Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Woman's Hour

Magazines & Reviews

Podcasts

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

BBC Radio 4 FM

Woman's Hour: Mothers in China; Girls' football in Kenya

Factual

Mothers in China; Girls' football in Kenya

01/02/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Mothers in China; Girls' football in Kenya

Chinese journalist Xinran on being a woman and mother in China.

Chinese journalist Xinran on being a woman and mother in China. Plus, former sports journalist Sarah Forde on coaching a girls football team in Kenya.

Have parental leave provisions gone too far? In a new government bill, fathers will have the right to 6 months paternity leave during the second six months of their baby’s life, assuming the mother has gone back to work. Baroness Margaret Prosser Deputy Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Richard Reeves, Director of independent think tank Demos, Tina Knight is Chairwoman of Women in Business debate whether the sharing of parental leave is a nod to political correctness or nightmare for small businesses.

Xinran was born in Beijing and brought up during the Cultural Revolution. She became a journalist and radio presenter, and is well known in China for her radio phone-in programme Words on the Night Breeze, in which she invited women to talk about their lives. She tells the stories of the women who wrote to her to share their pain at having to give up their daughters and her own experience of China’s ‘One Child’ policy.

Sarah Ford, a former sports journalist from Norwich, now spends time improving the lives of girls in Kenya. She is the founder of the charity ‘Moving the Goalposts’ which uses football to develop essential life skills for vulnerable young women from Kalifi. She highlights the challenge that the girls face including the monthly trouble of finding sanitary pads.

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Woman's Hour

Mothers in China; Girls' football in Kenya

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4