Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Witness Protection, Gender Pension Gap, Big Boobs and Dr Edna Adan Ismali

Episode Date: June 3, 2023

A woman who was stalked by her husband and then placed into witness protection with a new identity to escape him, says she feels like she's the one being punished. She's complained to the police about the way her case was handled after being told she failed an assessment and was no longer being supported by them in her new life. She spoke to our reporter Melanie Abbott, and says she felt completely cut adrift. We hear her story of how she had to uproot her two children and start a new life with a new job in a new town, while her husband is free to live wherever he likes. Academic Rachael Wheatley from the university of Derby tells Anita how she is training police to be better at dealing with stalkers and how victims need better support.A new report by the Trade Union Congress has highlighted a gender pension gap between what men and women are living on in retirement. The estimate it’s currently running at 40.5%, which is more than double the current gender pay gap. Nuala talks to Nikki Pound from the TUC and financial expert Sarah Pennells Consumer finance specialist at Royal London - pensions insurance provider about the issues facing women and possible solutions.You can’t read a tabloid newspaper without some form of cheating scandal filling the headlines. But what makes someone lie to the person they love? Nuala asks Natalie Lue, a boundaries and relationships coach about the big and little lies we tell in relationships.Writer and Podcaster Jackie Adedeji speaks to Nuala about her new Channel 4 documentary UNTOLD: My Big Boobs, a look into the impacts of having big boobs and the rise in breast reduction surgery. Sarah Ditum also joins to discuss the cultural trends of breasts through the years.Dr Edna Adan Ismail is known as the ‘Woman of Firsts’. She’s Somaliland’s first trained midwife, first female Minister of Foreign Affairs, and former First Lady. And now she has added another first to her title. She is this year’s winner of the Templeton Prize - making her the first black African woman to receive the honour. She has been awarded the £1.1 million prize for her contribution to women’s health. In 2002 she sold everything she owned to build The Edna Adan Hospital and University which has played a crucial role in cutting maternal mortality rates in Somaliland. She still lives and works within the hospital. Edna Adan Ismail explains what life is like for women in Somaliland, and what will she spend the prize money on.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Hanna Ward

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.

Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, the highlights from the week so you don't feel as though you've missed out. How wonderful to have your company. Coming up on the programme, our reporter Melanie Abbott tells us about how a woman who was stalked by her husband and then placed into witness protection with a new identity feels as though she's the one being punished. We hear about a new report by the Trade Union Congress, which highlights a gender pension gap between what men and women are living on in retirement. One in nine women are in jobs where their employer doesn't have to put them into a workplace pension. This compares to less than one in 20 men.

At 40%, women effectively go nearly five months of the year before they get their pensions income in comparison to men. Plus writer and podcaster Jackie Adedeji tells us about the negative impact big boobs can have on your life. Big breasts are seen as public property. People feel that oh they're out there so they're available. It almost feels like your boobs do not belong to you but for everyone else like they're there for everyone else to look at and gawk at and make comments about. And you will be inspired by Somaliland's first trained midwife, Edna Adan Ismail, about winning the prestigious Templeton Prize. You know the drill by now, grab yourself a cuppa and settle in. But first, a woman who was stalked by her husband and then placed

into witness protection with a new identity to escape him says she feels like she's the one being punished. She's complained to the police about the way her case was handled after being told she failed an assessment and was no longer being supported by them in her new life. She says she felt completely cut adrift. Well, our reporter Melanie Abbott joined me to tell me more. This is a woman, she's in her 40s, she has two children. After being in witness protection, they're now all living undercover, so she can't be identified. The relationship broke down 10 years ago, and she got her husband to move out of the house that she owned. He then began a prolonged period of

harassment, following her, turning up randomly at the house, even moving into it once when she was away. She told me she actually moved house four times, but she was always found by him. And did she report this to the police? She did, of course, but she told me that they didn't appear to take any concrete action. Eventually, she did manage to get a non-molestation order herself. She told me what her life has been like since, starting with taking that court action. Obviously, we are protecting her identity,

so her words are spoken by an actor. It was not easy at all. I didn't have the right to legal aid because I hadn't reported a violent assault at that point as it was more of a stalking issue even though there was violence. What kind of violence? He slapped me across the face and burst my eardrum. He pushed me up against a wall, chucked me over a chair so I ended up like injuring the inside of my mouth but that kind of escalated after I decided to leave so I went to get the non-molestation order.

It was a horrendous experience. The judge wasn't very nice to me. She kind of chastised me because I was late even though I had to get the bus to get there. I couldn't find where I was going, so I just ended up a sobbing wreck, really. It was granted, but it really didn't make any difference at all, if I'm being honest. It was like it didn't exist to him. And did he carry on appearing and essentially stalking you after the order was granted? Oh, yeah. I had pizzas delivered to the house, flowers delivered. There were videos put up on YouTube where he was talking about how unfairly he'd been treated,

how I'd victimised him, everyone was plotting against him, all this kind of thing. He sent a pornographic video to my brother, which was purporting to be us. It wasn't. But just, all this stuff was out there. You know, he'd get neighbours to come and show it to me. To go come and look at this YouTube video. He'd ask neighbours to pass messages, to bring gifts. I mean, when I went through the court, the judge was saying that it was actually incredible how he'd manipulated people

and how actually the whole community ended up doing his dirty work for him. You must have been very surprised the neighbours were willing to do that. I think they probably didn't realise the severity of the situation. And as it became apparent, people obviously sort of stopped doing things. And I think some people were quite scared of him as well.

So they just did it because they wanted to get him off their back. Jane says the police failed to take action when she reported all this. Finally, when her husband breached the non-molestation order she'd managed to get, he was arrested and jailed. It was when he was released that Jane went to the police terrified about what would happen next and they suggested she be given a new identity and go into witness protection. It's something you might have heard about

when people give evidence against dangerous drug lords or mafia rings. It's officially known as the UK Protected Persons Service and is part of the National Crime Agency. She told me how it was explained to her. Well, it was a bit like a sort of a sales pitch. So it was like he said, you know, you can go, you can start over, the world's your lobster, he said to me. You won't lose out. It's kind of like for like. You can just set up the same kind of life somewhere else. And he did say it's hard, but there wasn't a lot of discussion of how it's hard. You know, if I'm honest, I had absolutely no idea how hard it was going to be. Did they spell out at that stage, though, that you would have a new identity?

Yeah, they talked about a move and about different names. I started off thinking, oh yeah, yeah, a move, a new name. But then you start to realise just what that entails. New school, new home, new job, new everything. And did they spell that out at the time? Yeah, I think they did to some degree. I think I was so kind of wound up and afraid. I didn't think quite as much as I should about what it would entail.

Whatever they had said to me to do, I probably would have done. They helped her find a new job and provided her and her two children What it would entail? Whatever they had said to me to do, I probably would have done. They helped her find a new job and provided her and her two children with a new rented home about 120 miles away, after she googled towns that she had no connection with. It was the modern day equivalent of sticking a pin in a map, really. My older son was quite stressed by it all. He had anxiety, self-harm. He was cutting his arms. He would text me from bed at night and say,

have you locked the door? My younger son, I think, saw it more as some kind of adventure. It's different for him. He doesn't understand why he can't see his dad. He sometimes asks if he'll ever see him again. Did they get the chance to say goodbye to their friends or explain anything to their friends? No. No, none of us did. They'd had the same childminder since they were, like, nine months old.

So she was like a second mum to them. We left her. We left all my colleagues at work that were like friends, all their school friends, everybody. Like we were just kind of dead to them and they were dead to us. My son said he felt like he'd come on a sort of holiday and it was going to last a few months and we'd all go back. And I think that was kind of in my head as well. It was temporary. But now it really isn't. This is our life. And obviously your children had to change their names. How did they cope with that? Ah, they find it difficult. You know, things like writing your name on your book at school, just people calling your name but not remembering that they're calling you.

We would have to practice it at home, so they would say goodnight to each other and practice with the new names. Jane had to keep in touch with her protection team and obey strict rules, which she says she found increasingly difficult, until after eight months. I was told they couldn't continue to look after me because I wasn't very compliant, because I didn't answer all their phone calls. I got fed up, really, of answering the phone calls. Then I had a little look at something on Facebook, which was a problem. I just looked at someone I'd known, and then I was told I'd failed the assessment period. I didn't even know I was still in an assessment period. They'd said about an

assessment at the beginning, but they didn't tell me how long it was. I mean, how can it be an assessment? Because you turned my life upside down. So there was, like, no trial period because I'm here and everything's changed. Did they say what happens if you fail the assessment? Not in any clear terms. Someone had said, look, if you fail, you're on your own. You will need to find your own job. You will need to find your own house and just get on with it. And you won't be getting any psychological support. I would have thought twice about things. Like all this has happened and we haven't had any kind of proper ongoing support. You know, if I just got booted out of Love Island, I could go and get a psychologist, but we've had none of that. Even

though, you know, this has been like having a limb amputated in the scale that it's affected us. You've got these two policemen who come and visit you every week and have been doing so for nine months and I think you develop these kind of like emotional bonds with them because they're the only people really that you're really connected to. It just felt like oh my god I'm being cut adrift. I'm just going to be in this kind of weird bubble where I have nobody. She was given the number of one police officer who she says knew nothing about her situation and didn't offer much help. She had no idea where her husband is now.

He hasn't responded to any of the family court proceedings. It seems unfair that it's always the woman in this stuff that has to move or whatever Well he has total freedom to do what he likes The woman we're calling Jane talking about what happened to her and her words were spoken by an actor It's incredibly difficult to even imagine what that must be like What are the police and protected persons services saying Mel? Well the police told us the complaint wasn't upheld nor was a subsequent appeal and it's

inappropriate to comment further. The protected persons service told us protection usually involves moving a person to a new safe location like in this case. They then work with them to keep that location discreet and help rebuild their life. And now they say this is never an easy option and they do need the person's cooperation. By law, they can't comment on individual cases, but they have added that they have successfully managed similar cases and wouldn't want to put off these type of referrals. There is a context here though, there isn't there, and general dissatisfaction with how stalking is handled. That is absolutely right. This story, Jane's experience, comes as the police investigate a super complaint which was lodged last year by the National Stalking Consortium

and that consortium includes the Susie Lampley Trust. Only five percent of reports of stalking to the police in the year ending March 2022 resulted in any charge. And it is estimated there were nearly 8,000 victims that year. Thank you, Melanie. Well, I can talk now to Dr. Rachel Wheatley from the University of Derby. She's a forensic psychologist who has specialised in researching stalking for 15 years. Morning, Rachel. Welcome to the programme. What do you make of what happened to Jane? It's extremely traumatic and isolating. And actually, but for Jane, right from the point of the initial incident of intimate partner violence within the relationship, you know, and these things happen and we are advised in society to go to the police and actually to get

to that point, it's a really big deal. I do wonder from listening to that clip as well about whether criminal justice agencies do have some kind of or hold some kind of perfect victim stereotype. So, you know, thinking about how are victims being interpreted when they come across, when they're reporting, you know, and in all sorts of their behaviours, when they're really behaving in a way that's coming from their trauma responses they're very vulnerable and a lot of the times they're just adapting to this new life where they're having to do their own risk management a lot of the time it's not unusual that I've seen cases that I have worked with where where victims and survivors are managing their own risk that they're

practically cutting all ties and effectively disappearing because they may have tried other avenues and things aren't working. And what you hear in the clip is about what we would consider stalking by proxy. People using others, legal systems, friends, family, neighbours, to pass on messages to continue that contact and that intrusion into the victim's life, unfortunately. How else could it have been handled, do you think? You know, effective handling of these cases really does take some kind of multi-agency management. You know, the victim support and advocacy needs to be number one priority right from the start. I also think that legal sanctions need to be applied as soon as possible and some

form of quick intervention in terms of perpetrator intervention which needs to be led by you know whatever it is that's that really is the function what are they contributing factors and oftentimes that might be psychological input. Quick intervention with the use of stalking protection orders actually has the potential to work really well because that is an application that the police can make at the very earliest opportunity. So an interim one can be applied for. That puts in place legal restrictions on the person, but also positive requirements and an offering of some kind of intervention to help them to be able to desist from their behaviours.

I think what stood out for me and maybe a few people listening is the fact that the victim is not only having to deal with the stalking, but then they have to suffer the trauma of having to uproot their lives. And it's them that have to make the changes to their lifestyle. Yeah, absolutely. lives and it's them that have to make the changes to their lifestyle. Yeah absolutely and you know that's very common in in a lot of the cases that I've seen and that I've worked with from the perpetrator side you see actually the victim is is the one that is making all the changes and the perpetrator oftentimes for quite a period of time don't see that they need to change their

behaviours or they can't find a way to change their behaviours without some kind of intervention. What research have you actually been doing to work with stalkers? So my original doctoral research was around working with those that have stalked and to look at what was driving their stalking behaviours. And that was with people that had stalked ex-partner cases. You know, what was driving your offending? Why didn't you stop? What were all these issues here? And really that highlighted what I conceptualise as narcissistic vulnerability,

which is basically a psychological vulnerability where they have this constant need for contact, for validation, and they literally couldn't let go. There was something about their own fragility that they really needed some kind of help to step away from that. But the other thing, and I'm very much connected to that, was there was no deterrent. The arrests, the legal sanctions, they didn't care

because the higher order need was for that connection with the victim. And there's lots of... Oh, sorry. No, sorry, I'm just fascinated by this research that's done with the victim so if there's lots of oh sorry no sorry i'm just fascinated by this research that's done into the stalkers and and you know the sort of psychological vulnerability that you were talking about there what works then what works to get them out of that well the reality is we don't actually know yet we know most people will stop stalking at some point the challenge is working out what are the components there for that equation and actually doing that at the earliest opportunity and it does depend on the type of stalking case. So for the ex-partner stalking cases, there's a lot

happening around the country in particular. And one of the things that we've been trialling in the Midlands is the early awareness stalking intervention. And that is an offering of very short-term psychological intervention or perpetrators at the earliest opportunity at the charging stage to allow them to work on I guess desisting and really unhooking from those thoughts and feelings that are pulling them towards continuing their stalking behaviours. We've had a message in from somebody listening quite distressing one my ex-husband was violent to all of us nearly killed me and could have killed my two-year-old and when he threw him across the room after stalking and threats police told me to change our identities and break all contacts i moved far away with a fractured spine and impaired

mobility i had to find a new house myself i received no financial support from him and no benefits at the time why do you think rachel um the stalking protection laws are not used by the police more often? From the off, I think we don't use the word stalking enough. There's no specific legal definition, which doesn't really help. And so therefore, the society misidentification, police misidentification, we're calling it other things. We're calling it harassment. And the police will then look to charge for lower level offences and malicious communications, for example. I just don't think across the board we're picking it harassment, and the police will then look to charge for lower level offences, so malicious communications, for example. I just don't think across the board we're picking it up. I think the investigations can be quite complex because when people report it, they are still in

the crime. And then I think there are issues with applying for stalking protection orders, you know, complexities with if there are existing orders in place. And really, I think we need to work through all of those different tiers, just to see where the barriers are. I think there is a huge willingness from particularly from the police forces and the National Police League that I work with, for us to really get to grips with and apply this more robustly. But I think we need to work out what these barriers are. That was Dr Rachel Wheatley there, a forensic psychologist from the University of Derby, who specialised in researching stalking for 15 years. And details of organisations offering information and support with domestic abuse are available at bbc.co.uk slash action line,

or you can call for free any time to hear recorded information on 0800 888 809. Now, a new report by the Trade Union Congress has highlighted a gender pension gap between what men and women are living on in retirement. They calculate the difference as around 40%, which equates to more than £7,000. Well, Nuala was joined by Nicky Pound from the TUC and Sarah Pennells, a consumer finance specialist at Royal London, a pensions insurance provider, to look at the issues facing women. Nicky began by explaining the 40% gap.

The data that we've published shows that women are basically twice as likely to miss out on auto-enrolment because they don't earn enough to be put on auto-enrolment because they don't earn enough to be put into auto-enrolment. So what it basically means is that one in nine women are in jobs where their employer doesn't have to put them into a workplace pension. This compares to less than one in 20 men and what that reflects is the broader pensions gap which is essentially saying that at 40% women effectively go nearly five months of the year before they get their pensions income in comparison to men. And this is essentially driven by the kind of compounding of pay, unequal pay and having to work part time throughout their

lives that compounds the kind of gender pensions, gender pay of gender pay gap and leads to a gender pensions gap in retirement. So out of the labour market for certain periods of their lives potentially and then the auto-enrolment that you mention, I know the clue is in the name, but it's only certain companies that offer that. So it's not that only certain companies offer that. All companies are required to auto-enroll workers into an occupational pension if they earn £10,000 a year or more. So if you earn less than that, you won't be put into a workplace pension scheme by default. And what we know is that often women do earn less than that threshold. They're more likely to work in low-paid jobs. They're more likely to work in low paid jobs, they're more likely to work part time, so women are three times more likely to work part time than men. So it often

means that they miss out on being put into a pension scheme by default. So they're not building up their pensions throughout their working lives. And why is the 10,000 the cut off? When auto enrolment was introduced, that was the threshold that was set. We would like to see, one of the things we would like to see is that that threshold is removed so that it doesn't matter what you earn, you are put into a pension by default. There is the option to opt out, but that needs to be the individual's decision. But what we would like to see is that threshold removed so that everyone has the opportunity to start building their savings from retirement as soon as they enter the world of work. Our research also found that one in three younger women miss out on auto

enrolment and also one in eight younger men as well, because again, they're more likely to be working part time, low paid jobs. So this just then starts at the very start of your career and compounds throughout your life, particularly for women. the last few years. And as you say, it is partly about private and workplace pensions. But actually, women previously before the state pension reforms of 2016 were really losing out because people who were employed and who were earning a good salary, and that tended to be men, did quite well out of the state pension system. But people who didn't have a consistent employment record, and that tended to be women, didn't do so well and often ended up having a much lower pension. Now, the rules have changed and it does mean that there's now this sort of single tier when it comes to pensions.

But women can still lose out, partly because if they don't, for example, register or claim benefits if they're out of work. Some women can lose out because of child benefit. There's a rule that says if you earn over £50,000, then child benefit is taxed. Now, it's really important still to register for child benefit, even if you choose not to receive any of the money, because that means you build up national insurance credits towards your state pension. So state pension is part of the picture. I think what's really been changing over the last few years is that we are understanding much more about what goes into making this gender pension gap so big. So as Nikki was saying, it is about work patterns,

women earning less, women taking time out of the workplace. And as our own research looked at, menopause. Now that's something that not many people are looking at, but we had a look at the figures and it can have a real impact on the standard of living you have in retirement. If, take an example, a 50-year-old woman stops work and doesn't work and gets her state pension. And not working because? Because of the effects of the menopause. She finds she cannot stay in the workplace. Say she's only £40,000 a year. By the time she retires, she could have £126,000 less in her pension fund. It's estimated a million women leave the workplace because of menopause. So that's a big impact on the gender pension gap as well. So what do we do about that? Nikki, I saw you nodding your head, listening to how menopause comes into it.

I mean, what would you propose? I mean, in terms of, I mean, I think like there's specific things in terms of the actual pension. So as I said, removing the earnings threshold and we would like to see statutory requirements to report on the pensions gap and have action plans

of how workplaces will tackle it. But I think, you know, it is that broader thing around how do you make the world of work supportive of women and their life experiences? So, we know that women, we did some research a couple of months ago that showed that one in seven women

will be out of the labor market due to caring responsibilities. So, there's things like investing in child care fixing our recruitment um and staffing crisis in social care because it's women who are expected to plug the gaps in those sectors um when there isn't the staff to deliver that it's also things like flexible working flexible work can be a really important policy in the workplace that will help women particularly going through menopause, to manage their experiences and not be forced out of the labour market. That's what I was about to come to. I suppose flexibility would play into it there. Sarah,

what else do you think? I think there's a mix of long-term issues to address the structural inequalities and some quick fixes. So, for example, we're finding that employers don't always talk about what happens to someone's pension if they take maternity leave. So they may talk about things like keeping in touch days, but not about actually what it means for someone's pension. Also actually having conversations at work. So we found that three quarters of women said that their menopause symptoms were difficult or serious, but only 3% had talked to their managers. Well, if their managers haven't had menopause training,

that can be a really difficult conversation to have. Some small adaptations at work can actually make life much easier for women going through perimenopause or menopause. But also, if you're in a relationship and you're having a family, talking to your partner about who's going to stop work and what does it mean in terms of not just your pay, but your pensions. Can your partner pay into your pension, for example? That's a good point. So your partner potentially can be, usually?

They can. Now, there can be good tax reasons why, if they're a higher earner, they may want to carry on paying in theirs. But we do find that although women are doing lots of things right, so we find, for example, with our cost of living research, women are no more likely to stop paying into their pension than men. Women save more as a percentage of their income than men, but because of the gender pay gap, that doesn't add up as so much. So women are doing a lot right. But I do think there's a broader conversation, both within the family and in the workplace, that could actually take some small steps to improving the gender pension gap. OK, comment came in. Ray Pensions. Before I divorced in 1981, deserted with two infants, I was entitled to 50% of my husband's index-linked pension and each child 25% in the event of his death.

At the financial hearing, my barrister, I had to have one because he did, told me I could kiss goodbye to that. The loss to me now is that I have retired is literally incalculable, says Mary. And let's talk about divorce because it's something people go through and how that can affect their pension and income in retirement.

Nicky? I mean, I think in terms of divorce like divorced women have an even higher pensions gap so you shouldn't overlook pensions in the divorce settlement because they can be you know worth something but i think it's something that people wouldn't be aware of and i think to the point actually talking about pensions in the workplace with your family understanding all of the different implications and options is a really important conversation. And Sarah, I know you want to come in. It's right. So there was some research by which that found that 60% of people said the pension wasn't discussed

when they got divorced. Which is amazing, right? Spaggering statistic. So pensions can be split, it's called shared in the jargon, at the point of divorce. Or you can take the value of a pension and offset it against maybe the matrimonial home, the family home. Often what we find is that women go for the home option for understandable reasons. They want that continuity, especially if there's children. The problem is the pension can actually be more valuable than the home. So I would say, although possibly thinking about talking about pensions may be the last thing on your mind when you're thinking of going through a divorce, please do look into it because as part of the divorce process, you both have to disclose what assets you have. So if your partner has a very large pension, they have to disclose that and it should be part of the conversation. Maybe the family home staying with the mother might be the right thing to do,

but part of the pension could also be divided and that could mean you have a better standard of living when you stop work and in retirement. Financial expert Sarah Pennells there alongside Nicky Pound from the TUC. Still to come on the programme, we look at the negative impact big boobs can have on your life and where the size of breasts fits into society. And we'll be hearing from Somaliland's first trained midwife, first female minister of foreign affairs and former first lady Edna Adan Ismail.

And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10 a.m. during the week, just head to BBC Sounds, search for Woman's Hour. And here's a secret, it's free. Now on Monday, we had a special programme all about the lies we tell in our personal lives, from little white lies to catastrophic whoppers. We found out why we lie and the impact lies can have. Nuala spoke to relationship coach Natalie Liu, who explained why it's not always just the big lies that can derail a relationship. We all have a reason why we tell lies. We've learned to do it. It's a habit. It's something that we have. For instance, as a child, I was told

it's really important to tell the truth. If you tell the truth, you won't get into trouble. So you tell the truth and you do get into trouble. So then you work out as a kid, oh, hold on a second. People don't like it when you are honest. The truth gets you into trouble. It's important to tell people what they want to hear. Boom, you're a people pleaser. So what you have then is in our intimate relationships

is people believing that, oh, that's just a white lie. And it becomes really like death by a thousand cuts, because it's one thing if you can go, oh, it's occasional. It's another thing when actually you're telling people what you think they want to hear. You are not being honest about how you feel, what you need, what you want, what you expect. You're not actually being honest about who you are. And that means that's the block to intimacy because your person says to you, what do you want to do? I want to do what you want to do. What do you like? I like what you like. Was that good for you? Yeah, that was good for me. You're lying all the time. And we say,

oh, we're doing this for the benefit of others. I don't want to hurt feelings. But actually, once you start telling lies in your relationship, you're cutting the other person off from intimacy. So even those smaller lies, not even the bigger ones that I'll get to in a moment, you think they matter?

I think that in the long run they do. If they're becoming, if it's, look, if I turn around and I say to my partner, surprise, we're going to, I don't know, Beyonce concert. I know we were talking about Beyonce a lot recently. Okay, that's, you know, I may have told some lies to keep that a surprise. It's a different thing when I'm being asked, are you okay with this? What do you need from this? Whatever. And I'm telling lies about that. And that is where we run into problems. It's so interesting. I hadn't thought about the connection between being a people pleaser and telling lies, but you outlined it so well. I understand you lied about your favourite film for two years. I did. So this was

before I reformed. This is, I mean, this has gone back probably 16, 17 years now. But I was seeing a guy, and to be fair, it was all part of one big lie anyway, because he had a girlfriend and we worked together. And for some reason, I thought that saying that my favourite film was the same as his would advance my cause and make us similar. So I said that my favorite film was city of god do you remember that i do it's quite um intense it's pretty brutal and do you know what right it is good but it wouldn't even be like in my top 20 of favorite films i'm gonna be honest

my favorite films joint favorites are coming to america and ghost. So it was vastly different. But I lied about that for two years because I thought that it would make me more attractive. It would make it seem like we had more in common. And to be honest with you, I lied really in all of my romantic relationships before because that's what I thought dating and being in a romantic relationship was about. It seems to be kind of fitting into their way of being is what I'm hearing. You twist yourself into a pretzel and you find that you don't even realise that you're lying anymore because you think that you're being what you think is a good girlfriend. You think that you're making yourself a potential attract, you know, if we're not in a relationship yet well saying that i'm this or that or that i like this or that they're going to want to pick me or maybe i'll become wife material but the thing is is that

you eventually hate yourself and you become somebody that you're not also the person doesn't really get to know you they get to know a version of you that you're trying to portray. So you're living a lie. And do you think women do that more than men in relationships? I think, look, we're all guilty of telling lies. But I would say that as women, we are in particular socialized and conditioned to be people pleasers. We're told to be sweet and meek and mild. You know, don't do things that make you look slutty.

You know, make sure that you do the things that are going to attract, you know, a partner and win people over. And so we are more predisposed to it, I would say, certainly from the point of view of people pleasing, simply because it has been our survival. You know, we are brought up in a capitalist, sort of patriarchal, sexist, ageist, all the systems. So, of course, we lie because we think, well, if I, back in the day, you thought, well, if I don't lie about these things, I'm not going to get a husband. Relationship coach Natalie Lu speaking there. Fascinating stuff. And if you missed our bank holiday programme about lying, you can find that episode from Monday the 29th of May on BBC Sounds.

Now, big boobs. Have you got them? Do you like them? Love them? Hate them? They've been part of our cultural landscape, particularly in certain eras and with certain celebrities. Think Barbara Windsor in carry-on films, Sam Fox and Page Three Girls in the 80s. But if you have them, you'll know they don't usually come without issues. At times, that might be physical, neck or shoulder pain, for example, or it might be societal, others treating you differently because of the size of your chest. Well, in a new Channel 4 Untold documentary, My Big Boobs, writer and podcaster Jackie Adedede takes a look at the negative impact

big boobs can have on your life and the rising demand for breast reduction surgery. She joined Nuala to discuss alongside the journalist Sarah Dytham, who's been looking into the cultural history of breasts and where size fits into society. Jackie began by describing her relationship with her body once she'd developed breasts. I woke up one summer when I was 11 years old and I literally had double F chest

and my life changed overnight. I was a child and I became a woman. I was sexualised. In certain people's eyes. Yes, yes. So I was a child and I became a woman. I was in people, certain people's lives. Yes, yes. So I was sexualized from a really early age. So everything from walking to school. I remember men walking past me.

They're licking their lips. I remember being in school and boys would be laughing at me every time I was running. They'd be like, look at her boobs. They'd be pinging my bra straps. I remember being told by friends and family, you need to dress more modest. You need to dress more modest, you need to dress more proper. And I'm like, what does that even mean? Like, I'm such a, I'm a young girl. I don't, I don't really, I'm trying to just dress like how my friends dress. But then I started to realise that I was being treated differently because of my chest.

And it almost felt like I had to hide because I was making people feel uncomfortable. I felt so much for that girl who was 11, 12, 13, because in every photograph that you showed, you had your hands kind of trying to cover your breasts. Yeah, yeah. That was the norm for me, the norm for Rochelle, who was in the documentary, because you just want to hide.

You want to be invisible because everybody makes you feel like your body is wrong. There's something wrong with you. You're making people feel uncomfortable. So the only thing you know how to do is just hide. Let's talk about Rochelle. Yeah, she was... She was going for breast reduction.

She was going for breast reduction, yeah. So she had never experienced a girl's night out. She didn't even really go out with her boyfriend. In fact, they would go to the cinema because it was just in the dark, so no one would see them. They would barely go out for couples dinner. She had barely any friends. And she knew that it was because having big boobs made her feel super alienated

she felt really ashamed about her body and she talked about in the documentary about a man following her when she was in Disney World which is absolutely crazy and she was a young girl so having a breast reduction surgery for her was life changing because she was able to live life on her terms and just feel normal. That's what she ever wanted was to feel normal and not hide anymore. And she's thriving and she's living her life. And that's just proof how life changing breast reduction surgery is for many women. And the other aspect that you get into, Jackie, were in the backlog shall we say after Covid and of course cuts in hospitals etc. Elective surgeries have gone way down the list so a lot of people aren't getting on the NHS because the wait is too long and they're trying to pony up for themselves to the tune of £9,000.

Yeah I mean I think everybody's you know suffering one way or the other because of the NHS waiting list and I think breast reduction surgery is for suffering one way or the other because of the NHS waiting list. And I think breast reduction surgery is for the NHS, but it really is luck of the draw. Some people get it, some people don't. And lots of women, unfortunately, are having to resort to crowdfunders to get their breast reduction surgeries because they don't have the capital on their own. So they have to go out there and ask people to help them. And that just shows how hard it is. I mean, I can't even imagine what it's like

for someone to have to start a crowdfunder. You've probably got a really normal job. You probably have a really normal life. And that's, you know, that's out there for the public, for everyone to see. And you've got to show pictures of how bad it is, you know. And there's one lady you meet who went to crowdfund. You know, we could have probably predicted it.

Got so many disgusting people getting in touch with her in a sexual way when she talked about like they wanted photographs of her breasts if they were going to fund her. I mean, boggles the mind. But, you know, listening to this is Sarah, who, you know, looks at, I suppose, the cultural place of breasts in our history. And how would you see big breasts, Sarah? I mean, Jackie and I were speaking before we came on air. We said like in British culture, they're often considered... They're funny. Funny, yeah.

Yeah, there is like there is this kind of comic history of the big bust. You mentioned Barbara Windsor in the Carry On films, Hattie Jacks in there playing the sort of the mat bust you mentioned barbara windsor and the carry-on films hattie jacks in there playing the sort of the matron character and this idea of this sort of big you know this vast prowl that's kind of both enormously sexual but sort of so intimidating that it can't be even be taken seriously there's a very there's a very sort of weird schoolboyish attitude towards large breasts and it's not you know it is not by any means unique to British culture but in this culture it's really tied up with the sort of saucy seaside postcard tradition and page three especially and page three I think is really indicative of the way that very young

girls you know girls aged sort of 15 or younger would be talent spotted for page three when that was still a thing. And having big breasts marked them as sexual, even though they were still children. And there is this cultural attitude that by having big breasts, you somehow entered the realm of the sort of sexually available. But you would think moving on from the 80s, maybe of the heyday of page three girls, that the attitudes or indeed the actions of society towards women with big breasts would have changed. But has it, Sarah? Not at all, because I think in some ways we've become less tolerant sexually of pornographic content like page three being part of mainstream media. At the same time, actual pornography is absolutely rampant so that is how girls see breasts being represented being represented primarily as sexual objects for male exploitation and use and the bigger the breasts the more exploitable they are essentially

and the more you're seen to exist for men's pleasure. Yeah, I'm just nodding my head like, yes, yes, yes. Because I do think that big breasts are seen as public property. People feel that, oh, they're out there, so they're available. Let's have a feel. Let's have a say. It almost feels like your boobs do not belong to you, but for everyone else. Like they're there for everyone else to look at and gawk at and make comments about. And I think that's one of the most incredibly hard things about having big breasts is the kind of psychological warfare that goes on in your mind do I own it or do I hide you know that is the constant battle

of being proud of your own body that you can't have them out there and I loved that so many of the women with big breasts in your documentary wore low- cut tops and very much wore them proudly. But the fear, I suppose, if you do that, that somehow. Yeah. If something happens to you, it's your fault. Why'd you have them out then? You know, it's always the blame always lies with us. Even if you don't have your boob showing, someone's still going to look. Someone's still going to comment. Let's read some of the comments coming in. I had a breast reduction six months ago going from a J to a double D cup. I'm 63 and I thought about it

for a decade. My breasts became bigger after children and breastfeeding and no matter how much I tried fitness and weight loss they just seemed to get bigger. Eventually it was more

psychological than physical. I felt miserable, looked overweight, struggled to find the right clothes. So I paid for the surgery with the recommended surgeon I did have some complications haematoma and infection but despite this I'm now reaping the benefits loving my new size also feeling lighter by five pounds off my chest another just had to pull over

when driving hearing this on woman's hour I'm having breast reduction surgery tomorrow I'm 57 years old and I've dreamt about this for 30 years. I'm a successful businesswoman in my own right, but I'm sick of being judged by my breasts. Another, my 17 year old daughter has big boobs like me. She feels very self-conscious about them due to the unwanted attention from older, leery men. She's learned the retaliatory death stare and form of words to call out gulping stares. I'm hoping that as she gets older, she'll get to love her double D's. Sarah, just as we finish this, are

you surprised at the amount of women that are in their 50s and 60s that we're hearing that are having breast reduction surgery after going through a lifetime of enduring the cultural, societal, I suppose, comments that come with having big breasts?

No, not surprised at all. And it does make sense. You know, like breasts do get larger after menopause. They do get bigger in some cases if you've been breastfeeding. Like it is likely to be something that becomes more of a problem as you get old. And I do think there's a trade-off that women are making to have smaller breasts. You do potentially lose sensation. You are sacrificing a part of your body to fit into what other people think you should be and I you know I don't think there's any way not to see that as slightly sad actually in some cases. Sarah Dytom and Jackie Adedegi speaking there and so many of you got in touch to tell us about your own experiences of having big breasts. Sharman emailed in to say I'm a 75 year old woman and when I was about to travel to London last week, I grabbed a figure-hugging dress to put on, which I never wear. I was sickened throughout the day by the many staring eyes focused on my boobs. It took me back to being a young woman before I

embarked on 50 years of camouflage and baggy jumpers. It was good to hear this on the programme. And Deb got in touch to say, I had enormous boobs all my young and middle-aged adult life. They were the bane of my existence, the first thing people noted about me, the first thing they judged me on. I was objectified, harassed and humiliated by young boys and men on many occasions and I was dismissed by many women. In 2007, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and immediately, without hesitation, opted for a double mastectomy without reconstruction.

My great joy now is not how good I look, but how unnoticeable and unjudged I am. Blending seamlessly into the background is utter bliss after years of standing out for all the wrong reasons. Deb, thank you for getting in touch. Although I do have to say, I feel very sad after reading your email, but I'm glad you are happier within yourself. Now, my next guest is one of the most influential advocates for women's health in the whole of Africa. Her name is Dr. Edna Adan Ismail. She's Somaliland's first trained midwife, first female minister of foreign affairs and former first lady. A lot of firsts. And now she's added another to her title. She's this year's winner of the Templeton Prize, making her the first black African woman to receive the honour.

At 85 years old, she spent more than 40 years helping women give birth safely. But that's not all. She spent years campaigning to end FGM, being a high ranking politician in the Republic of Somaliland and worked for the World Health Organization. Then in 1998, instead of retiring, she sold everything she owned to build the Edna Adan Hospital, the first maternity hospital in Somaliland, which has played a crucial role in cutting infant and maternal mortality rates. She still lives and works at the hospital to this day. And she joined me on the programme and told me how it felt to win the prize. Great. My hospital is about 21, 22 years old now. We've delivered over 33, 34,000 babies.

We've just come out from a C-section just a few, about half an hour ago. A beautiful, healthy boy, beautiful mother. That's what the hospital has done for me. And what will the prize money do for you at the hospital? What will you spend it on? My goodness, it will give life beyond my lifetime to the hospital and to the activities and projects that I love and devoted my quarter of a century,

the last quarter of a century, the last quarter of a century of my life to health education, training of health professionals, and fighting harmful traditional practices like female gender mutilation. So I'm grateful. I'm blessed. I feel great. And what a wonderful thing to have received, you know, after doing all that hard work for so many years. I think it's really important for our listeners to understand what life is like for women in Somaliland currently.

There have been recent conflicts. A hundred people were killed in February due to clashes. But just give us an idea of what life is like for women. Well, I think life in Somaliland and for women is far better than in many other countries. Somaliland, by the way, is not a self-declared independent. It is an independent country that was granted independence by Her Majesty the Queen in 1960. It was a former British Somaliland protectorate. That means that it always had its sovereignty.

Women in Somaliland, of course, have suffered because of the war and the destruction that we had that was between Somaliland and former Italian Somalia, a neighboring country. Health facilities were destroyed, schools were destroyed, people were, because of the war, went into refugee camps in neighboring countries. So when Somalilanders liberated their country

from foreign occupation, returned to Somaliland in 1991, they began to rebuild their country from the ashes left by the war. Since that time, in the last 32 years, Somaliland has been building hospitals. Somalilanders have been building health facilities. And to give you an example, when I returned to Somaliland in 1997, we had about 20 to 28 trained midwives and nurses in Somaliland. Amazing, considering you were the first. In 1960, I was the first.

In 1959, I was the first. 1959. I was trained in England. Yes, you were trained in England. And you studied to be a nurse in the 50s. What was it like? It was great. It taught me what I am teaching today.

It taught me what I was practicing today. I owe a lot to the Hammersmith Hospital, to Lewisham Hospitals, to King's College Hospital, to the West London Hospital on Hammersmith Broadway. I owe a lot to the training that I had in Britain. And it is that training that helped me to return to my country in 1961 and start training at that time. But then

because of the war, everything we did in the early years were destroyed. And since 1997, when I returned with only 18 or 20 or 30 midwives in the entire country, a country, by the way, which is as big as England and Wales combined. Thank you. And with over 4 million people, 20 or 30 midwives were not enough. So this is what I devoted my time to. What I knew and what I had been doing for the World Health Organization and in many other countries was training health professionals.

So this is what I did. And I feel so blessed that today Somaliland has over 1,200 trained nurses and midwives. That's a great turnover. But we should not be sleeping on our laurels, as they say. We need to train more for rural areas, distant regions and areas that have yet not been blessed with having a trained nurse or a trained midwife, let alone a trained doctor. So you trained as a nurse in the 1950s in London, and then you declined a scholarship to become a doctor, and instead you became the very first trained midwife,

and you had to take unpaid work. How hard was it being the first as a woman? Explain to us what that experience was like. Challenging. Well, it seems that you've read my book, A Woman of Firsts. It was challenging because we only had one doctor as well. The first medical doctor

who was trained in Dundee was also in the hospital. So in a hospital of 400 beds to have one trained nurse and one trained midwife was quite challenging. But then we were able to generate confidence in our people because we spoke

the language we were from there we are the people who um who's they knew our parents they knew us and it was a great challenge to be helping our own people the best way we could with the resources that we had at the time and which were far more scarce and limited than the environment we had been trained in in Britain. It must have been so difficult, one doctor, one midwife, having to help women give birth. I mean, just where did you find resources within yourself when you couldn't help or there wasn't the medication or the resources to be able to provide what you needed? You do what you can with what you have.

And whatever energy you have, you devote to doing, to saving a life. And it's a choice that we took. It was a blessing. It was challenging. I learned a lot. Oh, my goodness, I learned so much. I was doing procedures and things that I was not trained for to do as a nurse, but there was nobody else to do it.

So it was either me doing it to the best of my ability and having seen it being done by others or allowing somebody to die and to be ignored or to be unaided. It was not easy, but we did it. And somehow we survived it. We trained others. And then as more people, as more doctors were recruited by the Ministry of Health at that time,

then we began to fill the gap with more trained people than we had at the beginning. You're also a very passionate anti-female genital mutilation campaigner. One girl mutilated is one girl too many. The practice, of course, is something that happens in about 16 or 18 countries in Africa, in the African equatorial belt. There's a few countries that practice FGM in Asia,

in Yemen and other countries. Female genital mutilation, or what is sometimes referred to as female circumcision, is something that is denounced by medicine, that is denounced by our religion, Islam. It's an old traditional practice. It's an old custom that many countries have abandoned and no longer perform. So when we got to know that this was not a religious requirement, but a traditional practice that was denounced by our religion, that is not practiced in countries,

Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia, where we go and perform our pilgrimages. And it was right, it was our duty to start convincing our people to stop practicing it. And how easy is it to convince them? You explain by using the medical complications. The complications of female genital mutilation are many. It goes against human rights, it's child abuse and so on.

But you concentrate on the medical complications. Everybody understands bleeding, infections. Everybody understands pain that you don't have to undergo, which is imposed on you. Everybody understands the safety of our daughters. And then everybody understands or should understand or needs to be informed

by the complications that femur gentrification leaves with this eight-year-old daughter. Yes. Who in a few years' time would be required to have babies. I have to ask you, because at 85, you are vibrant, you are energised, you're passionate. What keeps you going? My love for my people, my love for what I'm doing, my love for my profession. That's what keeps me going. And I say I need to go on for as long as I can. And I'm so inspired by the people we have trained, the today. Thank you so much for your company from me and everyone else here at Women's Hour HQ. Don't forget to join Nuala on Monday. She's going to be joined by Baroness Sue Campbell,

Director of Women's Football at the FA, and number two on the Women's Hour Power List. Have a wonderful 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.