This book encapsulates the working life of Sue Lloyd-Roberts, a video journalist for 30 years. Sadly, she died before she could complete this book and her children have worked from her notes to complete it.
In the Introduction, Sue tells us she is known as the ‘Hopeless Case Correspondent’ among her friends at the BBC as she has often reported on human rights abuses, injustice and suffering from all corners of the world. Included in the book are stories from Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Russia, Ireland and the UK, reminding us that human rights abuses and injustice are as much a part of the first world as the third world.
Each narrative begins with a personal account and details of the people or the issue being covered. The first chapter is on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the Gambia and describes the harrowing details of a mother holding down her daughter while the girl is cut by her own grandmother. Tradition demands that the girl’s mother take over the role when the grandmother is too old or dies but this woman feels so strongly that the practise is wrong that when she goes to England for her brother’s wedding, she does not return to her family. She knows that if she refuses to take up her designated role she will be killed by her family and the other villagers. The woman concerned is still in the UK but her asylum claim has not been accepted and she has to rely on charity to survive.
Lloyd-Roberts details the misinterpretations of religious texts, the misconceptions about women’s sexuality if not ‘cut’ and shows how these are promulgated by men and used to control women. Just as in Ireland where young women who were pregnant or ‘uncontrollable’ were forcibly placed in the Magdalene laundries. Even those who had done nothing wrong but were ‘too pretty for their own good’ were sent to the laundries. This ‘War on Women’ was perpetrated by women but they too were under the patriarchal control of the Roman Catholic church. The plight of these women over so many years was brilliantly portrayed by Judi Dench in the film Philomena. Philomena Lee searched for her son for fifty years and was repeatedly told by the nuns they had no information on him, only to find that they knew all the time and he had died the year before she tracked him down to USA.
The book is a disturbing catalogue of the human suffering, injustice and abuse which Sue Lloyd-Roberts reported on during her career but it is also full of hope. Journalists like Sue are important in exposing the War on Women but even more vital is telling the world about the ‘Brave Ones Who Fight Back’. In this way, the stories in the book demonstrate that no situation is totally hopeless and there is always something to be done to support, protect and fight against the War on Women.
Reviewed by: Jan Kershaw
Rating out of 10: 8
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: August 2016
RRP: $39.99 hardcover, $32.99 paperback, $12.99 eBook