you would always call a forced marriage. yeah. and in her 20s, deeply unhappy, she took her own life. she did. voice-over: this is bbc news. if you remember, i was still disowned by my family then, we'll have the headlines so my family never for you at the top of the hour, spoke to me again. which is straight and my sister was very unhappy after this programme. in her marriage and went for help to members of the community, religious leaders also, and family members, and they sent her back and told her it was her duty welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. to make the marriage work. how does a society protect she tragically set herself those most vulnerable, on fire and she died, particularly children, and i felt that somewhere, from exploitation and abuse? because of that experience, having the right laws my mother would say, in place is of course vital, "come back," you know. but so is having institutions and professions that "we forgive you." are open and accountable. how easy is that to deliver? not that i needed forgiving. you know, i was asserting myself, in terms of not wanting to marry a stranger. well, my guest is jasvinder sanghera, whose escape but she actually made the point, "this doesn't change from a forced marriage led "anything." to her becoming an advocate for abuse survivors. you know, "you cannot come the church of england back, even though robina died hired her to help confront "in this way. abuses, but she and "you mustn't show your face at the funeral," etc,

they are now at odds. which is why i set up the charity karma nirvana, what went wrong? so i could speak out. and what are the lessons? and interesting that you do hold your mother, of all family members, primarily responsible for inculcating this particular sort of atmosphere and practice and behaviour in your family. you say, "i'm ashamed to say that women do uphold these "so—called honour systems. "they are the gatekeepers of abuse." do you think the work you've done in karma nirvana, this ngo that you established afterwards, has made any difference to the mindset of people, including women like your late mother? jasvinder sanghera, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. you are an abuse survivor i think it has. and we'll talk about that. i think it's made an influence you're also a lifelong advocate in terms of sending out that strong message. for survivors of abuse i mean, i campaigned for the criminalisation and you were hired by of forced marriage. the church of england to be that, i'm hearing, part of their independent from the younger generation safeguarding board, today, is acting as a but you've been fired. deterrent, as almost a tool to negotiate with family members... to be clear, you achieved that. does all of that suggest yeah. to you that key institutions i mean, that legislation was passed. absolutely. might talk the talk about and younger people are protecting the vulnerable, telling me now that,

"we're able to say to our but maybe they're not parents, �*you can't do �*this to us. �*it�*s against the law. "'you'll go to prison�*." so good on delivery? so... but i have to say, change absolutely, i would is really slow in that agree with that point. community, where this is happening. and specifically, my role where the change is happening was survivor advocate, is the increase in reporting. so my role was specifically karma nirvana, i left in 2018, to be a voice for victims and survivors who had has a national helpline now. experienced spiritual abuse we have civil, criminal law. by the hands of members recently, the age of consent of the clergy across the board for marriage for children and to ensure that their views in england and wales has been were not only heard, increased from 16 to 18. but embedded across yeah, you can't marry under 18. policy and practice. no. so, from my perspective, i did thatjob. so, we've changed things significantly, in terms i sat with victims and of leaving that lasting change... survivors, i listened i should say that's in england to the harrowing stories and wales, it's not in scotland and northern ireland. not in scotland, no, no. of abuse but, equally, but the point is, in 1993, those they went to who often nobody was talking about this. looked the other way. you know, today, the reporting and i shared those is in its thousands, experiences with the highest hundreds of thousands, across the uk. of the highest, so the and yet, we can still think archbishop's council members, and look at terrible cases, made up of the most senior like that quite recently of bishops, various people on there, and explained to them somaiya begum, who was a young that victims and survivors woman who was murdered — are tired of apologies. brutally murdered —

by her uncle cos she had they need to be heard. reported her father's threats they want change and change of violence after she refused is very slow for them. to accept an arranged marriage. and today, as i sit here, as somebody who was removed she was supposedly being from that role and accused protected by a forced marriage protection order, which was of being too survivor—focused part of the legislation that by a very senior member of you'd worked so hard to get. absolutely. the national safeguarding team, and yet, still, her own family i feel aggrieved for victims and survivors, in all honesty, — her uncle, in this case — murdered her. stephen. well, i'm going to stop just suggests to me that you there because before we get all of the work that you've into the detail of your done, it's taken you some way, relationship with the church of but there's still an awful long england... and i should just say, way to go. you could not change... as you've made one specific if my mother was still alive allegation, they have specifically said that they did today, you could not not accuse you of being change her views. too survivor—focused, really? so we will revisit that... absolutely. and my family still ok, that's fine. don't talk to me. ..and much more detail. i read on facebook two years but before we get there, ago that my brother died. i think, for people you know, they still to understand the passion refuse to acknowledge me. you bring to this wider subject, we do need to revisit i'm talking about sisters who were born in this country a little bit of your own story, your own past. and raised in this country, who still see me as an individual you were born into a pretty who shamed the family. traditional sikh family. it's going to take a really

parents migrated from india concerted effort of awareness, to the uk, to the midlands, people in schools, teachers in england. need to be talking about this, they wanted to arrange because they're the most affected group — children and young people. your marriage. indeed, i think, from the age of eight, they were talking so, yes, we've created laws, but to shift a culture about who you would marry. you, as a teenager, and a mindset, we've got to continue speaking out rejected that, didn't you? and accepting this is not part idid. of somebody�*s culture. i was promised to somebody and on this question by the age of eight and i'd of implementation, watched my sisters being taken you and others, including trevor phillips, the former out of british schools to marry chair of the equalities men in photographs. and human rights commission, when it was my turn, it was in order of age, have talked about what they see i said no. i was born in britain, as a problem, from policing to politicians, with public i want to go to school, officials who worry that dare i say, college if they are too interventionist or university? in some of these cases, they will be labelled racist. and i say that because growing up within that household, we were not allowed to have thoughts of independence absolutely. orfreedom. if people see culture before they see abuse, so, i became the... we've got a problem. ..the perpetrator, actually, i saw that in my role the person who was not at karma nirvana. following the norm, i recall a police officer the status quo. calling the helpline and i used and as a result of that, i was taken out of school to have "beggar belief" box and kept a prisoner at home on my emails, and this police till i agreed to the marriage. officer rang the helpline i've already used the word "abuse", but it's not something and he said, "i'm ringing that's always easy to define. "you because you deal

with the cultural stuff, what you've just told me "don't you, about the way your family, as an organisation?" and the call handler listened your parents, brought you up, the assumptions they made, to this call and he said, the behaviours they practised "i've got a man with me, who is from an afghanistan upon you, do you categorically regard that as abuse? "background here in britain, who is in a full—blown absolutely. "relationship with a 14—year—old girl and he's i was a child and the role "telling me it's part of his culture and his religion, of parenting is to protect your "so i don't want to offend him. child, to protect them "could you just tell me physically, emotionally, if that is acceptable? from harm. so, the call handler and from my experience, stopped and she said, i was being conditioned to believe that it was part "look, can we just remove culture, tradition, religion, of my tradition, my religion "whatever it is you're thinking it could be and look and my culture to marry this "at the possible raft of offences here?" stranger in a photograph look at the law. and that growing up in britain absolutely. now, you obviously have a very does not mean you have rights, independence or freedom. high profile for the work that we've just discussed. the church of england, my mother would say to me, going back many years now, "the only reason i'm sending "you to school is has realised that it because it's the law". has an issue with abuse so, from my perspective, they were in a position within and how best to deal with it, to credibly say of power, as parents, and that to the world that we are aware position was being abused. of our own problems you ran away. and we're tackling them. i think you were actually 16 when... we're going to be open, i was. we're going to be accountable. ..you ran away. in 2015, current archbishop justin welby said this... and that, in essence, broke relations with your family, he said, "whether the particularly your mother, forever. perpetrators are alive or dead,

mmm. "survivors of abuse within the church must come first. is there any time in your life "the church has when you've looked back to get this right. and thought, "i could have "there are no excuses handled it differently"? absolutely not, because from for getting it wrong." and as a result, perhaps, the age of 16 and leaving, of that feeling, in 2021, for the next 16 to 20 years old, i begged you were asked to join this for their forgiveness, independent safeguarding board. did you, at the time, as if i had done feel absolutely convinced something wrong. it took my sister's suicide that the church was serious to realise that, actually, about truly coming to terms, i was the victim, confronting the abuses within? not the perpetrator. the point is this... just... let me stop you for a second, cos what you've just i think the first thing to say said is shocking. was i wasn't asked to go i believe she was called robina, your sister. she was, yeah. into that role of survivor advocate, i applied for the role. i left karma nirvana after 25 years and i thought, "now, what do i want to do? "i want to put myself somewhere to make a difference." so, i watched the iicsa inquiry, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and i watched for a whole year the testimonies of men and women who'd been abused by members of the church. and i could see the journey

the church was on and i wanted to make a difference, so i applied for the role. and i felt they were serious about this because, you know, it wasn't an iicsa recommendation to have an independent safeguarding board. they took it upon themselves to say, "we're going to develop "more independence, it is needed within the church." so i did feel they were serious, absolutely. mmm. you now claim, "at every turn, we..." that is the safeguarding panel/board, and there are two key figures on it, yourself and steve reeves. you seem to have cooperated quite a lot. "at every turn, we've been told, �*you can't do that,�* "even though we're supposedly independent." you seem to be saying that having set this board up, they had no intention of letting you and the board members do the real work. i'm notjust saying it, i can give the evidence of that. i mean, i'd been on the board since september 2021, right up tojune 2023. so, i had the experience of being part of a board that was developed in

the church of england to ensure independent oversight of safeguarding, to ensure that we also had an oversight of the national safeguarding team, that the church of england has to deal with safeguarding. and what was happening to us was that at every point we tried to make decisions, to be that very independent body, our hands were being tied. let me give you an example. so, one of our roles is to receive complaints from victims and survivors into reviews of their cases. what we need to do that is collect information from the national safeguarding team or across the church of england, so we established an independent service level agreement between the independent safeguarding board and the church of england and we signed that but they didn't sign it. so, we couldn't access any information. an independent body, surely, should have no no—go areas but we were finding

ourselves in that position. yeah, i mean, we've spoken to the church of england and they've given us a response. yeah. they reject many of the accusations that you make, specifically about things like you claiming that you were told by officials that you were too survivor—focused. they say that is a complete misrepresentation of what you were told. they also say that you and steve reeves behaved in a way which made the functioning of the board pretty much impossible. and to add to that, meg munn, who was the interim chairman appointed to this board of three, she says — of you and steve reeves — "although they initially "welcomed my appointment, the two existing board members" — that is, you and reeves — "routinely ignored emails, "failed to respond to reasonable requests, "declined to have meetings. "i was staggered at this unprofessional behaviour, "particularly when it concerned such important issues."

0k. so, the first thing to say is that we're an independent body. after the first chair resigned — because of serious data breaches, she resigned — the second chair should have been somebody appointed in the same way we were appointed, openly recruited, and she wasn't. she was imposed upon us. this is nothing against meg munn, by the way. so, the point here is the archbishops' council make a decision for the independent body to appoint a chair who, within 48 hours, 7a victims and survivors contact us to say, "do not, under any circumstances, share data "with this person because she's part of the church." she sits on the national safeguarding steering group, which we scrutinise, so we've got a problem. well, i need to say, because the legal issues here are complex but they're

quite important, that the first chair of your board, maggie atkinson, absolutely rejects the characterisation you've just given as to why she left and she's described your views of why she left as "partial, biased and deeply prejudiced against her," so we need to put that on the record. 0k. surely, what really matters here is you, for good or ill, have now left the board, the board has been dissolved, and the real impact here is on survivors of alleged abuse inside the church of england. i believe there were at least a dozen active cases that you were working on when the board was dissolved. yeah. what are you saying to — you're still in touch with them, i imagine. well... what are you saying to them now? well, onjune the 21st, we were given an hour's notice to tell us that they're disbanding the board.

my colleague steve reeves contacted the general secretary to say, "please give us more time to prepare the survivors, "those cases we are dealing with". you have to remember, these were people who came to the independent safeguarding board with their experiences. they had to go through a process to be accepted for a case review. some of them were complaints. we were not afforded that time. and as a result of that, these victims and survivors have been left in limbo. yes, they are still contacting myself and steve. i have brought that to the attention of the archbishops' council... what's their mental state like? they are — their mental state is horrendous. i've listened to one survivor describe to me her suicide plan. i've had a survivor telling me they've taken two overdoses since. i've shared all this with the church of england and what i don't understand is why they will not just sit down and talk with us in terms of developing a plan for these individuals. i can't ignore them and i am not going to ignore them...

crosstalk. well, the church says it's not ignoring them, either. it points to the fact it has now appointed a new sort of independent supervisor of the whole safeguarding scene, that is — i think we've referred to her already — professor alexis jay, who ran that independent inquiry on child sex abuse that you referred to. they also point to several other initiatives they've taken, including putting more than — well, over £100 million into programmes to help the victims of historic abuse. so, they say, "look, victims, be aware. "we've had a problem with the board but "we are moving on" — to quote archbishop welby — "we're resetting," and clearly, the message from the church is, "victims, "you can have faith in our commitment." unless victims and survivors own and believe that and see the evidence of that... crosstalk. but are you telling them they shouldn't believe it? i'm not telling them anything. i'm at the end of the line, as is steve reeves, when they contact us to say, "what is happening?

"we don't know what is happening. "we've been told options are being developed "but nobody�*s talking to us." so, we're still the data controllers. when we left, we were told, "you're only to deal "with the data, nothing else." so, that is something we're trying to manage. and incidentally, stephen, in november last year, in 2022, myself and steve travelled to york to sit with both senior bishops and i remember the email, sending the email at 3am in the morning as well, before that meeting, to say, "we are at a crossroads. "the crossroads is this. "we are doing what you told us to do. "we are following the terms of reference which you approved, "that is on the website, publicly on the independent "safeguarding board website, but every turn we go to, "our independence is being thwarted. "you're not allowing us to be independent." so, we presented them with what looks like an independent model and we were told that, "we will seriously consider "this."

and the reason i'm saying that is because taking out a dispute notice against the church of england was a very difficult decision for me and steve. yeah, because, i mean, this is a tragedy for the church and it's a tragedy for the individuals who have experienced terrible abuse at the hands... absolutely. ..of people within the church. absolutely. surely, you know, you, as a survivor, more than anybody, should be sort of thinking to yourself, "what is the best way that we can move forward "in the interests of those survivors?" are you sure you're handling this in the best interests of those survivors? absolutely. as soon as we were told we were no longer needed and we were only to handle the data — and we had a huge response and we still do have this response from the 12 — we have emailed the most senior people to say, "please work with us to find a way forward". i have to say...

crosstalk. maybe you're being a bit negative, really, about where the church is today, cos as you know, i interviewed an influential bishop in the church, rose hudson—wilkin, just the other day, and she said, "the truth "is that the church is appalled at what went on in the past, "the church has changed," and to quote her memorable phrase, "if you sneeze now in the church, and it looks "like a safeguarding problem, you are out". that's her confident assertion. but that is not the assertion of victims and survivors, i can tell you that for sure. and i can also say that, actually, what the church needs to do is look quite openly at what happened with the independent safeguarding board. we're almost out of time but i need to ask you this last question, then. if you are still so appalled and so lacking in trust in the most senior church leadership, can you still call yourself a practising, believing church of england christian? well, my faith is personal to me. these people are...

crosstalk. has this rocked your faith? it has — well, it has rocked my faith slightly, but i've met victims and survivors who are no longer part of the faith because of it. but for me, the church needs to be more compassionate and needs to be very honest about what has happened here. bring on a review of the independent safeguarding board. i respect professorjay but that's a longer—term plan. there are things right now that need to be addressed and people who are being harmed because of decisions that they have made that need to be tackled immediately. we have to end there but jasvinder sanghera, thank you so much for being on hardtalk. thank you. thank you very much indeed.

hello there. overall not too bad. for the south, the warm weather will be there. ridiculous central and south—eastern england and by friday, it will cool off further south as well. let's concentrate on the short term. early morning on tuesday, a lot of clear weather across much of england and wales. shower was in the lake district and across scotland and northern ireland. about 15 degrees, a milestone. the weather tuesday, close to high pressure in the south of the country. we clarify pressure and closer to the low pressure and closer to the low pressure the north. debris cloud for scotland and northern ireland. showers sneaking into

parts of the pennines into northern parts of wales. broadly speaking, the northern two—thirds of the country that may catch one or two showers. but mostly a dry day. that was tuesday. this is wednesday now. expecting some showers across the north—west of the country. elsewhere, i think it is a predominantly try and bright day. on thursday, an air of low pressure is centred around the north of scotland, that does mean every cloud and the weather front extends a little bit further south. on thursday, a chance of catching a little bit of rain across the south of the country but more frequent showers in the north and north—west of scotland and

cooler as a result. the air coming from the north. quite a one week for most of us in the parts of the uk. on friday, with that week our blood pressure drifting east, notice how the wind is coming in from the north, the cooler air is sliding down and squeezing out the wife that is contracting to the wife that is contracting to the south. by friday with the northerly wind, it is good to feel a bit fresher across the south of the country. 21 about the average for this time of year. that was friday. looking at the weekend, not looking too bad at all. not going to be desperately warm but weather is looking generally dry and bright for most of us. perhaps showers in the north of scotland on the

whole, sunny spells for the bulk of the country. two bridges between 18 and 20 celsius. pleasant enough. saturday, sunday and the rest of the weekend, week whether systems brushing the north of the country. quite close to the high pressure in the south but into the next week, i do think that low pressure is going to win and overall we are expecting a fair amount of cloud to sweep across the uk. into next week, temperatures in the south closer to the seasonal norms. about 20 or so and increasing amounts of cloud and increasing amounts of cloud and increasing amount of rain. i buy.

live from london, this is bbc news. president biden tours the wildfire damage in hawaii, amid criticism of his handling of the crisis. thailand's divisive ex—prime minister has arrived back in the country after 15 years in exile. and nine republicans will take the stage for wednesday's presidential debate. one will not. we look at how how donald trump's absence will impact the proceedings. and a new study is suggesting a more reliable way

of screening men for prostate cancer. we'll find out more. hello. a very warm welcome to the programme. iam a very warm welcome to the programme. i am sally bundock.