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Woman's Hour: Sislin Fay Allen, The situation for women in Afghanistan, Miss, Ms, Mx or Mrs?, Women & Pensions, Women & Munitions

27/08/2021

Sislin Fay Allen, The situation for women in Afghanistan, Miss, Ms, Mx or Mrs?, Women & Pensions, Women & Munitions

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Sislin Fay Allen, The situation for women in Afghanistan, Miss, Ms, Mx or Mrs?, Women & Pensions, Women & Munitions

Sislin Fay Allen - the first UK black female officer, the situation for women in Afghanistan, titles: Miss, Ms, Mx or Mrs?, women and pensions, and women working in munitions.

Two explosions hit Kabul airport yesterday, killing some 90 people and at least 150 people were also wounded in the attack. The UK government has just announced the final stages of the evacuation... which means the processing centre at the airport has been closed and no further people will be called forward.  So what is the situation on the ground for the women and children in Afghanistan? Anita speaks to Mahjooba Nowrouzi, from the BBC Afghan Service. 

Raffaela Baiocchi is an Italian obstetrician and gynaecologist based in the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan. She works for Emergency an Italian NGO and is responsible for emergency reproductive health, co-managing the maternity part of the Panshir hospital. Her staff are continuing to come to work going through now Taleban-controlled check points from other provinces, but less than half of the female patients, who would normally attend, are coming into the hospital in the last week.

Do you like being called a Miss, Ms, Mx or Mrs or none of them at all? Why do some organisations still ask us for a title when filling out a form? Anita talks to Stella Sutcliffe, the Founder of the ‘Go Title Free’ Campaign, and Dr Amy Erickson a Reader in Feminist History at the University of Cambridge.
  
We’ve received a large number of emails from a group of women born in the 1950s known as Waspis (Women Against State Pension Inequality). Many were given very little notice that they wouldn’t be receiving their expected pension at 60 years old - with delays of up to six years. Last month, The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman found the Department for Work and Pensions ‘guilty of maladministration’ in the way they dealt with communicating the change in State Pension Age.   Anita discusses with listener Jane Cowley and Daniela Silcock, Head of Policy Research at the Pensions Policy Institute.
 
Catherine wrote to us and said: "Please would you consider doing a piece about Sislin Fay Allen, the first UK black female officer, in 1968.  She died in Jamaica in last month. Commander Alison Heydari is the most senior Black woman police officer in England and Wales, talks about being inspired by Sislin and about her own experience. 

Listener Lavinia wrote to us to say: It puzzles me that no mention is ever made of women who worked in munitions during the war. Her mother had worked at the munitions factory in Woolwich, but it was never spoken about. She joins Anita along with Vikki Hawkins, Curator, Second World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum.

Presented by Anita Rani
Producer: Louise Corley
Editor: Karen Dalziel

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