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the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hours straight after this programme. hello and welcome to witness history. i'm farhana haider in manchester with more remarkable moments from the past as told by people who were there. in this episode, we look back at five campaigns and protest movements led by women. coming up, we'll hear about the fight for the equal right to pray for women at the western mall injerusalem. the argentine pioneer unearthing war crimes, the protest that was the biggest women—led movement in the uk since the suffragettes, and a watershed moment for canada's indigenous people. but we start in london, and a story about the strikers in saris,

a group of south asian women employed in a film processing factory. because of the poor working conditions, they decided to take a stand for workers�* rights and capture the imagination of many other trade unionists. her 220th day on the picket line was marked by a presentation. presentation on behalf of the workers union! thank you very much. translation: she was a very strong woman. l she had made up her mind to bring the union into the factory. because our women were treated badly. we believed that if women

have so many rights in this country, then why can't we have them? she relied upon the new influx of asians from east africa to supply the workforce. commonly thought passive and hard working, the tables were about to turn. translation: in the factory, there was a big _ glass room where the manager used to sit. he would observe us all from that room. he would keep an eye on us. if you were going to the toilet and it took too long, then he would ask why, "what were you up to?" the unlikely leader would challenge the stereotype of the submissive asian woman. translation: i was on

the picket line from - the first day, ladies came out. how long would you stay here? when we will finish this. a year, five years? ten years. unions from a across england supported us. archive: there - were two such piles. over 70 sacks in all. they had been building up since the local- ranch of the postal union voted overwhelmingly to join the - boycott. all chanting. translation: all the | unions were there with big banners. there were a lot of policeman. you could see them

all over the street. and in the middle of them was... archive: two years after he had begun, the strike | was called off. they were not upset with the defeat at all. we felt that asian women in england had fought for two years for the union. and we were proud of that fact. we have achieved. the treatment with the staff has already changed.

it's great. the wages was increased after that. translation: i'm so proud of myself that we _ fought for our rights. laxmi patel remembering the grunwick strike which inspired widespread trade union support. our next story is about mercedes, a forensic anthropologist from argentina who found a team dedicated to searching for the remains of missing victims of war, atrocities and state violence. in their search for the truth, her teams have exhumed remains in more than 30 countries, among them el salvador, a scene of a brutal civil war in the 1980s. we end up assuming the remains of close to 140 kids that

were all in this very small one—room house. we were exhuming all these little dresses and whatever they had in their pockets. those kind of details are actually the ones that kind of devastate you. they're very, very hard, yeah. i started doing this forensic work since 1984 when democracy returned to argentina after quite brutal military government. i was a student, most of us were, just very close to graduating. it wasn't something that we were thinking oh, let's form an organisation that will do this globally or anything like that. it was more like, if you want to be consistent with what we think and what we believe, we thought we couldn't say no.

in december 1981, the army entered into an area, as well as another 500 troops nearby. children, women and men, executed them, burn their houses and everything. removing any possibility of civilian support or guerillas. at the time, you could still see human bones in different parts of the houses. translation: these red flags indicate where we found - all the spent cartridges. this wall here is where the victims were probably lined up before bein- executed. we were just amazed by what we

were finding. we had never worked on a case of that scale at that time. i see the work that we do in different parts of the world as part of a reparation process. where something horrible had happened, we could not fix what happened, but we could provide some solace by providing information, sometimes returning back the remains of missing people to their loved ones, which we have learned how important it is. these are crimes that often start as political crimes, in part of the political situation, so you learn to wait and push as much as you can so that the evidence can be heard and have it day in court. but it required a lot of patients,

and often, we felt a very strong feeling of frustration. i was in a very small courtroom close to where the massacre happened, and we were testifying something that we thought was never going to happen. we were all kind of like, ok, now this is what we're supposed to have done 30 years ago. this process never ends, so we never feel complete. never complete closure. 0r rarely. the forensic anthropologist. next we go back to the 1980s,

when a group ofjewish feminists started campaigning for the right to pray as openly asjewish men at one ofjudaism's holy sites. we spoke to annette hoffman, one of the founders of the so—called women of the war. all singing. i've been the chauffeur more times and i'd like to think of. taking women of the world to the emergency room. of course, and eggs, water, etc. all shouting. when israel took over

eastjerusalem, they built a partition between men and women at the wall. the partition is not equal. men are encouraged to explore alljewish expression. what some people allow themselves to say about us was quite shocking. bury them alive, we have been called nazis by otherjewish people.

when we went to court, it would be 1a years later when we will receive a verdict. the court felt that our issue was so complex that it rocks thejewish world as we know it. cheering we won three out of our four strategic goals. women can wear a prayer shoal now at the wall. i won't say it's a pleasure, but you can do it. i am waiting for the day where young

girls reading the torah, wearing her prayer shoal, praying out loud and saying, "hey old lady, it's always been this way." one of the founding members of the women of the war. remember, you can watch witness history every month or catch up on all our films along with more than 1000 radio programmes in our online archive. just search for bbc witness history. our next story takes us to the 1980s and an anti—nuclear protest outside an american airbase in rural england that lasted 19 years. and organised a march from cardiff to the airbase where missiles were being kept. a small group set up camp outside the base and as women from all over europe during the protest, it grew into thousands. the first american cruise missiles are now in britain.

it was only this morning in berkshire that a united states star lifter landed with its cargo of missiles. also represents the voice of rebellious women. a sisterhood of descent. an attic— a sisterhood of descent. an attic was_ a sisterhood of descent. an attic was one of the women who started — attic was one of the women who started the whole thing. we decided to stay, asking for a public debate between everybody in this country about the increased missiles. decisions were all taken by men, just seems right that it should be women. at that point in 1981, we had two children. we moved here because we wanted to run a small holding, grow vegetables. the possibility that the cold war would escalate into a nuclear war began to seem more and more likely. the government was sending out leaflets called

protect and survive and issued a filmed about what we should do. a cupboard under the stairs. that is the place for a refuge. put boxes of both or sand on the stairs _ start collecting them now. we were making a make in under the stairs with a few tins of food. you thought, what? are they insane? so many protests have taken the form of walking. think of india. the marches in selma in america for martin luther king. it is a form of protest. i have visions of women walking on the road. i did manage to get a little mention of the march and conventional women's magazines like cosmopolitan, and there were women who had seen thee and jumped at it

and thought this is for them. most of them, women who had never done anything like this before. we walked from cardiff. the press were not interested. trying to get on the front pages was... well, i was told to get lost i don't know how many times. we had to do something more dramatic, and we decided to chain ourselves up to the gates. we had to stay night, another night, two weeks. the support did come in. thousands of women surround the airbase in a peaceable protest in britain. it was the biggest women's demonstration ever. it was a brilliant title. embrace the base, embrace the base! laughter we decorated the fence as well. i remember seeing a woman had hung her wedding dress on the fence.

i suppose relations with the police had begun quite a quality as base but they got quite violent. at one time a group of women struggled with soldiers before being arrested. the protest forced mrs thatcher faster to abandon her plan. the fact that it was a movement of women that made some leaders, it did change things. i'm very proud of what i did, really. anne, and the formidable women. for ourfinalfilm, we go

to canada and the 1990s, where indigenous canadians adapted to plans to develop a golf course on the site of a burial ground in quebec. the dispute led to a summer—long siege between demonstrators and canadian security forces. witness history spoke to activist ellen gabrielle. to see the tanks coming in, we even had the fighterjets fly over us. the mood was very tense. this is all for a golf course, this is all for some group of rich people, the elite and their playground. like many other indigenous peoples, we call the earth our mother, the place where our ancestors rest. it's extremely important. they wanted to extend their nine hole golf course into an 18 hole golf course, but at the same time, they also wanted to dig up our burial ground

to extend their parking lot. we set up a blockade on a secondary dirt road. at that time, the majority of people who were at the barricades were women. 0ur clans come from our mothers, and we are the ones who were supposed to protect the land, and the duty of the men to protect the people. the women said they would go to the front when the police arrived. the men said they would watch and protect us if anything happened. so, on the morning ofjuly11, we were interrupted at 5:15am by a swat team, so we went towards the front of the barricade and towards the highway with our hands in the air to make sure they saw we had no weapons, but they still met us with a lot of aggression and force. what i said to them was this is our land and we have every right to be here.

they weren't too happy with that. that's why they wanted to talk to a man because the women were being very unreasonable to them. people originally said there'd be no weapons, but there were individuals who carry their weapons. we couldn't do anything about it. it was a peaceful barricade. around 8:30 a:m., they started firing tear gas and grenades. concussion grenades for those who don't know, sound like gunshots. they're quite a loud noise. i had to tell some of the people i was with to run. run for cover. it was scary because we didn't know if anyone was killed. on both sides. the police force continued to block the roads. people coming in or out, they prevented food, medicine, they were quite aggressive. and always provoking. it was a siege of 78 days.

we did decide to end it, we had had enough and said we were going back to our homes. september 26 is when it was supposedly finished. a big melee happened. some of the soldiers had their bayonets on because they were afraid of the people who were coming out. there were a lot of arrests on that day. there were still not surrendering because the land was still in full force. dispute was still in full force. it hasn't been settled. the golf course sparked a discussion, but the real issues that people have been fighting for centuries. which is protection of our languages and culture. land dispossession. 0ur way of life. so, it woke up people, i would say. that's all for this edition of witness history.

here at the people's history museum. we will be back as amazing moments in history but for now, for me and the rest of the team, goodbye. hello there. on wednesday, we saw the thicker cloud moving further north across the uk, bringing with it some rain and some drizzle. there was still some sunshine across northern parts of scotland — over eight hours of sunshine, actually, in shetland. but thursday starting cloudy pretty much everywhere, quite misty and murky. as a result of the cloud, though, it's frost—free this time. but we do have a band of rain that's been pushing its way in from the west. that should be clearing away

from northern ireland. it'll cheer up here with some sunshine and a scattering of showers, but you can see how slowly that rain moves into scotland, into northwest of england, across wales, eventually into the west midlands and into the west country, allowing some late sunshine in the far southwest of england and wales. and ahead of that ragged band of rain, eastern parts of england should have a drier, brighter day on thursday, maybe some sunshine in the southeast of england, lifting temperatures to a milder 12 degrees. the weather front is bringing this rain in from the west. it's moving so slowly eastwards that, eventually, it'll grind to a halt and then start to move back toward the west. by the time we get to friday, most of that rain and drizzle will be affecting the eastern side of scotland, northeast england, through parts of yorkshire, into the midlands and perhaps into the southeast of england, meaning some sunshine is still possible in east anglia. 0ut towards the west, this is where we should see some brighter skies, some spells of sunshine. still a scattering of light showers for wales, northern ireland and the southwest. underneath that cloud, low cloud and rain and drizzle, it'll feel quite cold. into the weekend, we should see more sunshine developing more widely as the weekend progresses,

but it will still be quite chilly. a frosty start for scotland and northern ireland. sunshine here on saturday. that weather front is still bringing this cloud and patchy light rain and drizzle for england and wales. starts to move back to the west, so we should get some sunshine through lincolnshire, east anglia and the southeast of england during the afternoon. temperatures around 10 degrees at best, but only 6 or so in the northeast of england. we got higher pressure bringing the sunshine for scotland and northern ireland, and that's going to build across that weather front. it'll continue to weaken it. it'll continue to dry it out as well. and we should see some brighter skies. again, a frosty start, though, for scotland and northern ireland, some sunshine here. always a bit more cloud, i think, for england and wales, but it will be lifting a bit. skies should be brighter. we should see some sunshine and it's likely to be dry across england and wales on sunday, but still not particularly warm temperatures, typically around 8 or 9 celsius.

it grew into thousands. welcome to bbc news, our top stories: as missiles continue to bombard ukraine, the mayor of kherson confirms the strategically important port city is the first want to fall under russian control. 0fficials under russian control. officials say more than 2000 civilians have now died since russia's invasion began. attacks cumberland and new south wales crane's president visma scale —— ukraine's president says moscow is acting beyond humanity. translation: they have in order to erase our history, _

to erase our country, to erase us all.