagina goes inside the ovaries to collect the eggs And then there's a take-in to the lab to check for maturity and if they're mature They're frozen with a technique called a vitrification And then you can actually keep the eggs for whenever you need them. In the UK, surprisingly, you can keep them up to 55 years. I read this morning that you can keep them for 55 years, which that's another conversation at another time. But I do want to come back to another figure, Sophia. You might have seen figures like this as well. This is a study at Guy's Hospital that found just 16% of women who froze their eggs returned to use them.

Yeah, I think that's what I was thinking about when listening to the doctor. I think the stats are still really opaque. I think it's hard to really make head or tail of it. And what I've seen, especially amongst my peers and my friends who are thinking about doing it, is it's really actually at are thinking about doing it is it's it's really Actually at the stage of doing it. It's about and having the eggs eventually on ice It's it's more like a psychological weight that's lifted It's a way of kind of making sense or taking back some kind of control over the decision and buying time

So then I suppose then when you're thinking about whether people are going to use them in the future, who knows whether you know in four or five years time you're even going to be in a position to use them, it's just that sense of having the time to think about it away from the baby fever and the noise that can sometimes feel incredibly oppressive and trapping. Even though there is no guarantee obviously. Yeah absolutely. Like you've kind of got what you've got, in a sense, if you wait a number of years past prime fertility.

Yeah, I think there being no guarantee is obviously something to consider. And I wouldn't advocate for anybody to kind of put their bodies through something like that. So grueling and it's so expensive, which then leads to the question of, do I even want children? Do I even want this? It kind of, each stage begets another question. But from my own experience, I really felt that my whole perspective on whether I wanted children or not shifted after I raised my eggs for sure, 100%.

Well where did it shift to? Well, if I'm being completely honest, this is the place for me, is I felt like maybe I didn't want children actually after having that security. The Lister Clinic were incredibly supportive, they were down the road from the film school so I was able to talk to the nurse every single day about it and my worries and actually by carving out that time I really felt by the end, oh wow okay I've done this but actually I don't think I'm going to go through with it in the end. Safiya Seymour and Dr Hippocrates Saris.

That's it from me, do join Nuala on Monday though, she'll be speaking to Olivier award-winning actor Indra Verma who's currently starring as Jocasta in Oedipus in London's Old Vic. That's all from me, enjoy the rest of your weekend.