Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Rape gangs, Exploring Antarctica, Deep fakes, Oti Mabuse

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

Victims groomed and raped by gangs have told the BBC's Senior UK Correspondent Sima Kotecha that they are adamant the crime is still happening to girls across the country. This week, a Tory amendment to the government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which wanted a national inquiry into grooming gangs, was voted down. Krupa Padhy talked to Sima and Simon Morton, a former senior investigating officer for Thames Valley Police, about what is known about how these gangs operate.Lucy Lawless, best known for playing Xena: Warrior Princess, joined Nuala McGovern to discuss another fearless woman. In her directorial debut, Never Look Away, she explores Margaret Moth, a warzone camerawoman for CNN who covered conflicts from the liberation of Kuwait in the early 90s to the Lebanon War in the mid-2000s armed only with a camera and an attitude.A new law change has made the creation of explicit deepfakes illegal, with those found guilty facing up to two years in prison. Nuala was joined by Durham Law Professor Clare McGlynn to hear more about what this means, and Channel 4's Cathy Newman, who was a victim of deepfakes herself, gives her thoughts.Victoria Melluish is a listener who wrote to us to highlight women working in environmentally hostile environments and to encourage more women to get out in the field. Victoria is currently employed as a marine mammal specialist and expedition guide on a cruise expedition ship. She says, 'I’m 30 and I work in the Arctic and Antarctic, and I often get asked how I manage having endometriosis while driving Zodiac boats around glaciers and marine megafauna.' Nuala spoke to her about her work.2025 is a big year for former Strictly professional Oti Mabuse who is judging Dancing on Ice, then going on tour and publishing her first adult novel. She joined Krupa to talk about these projects, becoming a mother and how being on I’m A Celebrity taught her the importance of sharing feelings.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Rebecca Myatt

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupal Party and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Krupal Party. On today's programme, from the dance floor on Strictly to being neck high in a tank full of scorpions and beech worms in the jungle. Oti Mabusi is doing it all. She joins us ahead of her judging duties in the new series of Dancing on Ice, which kicks off this weekend. The government is going to make creating sexually explicit deepfake images a criminal offence.

We hear from Channel 4's Cathy Newman about her experience of being deepfaked and the potential impact of this new law. Actor Lucy Lawless of Xena Warrior Princess fame tells us about the incredible life and career of the fearless war zone camera woman Margaret Moth. Also, we'll go south to Antarctica with a listener who got in touch to share her experience of working as a marine mammal specialist at the end of the earth. With humpback whales, they are the most musical of all of the whales. They tend to sing, especially the males.

Extremely acrobatic, so you'll see them breaching. You'll see these whales leap out of the water and do this little twirl in the air. First, victims groomed and raped by gangs have told the BBC senior UK correspondent, Seema Kotecha that they are adamant the crime is still happening to girls across the country, even if the way it is happening is slightly different. This comes after this week's news that a Tory amendment to the government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which wanted a national inquiry into grooming gangs, was voted down.

There have been many local and national inquiries into grooming gangs over the years, including in Rotherham in 2014, which found at least 1,400 children were sexually exploited in the town over 15 years. We spent time this week exploring what we exactly know about these gangs and how they operate.

I was joined by Simon Morton, a former senior investigating officer for Thames Valley Police, who led Operation Bullfinch, then the biggest criminal investigation in Oxford's history, which resulted in the convictions of 21 men for offences spanning the late 1990s to the late 2000s. And also by Seema, who has been speaking to some of the victims. I asked her what they've shared with her.

I've spoken to them at length and I've spoken to a couple at length and they are absolutely 100% sure that this hasn't disappeared, that grooming is very much alive and kicking. And what they mean by that is that girls, when they're young, are vulnerable and can be manipulated through drugs alcohol gifts by older men and made to do what they want them to do so let me read this quote to you this is from one victim I spoke to she told me this is not just an Asian issue, it's a wider issue. It's common sense that men want sex. And in some cases, they will manipulate girls who are vulnerable to get

it. I was one of those girls. It's naive to think it's not still happening. And the political debate is not focused on the problem, but on trying to outdo one another. Now, I got that in spades from the two girls that I spoke to, that they feel that all the conversation in the political domain that's been taking place in the last few days, everything that we've been reading in the papers, has a misplaced focus. They say that the attention needs to be on the victims and the attention needs to be on how to sort the problem and not on what was happening over a decade ago. They're adamant they don't want another inquiry. They say they've been through that. Recommendations have been made and that took years, seven years in total for the J inquiry, for example, that was published in 2022.

They're saying that the attention now needs to be on them and what to do to sort this problem out, which they say, as I said at the top of this, are adamant is still continuing to take place. They've also highlighted the way in which it's happening and how it's happening in a different way now. Just outline that to us. That's right, yes. I mean, with the evolution of technology, they're saying that, you know, now social media is being used a lot more to lure them in. So communication is done via things like Instagram and WhatsApp, making the reach easier, if you like. So these perpetrators or these potential perpetrators are able to reach out to these individuals just by finding them online,

by looking at their profiles, seeing what their background is, whether they're in care, whether they come from a certain type of family. And in their eyes, they may deem that as them being particularly vulnerable and an easy target. They've also told me, well, one girl in particular has told me, and I think Simon will echo this when you speak to him next, that some of the men that were doing this years ago, decade ago, are still out there because victims weren't coming forward to talk about what they had been doing. And there's a real fear that these men are still in the community and with the potential to be doing what they were doing back then.

Just before I do turn to Simon, I do want to talk about the facts and the data because they are so central to this conversation. Earlier this week, we heard from tech entrepreneur Elon Musk making headlines yet again, saying that this is happening to millions of victims. Now, some might say that he's using such language to simply be politically provocative. But what do we actually know about the data? Well Well we don't know how many victims there are out there a big part of this problem is girls coming forward they don't want to come forward and the reason they don't want to come forward is because they don't trust the authorities they don't trust social services they don't trust the police so for them to come out and say this is happening to me and also they're very young so they're not you know they don't have the maturity always to recognize that something that is happening is

wrong and against the law i mean some are as young as 11 here so in terms of figures we don't know but we do know from very credible figures like simon like charities like experts like politicians i've spoken to mps in particular constitu, they are very aware that this is an ongoing problem. And we know that the MPCC, for example, the National Police Chiefs Council, also says that police data does back up the claim that this is an ongoing problem. So that is not in doubt among those experts who know this inside out. Simon Morton, let me bring you into this conversation. What is your view on the current offending by rape gangs who groom and abuse girls and boys? I mean, this is something

that is endemic. It's happening in every city in this country. There is no doubt. I finished Bullfinch in 2013. It had been happening 10 years prior to that. And before that, I would imagine another 10 years. I spent three years going around the country talking to people, as many people as I possibly could, about child sexual exploitation and how to deal with it. And it is immensely difficult, but there is no doubt in my mind. I've still got contacts within the police. It is still everywhere. Some forces aren't prioritising it as much as they should. I know TVP, Thames Valley Police, it's business as usual because of the amount we've learned from doing the investigation.

But yeah, it's right. And from your experience at Thames Valley Police, what did you learn about how these gangs operate? It has changed slightly, but with my investigation, generally it starts off with identifying young girls. And however that might be, it might be meeting them in the local park. It might be outside schools. It might be hanging around near the city centres where they gather. Nowadays, it will be Instagram, etc. It's about identifying a girl, and normally it's one of the younger offenders

who will approach initially, and they will give them gifts. They'll be treating them like adults. They'll be giving... They're seducing them, effectively. As that process progresses, they start introducing drugs and they start ostracising them from society, from their parents, from police, from social services, from their care homes. That relationship then is sexualised.

The sexualisation starts and that becomes more prolific and then invariably booze and drugs are involved um and once it gets to that stage they have got them um they change their personalities um they have to do what the men say it's coercive, but it's more than that. They are fearful if they don't. And it can be so brutal. I can't say some of the things that have happened on air, but it's horrible. That's a sense of how they might operate. But I guess the next obvious question is, who are they? What do we know about who they are? For my investigation we we didn't have anything to start with um we knew the girls were um going missing things were happening to them but it was more rumor than anything else because they

wouldn't talk to us so i had to take a very different approach to a lot of the investigations and starting without any victims um and so we used we used all sorts of proactive techniques. Effectively, it took us from the victims to the offenders. Now, once we started to identify the offenders, we'd then use our police patrols and the morning strategy meetings to send out cars and they would go and turn them over, they'd check them, they'd see who they were hanging around with. We would be doing surveillance as well on them and slowly build a picture. So then I've got a group of men who I know are involved with these girls

but I still don't know what's going on. We started using covert DNA on the girls to find out who they'd been with, which was really telling and quite unusual to do at the time. That was obviously with the consent of the parents. We then looked at how we could get evidence. And so when the girls had gone through this, these guys, they pick up a girl at 11, they turn her into something she isn't.

She used to believe in Father Christmas and the next thing, there's five guys raping her. You know, that is so damaging to anybody. So when we then went back in time, we took like a 10-year gap and went back and looked at the missing persons from previous years. And we approached them. Of course, at 16, these guys kicked them out and they left to their own devices, which to some is fatal.

But some of those girls spoke to us and started to tell us who the guys were. And it turns out they're the same ones we were investigating right then. So that span is 10 years and they're still doing it. Now, we didn't catch all those guys. But that's remarkable. They're still doing it. They're still doing it. And they will be. I mean, there's no doubt they're right across the country. These gangs, it's like a crime category.

You know, theft doesn't stop. Burglary doesn't stop, nor does CSE. You know, it's just there. And unless you look for it, you can't find it because the victims won't come forward. It's really strong language. The word trust has come up a lot. Seema mentioned it. You mentioned it there.

And again, so fundamental to your investigations. When you talk about young girls who at one point believed in Father Christmas and have rapidly been transformed into this vulnerable place. How do you go about getting their trust to even commence your investigations? Because without that, there is no no investigation if i'm not mistaken you're right and and it was really difficult and we in honesty didn't know how to so um when we actually strike day came around we had already got evidence from the historical girls but we knew approaching the other girls was going to be of no use so what we did was front them on that day so we went round to the houses where they lived and said hey we're Thames Valley Police we are in Operation Bullfinch we're investigating CSE we know you are a victim we have now got 15 men in custody will you please tell us what happened to you and they nearly all spoke to us because we had taken that step further to give them the confidence that they could talk.

And that kind of worked really well for us. Not all of those girls gave evidence, of course. And that process kind of continued. Once you know someone has got a problem, when you approach them with it, rather than them approaching you, they're more likely to talk. But of course, often you won't have been the first port of call when it comes to this kind of investigation,

all these individuals seeking out help. There might be social workers involved, there might be medical units involved. What are the steps being taken to ensure all these arms work together? You know, the problem is societal. There is now, certainly within the TVP, there's a kind of multi-agency hub. But all the people that need to be there, you know, the doctors and nurses who treat these girls when they come in at 13 with a heroin overdose or self-harming, it's a matter of getting them to talk to us, the outreach workers who know what's going on,

all the youth workers. Social services have got bits. Probation have got bits. The parents know. Sometimes the neighbours, but it's a matter of standing up and be counted. You know, everyone needs to play their part. The schools, you know, the girls will start going to school.

There's boys as well, of course. But the girls will start going. They'll be putting on high heels, lipstick. They'll be really antisocial and eventually get excluded. So they get punted out onto the streets, which is where they're getting abused. So, you know, unless everybody comes together as a community to help with the intelligence that comes in. And so at least the police can identify those potential victims for approach. How confident are you that that will happen?

I hear a sense of despair almost in your voice. We need to stop politicising these issues. We need to stop using it as a pawn, as rhetoric for other issues. It just needs to be done. So we've got 22 recommendations and we've got all the information we need. We just need to get on and do it. Seema Kotecha and Simon Morton there.

And Thames Valley Police shared this statement with the Woman's Hour. Tackling the exploitation of children is and continues to be a priority for Thames Valley Police. The nature of child sexual exploitation offending has changed over the last 10 years. And group-based offending now makes up just over 5% of child sexual exploitation offences in the Thames Valley, which is in line with the group-based offending nationally, with a dedicated major crime team focused on progressing these investigations. There are now more police officers and detectives working in child abuse investigation and the management of sexual offenders, and a new dedicated team monitor all investigations into missing people and identify patterns or underlying issues.

Next, Lucy Lawless, best known for playing Xena, Warrior Princess, brings us the story of another fearless woman. In her directorial debut, Never Look Away, she explores Margaret Moth, a war zone camera woman for CNN. Covering conflicts from the liberation of Kuwait in the early 90s to the Lebanon war in the mid-2000s, she spent her career showcasing the true horrors of war armed with only a camera and an attitude. This life almost came at the cost of her own in Sarajevo during the Bosnian war in 1992, when a sniper's bullet struck her jaw.

After she recovered, she went right back out there because, as she said, these stories have to be told. But what drives a person to walk straight ahead into gunfire? Nuala asked Lucy exactly what kind of a person Margaret was. It's a highly unusual, transgressive personality who came from New Zealand like myself, but went on to become a real life warrior princess. And I was really transfixed by this woman, like what enabled her to face death in the way that she did. And what I found was a woman with extremely unusual relationships, a slew of unusual relationships.

And until I met the family, I couldn't figure out what was at the heart of her. But I came to find out that at the heart of her, there was a highly, highly pitiless and emotionally neglectful childhood and that became her superpower let's talk about what people met when they met margaret moth i should say she changed her name right i mean it's quite a captivating name as well but she changed that at quite a young age well i think she was well into her 20s by then. She really eschewed everything to do with her father, who represented toxic masculinity, what we now call toxic masculinity. So yeah, she changed her name and became this, I want to say, almost a construct. She constructed herself in sort of retaliation or in reaction to everything that she had come from.

New Zealand in the 1970s was quite misogynistic. She experienced a lot of it and she wanted everything else that the world had to offer. And she went for it. And let's talk about her appearance, because that might be the first thing that many people encountered. This jet black hair, kind of spiky, the black combat trousers, the black combat boots, the dark eye makeup. Also, sex and drugs were part of the package, I think. A little bit punk. A lot punk. A lot punk.

She was a lot punk. Yeah. She loved punk music. Hardcore English, New Zealand punk, went to America, got into the punk scene then. People experienced her as an extremely intimidating, charismatic presence. Even Christiane Amanpour said she was intimidated by Margaret. She was New Zealand's first news camera woman. Australasians, actually. Oh, OK. Yeah. So quite a path to walk. And her life is extraordinary, as we see in your documentary.

How did you come across her? When I first got the email from her best friend, Joe Duran, who's also in the film, my mind cast back to 1992 when New Zealand was transfixed by this CNN news report that a New Zealand camera woman had had her face blown off by a sniper in Sarajevo and was thought not likely to survive. So everything that I knew about Margaret had to have come in and around that report that week, and I hadn't thought about her again since. So I got the email and I was just possessed by I know not what to write back immediately, within 90 seconds of getting it, saying, yes, I will find the money, I will find the producers,

this film has to be told. And secretly I was really terrified that a thousand other people would have got the same form letter and would want to make it before me and I could not possibly allow that but I pushed send and then was really horrified at what I'd done because I had never I mean I wasn't qualified to make these promises I'd never done it before I didn't know what I was talking about but like say, something possessed me and I really feel like the spirit of Margaret picked me up by the scruff of my neck and booted me through the directing door. And she and Jo utterly changed my life. I think your documentary, when I was watching her,

there is the before and the after Sarajevo. And we meet this wild woman who was like, I've talked about some aspects of her. She was also a skydiver, as if there weren't enough risks in life, although she wouldn't see it that way. She had decided at a young age to be sterilized. She was very clear about not wanting children. Yeah, that's an illness in the family kind of thing. Just this horrifying lack of nurturance that goes back generations. Neglect is the worst of all abuse to heal from. Then she went through this horrific episode where she was shot in Sarajevo. But I think really her strength and resilience showed from that, you know, numerous surgeries, difficult to speak, to eat,

all these things that she went through. I was just amazed by her resilience at being able to get back out in an industry that is already very difficult. I mean, she went back to being a war correspondent as a camera woman. Yeah, that's the inspirational aspect to her that if she went on to achieve so much when so much had been ripped away from her, who are we not to reach that bit higher for what we feel we're capable of achieving, you know, so she's very inspiring in that way. Yeah, she was very transgressive and very hungry for everything that wasn't Whanganui, New Zealand, 1976. So she was going to go and eat life. And she continued to do that. Once she healed from this horrifying ordeal after 25 operations, she continued to just eat life, everything she could possibly cram in. Actually, she lived for a sort of a higher purpose after the injury.

It was quite redemptive in a way. But a sort of byline of the film could be how to face death with poise and equanimity, you know, because when death finally came for her, she faced it with such courage and almost a neutrality. She was going to experience every single thing that her physical body would experience through that process even of dying. Lucy Lawless there and her film Never Look Away is available on digital platforms now.

Still to come on the programme, the former strictly professional Oti Mabusi on motherhood, dancing on ice and writing a novel. And don't forget, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you don't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC Sounds. Now to deep fakes, where a photo, video or audio is combined with artificial intelligence to make it seem like someone is doing or saying something they aren't. Often used to create content of a sexual nature, people's faces are placed onto pornographic images and shared without their consent.

Well, on Tuesday, the government announced that creating explicit deepfake images will now be a criminal offence. Those who are caught can face up to two years in prison, with the non-consensual taking of intimate images also being included in this law change. But with Mark Zuckerberg saying that fact-checking will be removed on Facebook over in the US, just how easy is it to police this crime? Nuala was joined this week by Channel 4 news presenter and investigations editor Kathy Newman, who became a victim of this herself and decided to investigate further, and Professor Claire McGlynn from the University of Durham, an expert on laws relating to sexual violence,

pornography and image-based sexual abuse. She has advised politicians and select committees alike on this issue. Nuala asked Claire about what she feels about the law change and what it entails. I very much welcome this. It's a long overdue change. It's going to mean that it will be a new criminal offence to create a sexually explicit deepfake as well as to share it. But also it's going to mean that all forms of taking an intimate image are going to be criminalised regardless of the perpetrator's motivations. So that's going to cover things like down-blousing for the first time, all forms of

upskirting, taking images in toilets, changing rooms, etc. So it's a very strong package. So long as we find out that some of the some of the details are still unclear once we know those details we'll be able to say even more definitively whether it's going to be as effective as we want. Upskirting we've spoken about many times on this programme downblowsing it was a term I was not familiar with but an intimate image that you refer to as does the law what does that mean exactly do we have exact parameters? So it will cover nude and sexual images it also covers images where you know toileting images and other issues when you're you know changing someone say a care person is changing someone

through their work so it covers that range of images. The one thing, though, that we don't yet know is that when the previous government put forward a criminalising, creating sexually explicit deepfakes proposal, it had a much narrower definition of intimate image. And, for example, it would have excluded an image where you had emojis over the nipples. Now, that's crazy. So we need to make sure that this proposal coming through

is comprehensive and covers all these types of intimate image. So that's one of the aspects you're concerned about, how intimate image is defined. Anything else that you feel might be missing? So again, we need to make sure that this new offence is going to be comprehensive. So previous versions have required proof of the motives of the perpetrators. So it's only been an offence if, for example, you prove sexual

gratification or intention to cause distress. Now that leaves out lots of cases and it also means it's very difficult to prosecute. So what we really want to see is a consent-based law and one that is straightforward and comprehensive. We don't yet know whether that's what the government's going to do. Thank you, Clare. Let me turn to you, Cathy. Can you tell us about your experience of being deepfaked? Yes, it was soon after Taylor Swift was deepfaked and there was a lot of news about that.

And one of my colleagues on the investigations team at Channel 4 News said, I think we should look into this a bit more so they started digging around and then came to me and said i'm really sorry but we've discovered that your image is out there and there was a deep fake video of you out there um and i was you know sort of taken aback but in a way because i've had so many experiences of being trolled and abused online i was not not that surprised, I'm afraid to say. But we carried on investigating and we decided that we'd try and reach out to, I think it was around 40 celebrities who we discovered were deepfaked. We looked at five of the most popular deepfake video sites and we found 4,000 celebrities had been deepfaked on there including 250 british women and it is by and large the vast majority are women so we reached out to 40 celebrities um nobody

wanted to talk to us which i completely understand because the worry is if you go public on this kind of stuff you you know drive traffic to the site and you end up you know exacerbating the problem so in the end um reluctantly i decided that i would watch the video that had been created of me for the first time as my team filmed so i could get a sense of the impact it would have and how i reacted to that and how many other ordinary victims, you know, who don't have the kind of privilege of celebrity and the protection of celebrity, because one of the people we got in touch with was a florist from Merseyside, Sophie Parrish.

Her life had been turned upside down when she was deepfaked. She agreed to speak to me. And I thought, really, if she was going to speak, really, I kind of owed it to her to, for her not to be the only one put in the public eye in this way. So that's why I agreed to watch the video and share really the impact that it had on other people who've been deepfaked, too. Your video of that, your investigation is up on your Twitter or X feed at the moment. If people want to watch that. I found it very affecting actually, Cathy, watching you watching it. And you talk about reluctantly

taking that step. But what has the impact been of seeing some of those images? It's funny because, you know, as I'm sure you're familiar with, we cover stories every day that are very distressing. You know, we talk about war. We talk about the wildfires today. And there's a lot of human cost to these stories. So I really thought that I would watch this video and it would be all part of a day's work. You know, it just happened to be involving me. I was surprised how much I returned to that, those images. And now as I'm talking about it again, I can just visualize it again.

And it is, you know, several minutes of quite, you know, extreme sexual activity. It's not, it's every sort of possible angle and, you know, an array of someone's sexual fantasies, basically. And so I do keep on thinking about that and I do return to it it has been slightly sort of haunting is the word I would use really um and at the time I found it really violating because it's an incredibly personal and a distortion of a private activity and done by someone I have no idea who they are where where they are, why they did it. And that's alarming. And with that, coming back then, Cathy, and I'm so sorry you had to go through all that.

With this particular law, do you think it can root out or find, for example, that nameless, faceless person that you're talking about? Well, you know, this was mine was done in the past. I understand. But even, you know, this wasn't, mine was done in the past. I understand, but even in, you know, if it were something that was happening more recently. It's what campaigners have been calling for. So, you know, I'd welcome it on behalf of campaigners. I think the problem is that this,

I don't know where my video was created, but a lot of these videos are not created in this country. So it's all very well the UK Parliament legislating. That sets a good example. It forces social media and tech companies to up their game. But if it happens in a jurisdiction where there are no similar regulations, there's not a lot the UK police can do. They're not going to extradite people for doing this. They'd be very busy if they did. So I think it could well, unfortunately, have a limited impact. And what I keep coming back to is the fact that these tech companies are incredibly clever, you know, sophisticated and wealthy. They have the nows, the know-how

to take action on this. And some are, but some aren't. And, you know, when you look at what's happening on X at the moment, for example, with Elon Musk and the way he's, you know, trolled really Home Office Minister Jess Phillips and the impact that's had on her life, I don't have a great deal of confidence that tech companies like that are going to take matters into their own hands and act before they're fined or one of their people is imprisoned. It just seems quite a remote prospect to me. Interestingly, people will have seen Mark Zuckerberg on the front of a number of the papers. I want to read a little of what he said. He is the CEO of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.

He said, in recent years, we've developed increasingly complex systems to manage content across our platforms in response to societal and political pressure to moderate content. The approach has gone too far. As well-intentioned as many of these efforts have been, they've expanded over time to the point where we are making too many mistakes, frustrating our users, and too often getting in the way of free expression we set out to enable. Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves

wrongly locked up in Facebook jail, and we're often too slow to respond. We want to fix that and return to the fundamental commitment to free expression. And I suppose I was wondering when reading that, because I just watched your investigation, Cathy, coming back to you, Clare, I was like, if it is not illegal, as it is not in many states across the United States where Facebook and Meta is located, could some people see issues like deepfakes, for to try and silence us. So regulation actually frees women to speak. So that's the first irony. The second one is in Texas, where Meta

are talking about putting their trust and safety and content moderation teams, what's left of them, they actually have a criminal offence, criminalising creating sexually explicit deepfakes. They're the one state in the US. So there's also a disjuncture going on there in terms of their discussions. Yes, and I probably should elaborate as well when I talk about deepfakes being aligned with free speech or censorship.

The fact is, in most of the states across the US, there is not a law against them because Mark Zuckerberg does talk about trying to root out illegal activity. But if something is not illegal yet, would it be rooted out? I suppose is the question that is there. Your thoughts as well, Cathy,

as I come to that about tech companies. I'm speaking about Meta there specifically. But of course, in general, there are these questions you talk about in your investigation, five very big apps that make it very easy to create deep fakes, for example. Can there be any move to work on those or to try and shut them down?

Yeah, I thought Claire put it very well when it comes to Meta. And I think one key point to make, just to pick and shut them down? Yeah, I thought Claire put it very well when it comes to meta. And I think one key point to make, just to pick up on what she said is, you know, it's not about clamping down on people's freedoms and freedom of speech. It's about applying the kind of laws

that we have in the real world to what's going on in the online world. And that's all many women are asking for. But you know, the issue is the tech companies. So a month after I did the investigation with the team at Champloo News, we went back on and checked and my video was still accessible. You know, I, as I say, I have the privilege of being able to phone companies and say, you know, this is happening, we're reporting on it, and they act pretty

swiftly to de-rank it as it goes. So it's less easy to find. But a month after we reported, it was still up there. I don't go back and check every five minutes because, frankly, I need to get on with my life. But, you know, the point is tech companies seem to be very slow to create an environment where women are as safe as they are in the real world. That is all we're asking for. That is all campaigners are asking for, at least. Do you think that will happen, Claire? Well, we do have the Online Safety Act in the UK, but unfortunately, the regulations and guidance that's been issued by the regulator Ofcom is not terribly strong. So, for example, there isn't the guidelines that Cathy would be talking about,

about how they must remove material within a certain period of time and keep it off. They're coming towards April, aren't they, Claire? The tech companies have to comply with those guidelines in April. And that's for the sharing of deepfake that's already illegal. So you can see how slowly the wheels turn in regulation. But even the guidelines just aren't that specific. So, for example, in some countries, there are guidelines that you need to take material down

within 48 hours, for example, and our guidelines don't even have that sort of provision. So we do have some guidance, but it's really rather weak, unfortunately. But coming back to that point of borders and the web, I mean, how effective can it be if it's within one country? Well, it is true. It's obviously an international concern and problem. Fortunately, the regulation across the European Union, 27 other countries is also strong and is stronger than the

Online Safety Act in some contexts. And there are regulations, for example, some of the guidance in Australia is again, much stronger. So there is some international agreement about what needs to be done. We've just got to hope that the political will continues to try to ensure that that regulation is there and strengthened. Cathy Newman and Professor Claire McGlynn there. And we had this statement from the Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones, who said, it is unacceptable that one in three women have been victims of online abuse. This demeaning and disgusting form of chauvinism must not become normalised and as part of our plan for change we are bearing down on violence against women whatever form it takes. These new

offences will help prevent people being victimised online. We are putting offenders on notice. They will face the full force of the law. Victoria Meluish is a listener who wrote to us wanting to highlight women working in environmentally hostile environments and to encourage more women to get out in the field. Victoria is currently employed as a marine mammal specialist and expedition guide on a cruise expedition ship. She says, I'm 30 and I work in the Arctic and Antarctic.

And I often get asked how I manage having endometriosis while driving zodiac boats around glaciers and marine megafauna. Nuala asked Victoria about her work. We go to very remote places in Antarctica. We take the mountain zodiacs and we take them to shipwrecks, like places like Enterprise Island and Nikko Harbour. And we show them historical parts of Antarctica, which is mainly old whaling factory places, but mostly wildlife. What might you see if you went out today?

There is so much. I believe David Attenborough called it heaven on earth, specifically for South Georgia and Antarctica. But you see an abundance of penguins. I think that is the one thing you can absolutely guarantee with Antarctica is penguins, the bristle tails, the chinstraps, gentus, the adelis. And then depending on what part of Antarctica you go to, you'll get the kings and the emperors. You also see elephant seals, which are absolutely enormous. They are actually the largest seal species in the world. We also get the leopard seals, which are one of the apex predators that we have in Antarctica. They're quite amazing animals, quite elusive sometimes,

but they are the one seal, the only seal that will eat warm-blooded animals. You'll get orca as well. Whales, blue whales have also been spotted, the largest animal that's ever lived. But I would say humpback whales are the most common animal that you will find in Antarctica because of the abundance of krill and phytoplankton and zooplankton that's going around. You love humpback whales, I understand. Oh my gosh, they are just beautiful. We're still learning so much about cetaceans in general. There's so much that we don't know. But with humpback whales, they are the most musical of all of the whales. They tend to sing,

especially the males, extremely acrobatic. So you'll see them breaching quite often when you're scrolling maybe or you're watching on television, you'll see these whales leap out of the water and do this little twirl in the air. And that's usually the humpback whales. It's quite, what would I say, a jarring juxtaposition of thinking, you know, scrolling on your phone and these crazy scenes going on outside. Yes. And in Antarctica, they're just everywhere. You'll be looking out of your window and you'll see a humpback. We had one sleeping next to the ship a couple of days ago in Eco Harbour.

They're quite curious. So we have to be quite careful because we abide by the IARTO regulations, which essentially just ensures that the wildlife is safe. And there's a lot of biosecurity that goes on on the ship. So we have to make sure we are absolutely spick and span before we step foot on Antarctica. How do you do that? Oh, well, we've got something we call a mudroom, essentially like a big water tray, a Vir vercon it's like a pink chemical liquid and it sanitizes your boots so we step in that before we go out and we also step in it when we come back so we're not traipsing it through the ship and we also have a boot wash and essentially a shower room where we rinse ourselves off after each and every single landing. Because the worry is contamination in a place that really could do

without it. I understood that the other day you did have the experience of finding avian flu. Oh, goodness me. Yes, it's quite sad. Because this also can pass on to the pinnipeds, our seal species. So essentially, myself and a couple of other colleagues go ashore first before anyone arrives. We will walk around the island or piece of land that we're looking to hike. And we will have to assess if there's any deaths or if there's any signs of bird flu, avian flu in both the penguins usually or skewers, they're quite prone to it and the seals. So if there is more than three looking a little bit avian flu like showing the symptoms, then we will not land. Or if there are more than three mortalities, we won't land because we really

want to reduce the spread of avian flu as it's hitting places like Antarctica quite hard. So what did you find? We found a couple of dead chinstraps and a deceased skewer. When you see them actually suffering from avian flu, they'll display different symptoms in different species, but it can be quite difficult because some penguin species actually carry it, but they don't suffer from it. And that was about to be my question. Is it from a non-native species that that would introduce something like that? Or is it something endemic within Antarctica?

We've had it in the north. And it spreads down there, I believe, from back and forth passing to Antarctica. But there's also birds that will fly to Antarctica and bring it with them. And because seabirds especially tend to group together in rookeries, they'll all be sort of close together, especially when the winter comes. And that's when it really starts to spread. So that is something that can happen as you talk about with avian flu. We also talk about changes in the environment due to climate change and global warming. Have you seen that? Yes, we do. We actively see it. A few days ago, we were in Neco Harbour, for example, and it's very normal to see glaciers carving, especially this time of year, because this is

summer in Antarctica. It's happening at a very rapid rate, especially when we're working in the Arctic, for example. You see it happen a lot faster. And I think that's because there are people living in the Arctic, rather there's no people living in Antarctica. So in the Arctic, you can see things happening extremely fast. For example, in the last 100 years, glaciers have actually reduced about 40%, which is an extremely rapid reduction in glacial ice. So that is a consequence of global warming, as you talk about human activity when it comes to the Arctic.

But you will have seen, of course, lots of concerns about the increase in cruise ship tourism to both arctic and antarctica some quoting for example the high carbon footprint pollution wildlife disturbance and the habitat being deteriorated but you know i was seeing one question that was being posed in some of the articles saying should we just say no to antarctica and particularly the type of tourism that you could be considered a part of? I would say that if you are responsible and if we encourage the growth of hybrid ships, I would say that it is acceptable. But we are seeing more and more people and ships coming into Antarctica who do not abide by the IATO regulations. They throw things overboard. It was only a few days ago we saw a few krill ships in the bay.

And we're seeing them more and more often. And they're taking krill out of the water because it's quite a lucrative business. And it's absolutely devastating for the wildlife, also the environment itself. There should not be that many ships there, especially ones that are taking from Antarctica and leaving such a heavy carbon footprint. We also found a lump of polystyrene in the water yesterday, which is absolutely just devastating to see because you're in the wilderness and then you find a piece of plastic is really quite heartbreaking. There's regulations in place for a reason and there definitely should be a reduction. But what about those who feel that cruise ships should be banned from Antarctica? I certainly think there should be more regulations with it, like reducing the amount that come down. So a quota? Also a quota, but also there should be someone on board

from iato or a conservationist for example who is monitoring there always should be a monitor i believe i'm quite certain that all cruise ships don't have one whereas we're quite lucky on particular ones which are very very stringent very very careful with where we go if we're looking at whales for example in a zodiac we must keep 100 meters away from this animal we don't want to disturb it we want to give it lots of space we think about noise pollution we want to make sure we're far away from it if it's feeding we're 200 meters away from it we're being as careful as we possibly can and as lovely as it would be to stop all ship trafficking, including cruise ships coming to Antarctica. I just believe it's not going to happen. It seems to be a constant battle between money and conservation and politics. And it can

be quite a tangled and difficult thing to solve or even talk about. Because people who go on a cruise like yours, for example, they would be very wealthy, it's very expensive. Did I see 35,000 somewhere? And it means only a certain person can visit Antarctica. Yes. And, you know, that can also be sort of a difficult pill to swallow as well. A little bit of a philosophical thing to think about too.

If we couldn't go at all, then we wouldn't know what's going on in Antarctica. You know, there are things that we can do and are doing, especially for the research vessels. It's essential that they are able to access Antarctica to be able to keep an eye on it and keep reporting back the changes that are happening here and even evolutionary changes. As a human race, we also need to see places like this. It's just a shame that it's quite closed off to only a number of people. Victoria Melwish there. Former strictly professional dancer Oti Mabusi has got a pretty busy 2025 ahead of her. From judging the next series of Dancing on Ice to setting off on a dance tour in June to publishing her first adult novel this autumn, not to mention being a mum to her young daughter, Oti has got a packed schedule.

But luckily for us, she found time to squeeze us in and I began by asking her how she's finding motherhood. I'm loving it. It's really been a journey of self-discovery. There are moments where I just feel so tired but then you look at her and she's the happiest girl and I'm like oh wow I get it. I get why mums are like this is amazing but this is hard. It genuinely is one of the hardest things where you question yourself and you say, am I doing this right? Am I a good mother?

Am I taking care of myself? Am I a good wife? Am I a good friend? So it's been that journey of self-discovery. But I've loved finding out that I have another side to me. Absolutely. And let's explore that a bit more because you went into the jungle this year in I'm a Celebrity.

And there were times when it felt like those cameras are off. There were those personal, those heartwarming conversations. And one of those featured you in conversation about your daughter's premature birth. How did that feel for you?

I mean, I love being there because I think at some point we all just forgot that the cameras were there we just completely were ourselves and when the reverend came in I think I was more familiar with him I knew him and it enabled me to open up a little bit because I do have that struggle I mean just talking to strangers and telling them what you've been through is not something easy. And so when I spoke to him, and I spoke to him about her being born early, I felt a sense of power afterwards, because I was able to talk about something that I was really struggling to talk about for a long time. And I think being able to open up and talk about what I was going through,

what I was feeling, the little bit of frustration made me stronger and it enabled me to talk about a lot more things that I was probably struggling with mentally by myself. And your little one is clearly thriving now. But what about you when you've had a premature baby? And I know that the labor was difficult you had sepsis as well towards the end how are you feeling in yourself now I'm much better and and I feel that now that I have a daughter there I've more I'm more motivated to push and

not just for me and not just for my husband but but for her as well. I want to make sure that she's okay. I want to make sure that, you know, I leave her. If I don't live long, that she's okay while I'm still not there, that I give her life lessons, that we have fun, that we get to know each other as mom and daughter and as friends as well. So I feel good because I feel like I have a new motivation that is pushing me to to do what I do and that feels like a lot of mental growth but physically I know in the past you've spoken about um coming back from pregnancy strong not skinny

and that has stayed with me yes it's honestly I, and I'm more aware of it now because I'm in charge of another human's body and I know what works. And when you're in the media, there's this term called snapback, you know, where women are like, oh, I have to go back. The six pack, the way I used to be. And for me, I struggled with that concept first because my body doesn't work that way. I don't think it's, for me, was the healthiest way to live. I was in hospital with her for six, eight weeks. And then I had to heal. And then I had to take time to work. And I was just like, you know what, my body right now is not doing what I'm used to it doing. But it's the perfect body for me.

And it gave me my daughter. And I need to do everything to make my body stronger. Not skinnier, not starved, not deprived, but stronger. I needed to be healthy. I needed to check my blood sugar levels, my diabetes. I spoke about having gestational diabetes. I needed to make sure that I was healthier and stronger physically and emotionally for myself, but for her. And I think the term skinny is just become this thing where it's good to be healthy, but to do it in

the right way. But it's much better to be stronger and to know that you've got the stamina, you've got the mental capacity to endure your day and you've got that endurance to be able to keep it constant. Even though it might feel testing at times, you certainly sound like you're thriving. It's testing all the time. It's so testing. I mean, one of the things that tested you quite possibly

were the comments that you received when you went into the jungle from the public some accusing you of neglecting your little one by going to Australia how hard was that I think people didn't know me I think people who who did do that genuinely didn't know me because when I came out the conversation had completely changed people like we're 11 yeah I'm not crazy and I think it's okay I had so many moms write me like it's just three weeks she'll be fine you know she won't even remember this period but also my husband was so amazing that he was like thank you for giving me three weeks to bond with my daughter. Because a lot of the time, we don't talk about leaving the daughter or the child with the father

because some of us think that they can't do it. And my husband was like, no, I can. And I love this time. And he's feeding her right now. They've bonded. Amazing amazing connection but I think the concept of of mom doing something for herself sounds selfish at first but I know so many new moms would appreciate it as well maybe they're not speaking as loud on social media or or on any platforms but I know so many moms are are in need of just taking time for themselves and it's it's difficult especially for those who are single moms and doing it by their own but that me time is precious it's really precious I had time to think I had time to sleep I had time to get over things mentally that were holding me back I just had time you had time? I'm just wondering, you were in the jungle.

We slept. If you didn't see me on screen, I was sleeping. That's what we did. You wake up, you eat some rice, somebody goes off and do a trial. We sleep. And then they come back, you do a challenge. If you're not doing your challenge, you sleep. So we like two two naps a day precious so that was much needed sleep that I needed to catch up on yeah so you clearly embraced your husband's support there and your mom too now I spotted a video on Instagram of yours recently and in which you capture this moment of your mom interacting with your little one and you simply asked that question who is this woman now we often say we often say grandparents treat their grandkids differently right in a much more gentle fashion compared to how they treated us is that how it is for you I mean a hundred percent

my mother was like my mum was a sports mum if you can imagine so she's a school teacher but also she was a sports mum but and on top top of that, she was a dance mom. So it, our, like growing up, I would say me and Mutzi, we always had schedules, you know, Monday, you're swimming, Tuesday, it's tennis. So we always had schedules and things to do. And even I guess with like healthy living, because we were athletes, it was a lot about, you know, what you put into your body is going to give you energy to dance. So all of that, we grew up in a quite strict household. And then with my, with my daughter, she's like mama Christmas. She's like, she can do whatever she wants. She could scream. She could do whatever it is that she wants. And I was like, who on earth is this woman?

Because I needed her growing up. I wanted Grandma Doodoo growing up. Oti Mabusi, thank you. And Dancing on Ice with Oti Judging is on ITV1 on Sunday evening at 6.30. On Monday, Newly will be joined

by the Right Reverend Rose Hudson Wilkin, who is Britain's first black woman bishop, to discuss her new memoir, The Girl from Montego Bay. That's Woman's Hour on Monday from 10. That's it from me. Do enjoy the rest of your weekend. 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.