And well talk about that. Youre also a lifelong advocate for survivors of abuse and you were hired by the Church Of England to be part of their independent Safeguarding Board, but youve been fired. Does all of that suggest to you that key institutions might talk the talk about protecting the vulnerable, but maybe theyre not so good on delivery . Absolutely, i would agree with that point. And specifically, my role was survivor advocate, so my role was specifically to be a voice for victims and survivors who had experienced spiritual abuse by the hands of members of the clergy across the board and to ensure that their views were not only heard, but embedded across policy and practice. So, from my perspective, i did thatjob. I sat with victims and survivors, i listened to the harrowing stories of abuse but, equally, those they went to who often looked the other way. And i shared those experiences with the highest of the highest, so the Archbishops Council members, made up of the most senior bishops, various people on there, and explained to them that victims and survivors are tired of apologies. They need to be heard. They want change and change is very slow for them. And today, as i sit here, as somebody who was removed from that role and accused of being too survivor focused by a very Senior Member of the National Safeguarding team, i feel aggrieved for victims and survivors, in all honesty, stephen. Well, im going to stop you there because before we get into the detail of your relationship with the Church Of England. And i should just say, as youve made one specific allegation, they have specifically said that they did not accuse you of being too survivor focused, so we will revisit that. Ok, thats fine. And much more detail. But before we get there, i think, for people to understand the passion you bring to this wider subject, we do need to revisit a little bit of your own story, your own past. You were born into a pretty traditional sikh family. Parents migrated from india to the uk, to the midlands, in england. They wanted to arrange your marriage. Indeed, i think, from the age of eight, they were talking about who you would marry. You, as a teenager, rejected that, didnt you . Idid. I was promised to somebody by the age of eight and id watched my sisters being taken out of british schools to marry men in photographs. When it was my turn, it was in order of age, i said no. I was born in britain, i want to go to school, dare i say, college or university . And i say that because growing up within that household, we were not allowed to have thoughts of independence orfreedom. So, i became the. The perpetrator, actually, the person who was not following the norm, the status quo. And as a result of that, i was taken out of school and kept a prisoner at home till i agreed to the marriage. Ive already used the word abuse, but its not something thats always easy to define. What youve just told me about the way your family, your parents, brought you up, the assumptions they made, the behaviours they practised upon you, do you categorically regard that as abuse . Absolutely. I was a child and the role of parenting is to protect your child, to protect them physically, emotionally, from harm. And from my experience, i was being conditioned to believe that it was part of my tradition, my religion and my culture to marry this stranger in a photograph and that growing up in britain does not mean you have rights, independence or freedom. My mother would say to me, the only reason im sending you to school is because its the law. So, from my perspective, they were in a position of power, as parents, and that position was being abused. You ran away. I think you were actually 16 when. I was. You ran away. And that, in essence, broke relations with your family, particularly your mother, forever. Mmm. Is there any time in your life when youve looked back and thought, i could have handled it differently . Absolutely not, because from the age of 16 and leaving, for the next 16 to 20 years old, i begged for their forgiveness, as if i had done something wrong. It took my sisters suicide to realise that, actually, i was the victim, not the perpetrator. The point is this. Just. Let me stop you for a second, cos what youve just said is shocking. I believe she was called robina, your sister. She was, yeah. She, unlike you, agreed to go ahead with what i think you would always call a forced marriage. Yeah. And in her 20s, deeply unhappy, she took her own life. She did. If you remember, i was still disowned by my family then, so my family never spoke to me again. And my sister was very unhappy 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 to make the marriage work. She tragically set herself on fire and she died, and i felt that somewhere, because of that experience, my mother would say, come back, you know. We forgive you. Not that i needed forgiving. You know, i was asserting myself, in terms of not wanting to marry a stranger. But she actually made the point, this doesnt change anything. You know, you cannot come back, even though robina died in this way. You mustnt show your face at the funeral, etc, which is why i set up the Charity Karma nirvana, so i could speak out. 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, im ashamed to say that women do uphold these so called honour systems. They are the gatekeepers of abuse. Do you think the work youve 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 . I think it has. I think its made an influence in terms of sending out that strong message. I mean, i campaigned for the criminalisation of forced marriage. That, im hearing, from the Younger Generation today, is acting as a deterrent, as almost a tool to negotiate with family members. To be clear, you achieved that. Yeah. I mean, that legislation was passed. Absolutely. And younger people are telling me now that, were able to say to our parents, � you cant do this to us. Its against the law. � youll go to prison. so. But i have to say, change is really slow in that community, where this is happening. Where the change is happening is the increase in reporting. Karma nirvana, i left in 2018, has a National Helpline now. We have civil, criminal law. Recently, the Age Of Consent for marriage for children in england and wales has been increased from 16 to 18. Yeah, you cant marry under 18. No. So, weve changed things significantly, in terms of leaving that lasting change. I should say thats in england and wales, its not in scotland and Northern Ireland. Not in scotland, no, no. But the point is, in 1993, nobody was talking about this. You know, today, the reporting is in its thousands, hundreds of thousands, across the uk. And yet, we can still think and look at terrible cases, like that quite recently of somaiya begum, who was a young woman who was murdered brutally murdered by her uncle cos she had reported her fathers threats of violence after she refused to accept an arranged marriage. She was supposedly being protected by a forced marriage protection order, which was part of the legislation that youd worked so hard to get. Absolutely. And yet, still, her own family her uncle, in this case murdered her. Just suggests to me that all of the work that youve done, its taken you some way, but theres still an awful long way to go. You could not change. If my mother was still alive today, you could not change her views. Really . Absolutely. And my family still dont talk to me. I read on facebook two years ago that my brother died. You know, they still refuse to acknowledge me. Im talking about sisters who were born in this country and raised in this country, who still see me as an individual who shamed the family. Its going to take a really concerted effort of awareness, people in schools, teachers need to be talking about this, because theyre the most affected Group Children and young people. So, yes, weve created laws, but to shift a culture and a mindset, weve got to continue speaking out and accepting this is not part of somebody� s culture. And on this question of implementation, you and others, including trevor phillips, the former chair of the equalities and human rights commission, have talked about what they see as a problem, from policing to politicians, with Public Officials who worry that if they are too interventionist in some of these cases, they will be labelled racist. Absolutely. If people see culture before they see abuse, weve got a problem. I saw that in my role at Karma Nirvana. I recall a Police Officer calling the helpline and i used to have Beggar Belief box on my emails, and this Police Officer rang the helpline and he said, im ringing you because you deal with the cultural stuff, dont you, as an organisation . And the call handler listened to this call and he said, ive got a man with me, who is from an afghanistan background here in britain, who is in a full blown relationship with a 14 Year Old Girl and hes telling me its part of his culture and his religion, so i dont want to offend him. Could you just tell me if that is acceptable . So, the call handler stopped and she said, look, can we just remove culture, tradition, religion, whatever it is youre thinking it could be and look at the possible raft of offences here . Look at the law. Absolutely. Now, you obviously have a very high profile for the work that weve just discussed. The Church Of England, going back many years now, has realised that it has an issue with abuse within and how best to deal with it, to credibly say to the world that we are aware of our own problems and were tackling them. Were going to be open, were going to be accountable. In 2015, current archbishop justin welby said this. He said, whether the perpetrators are alive or dead, survivors of abuse within the church must come first. The church has to get this right. There are no excuses for getting it wrong. And as a result, perhaps, of that feeling, in 2021, you were asked to join this independent Safeguarding Board. Did you, at the time, feel absolutely convinced that the church was serious about truly coming to terms, confronting the abuses within . I think the first thing to say was i wasnt asked to go 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 whod 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 wasnt an iicsa recommendation to have An IndependentSafeguarding Board. They took it upon themselves to say, were 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, weve been told, � you cant do that,� even though were 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. Im notjust saying it, i can give the evidence of that. I mean, id 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 didnt sign it. So, we couldnt access any information. An independent body, surely, should have no no go areas, but we were finding ourselves in that position. Yeah, i mean, weve spoken to the Church Of England and theyve 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 were 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 wasnt. 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 shes part of the church. She sits on the National SafeguardingSteering Group which we scrutinise, so weve got a problem. Well, i need to say, because the legal issues here are complex, but theyre quite important, that the first chair of your board, maggie atkinson, absolutely rejects the characterisation youve just given as to why she left, and shes 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. Youre still in touch with them, i imagine. What are you saying to them now . Well, onjune the 21st, we were given an hours notice to tell us that theyre 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. Whats their mental state like . Their mental state is horrendous. Ive listened to one survivor describe to me her suicide plan. Ive had a survivor telling me theyve taken two overdoses since. Ive shared all this with the Church Of England, and what i dont understand is why they will not just sit down and talk with us, in terms of developing a plan for these individuals. I cant ignore them and i am not going to ignore them. Well, the church says its 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 weve 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 theyve 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, weve had a problem with the board, but we are moving on. To quote archbishop welby, were 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. But are you telling them they shouldnt believe it . Im not telling them anything. Im at the end of the line, as is steve reeves, when they contact us to say, what is happening . We dont know what is happening. Weve been told options have been developed, but nobody� s talking to us. So, were still the data controllers. When we left, we were told, youre only to deal with the data, nothing else. So that is something were 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. Youre 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 im 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 its a tragedy for the individuals who have experienced terrible abuse at the hands. Absolutely. Of people within the church. Absolutely. Surely. 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 youre 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. Maybe youre 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. Thats her confident assertion. 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. Were 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. Has this rocked your faith . It has. Well, it has rocked my faith slightly, but ive 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 thats 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, big changes happening weather wise again this week, but at the moment, still feeling very much like autumn. Temperatures below the seasonal average, lots of dry weather, blue sky and sunshine, pretty Autumn Colours over the weekend, and High Pressure still dominates as we head through monday. It will push ever so slowly further eastwards, eventually allowing low Pressure Systems to push in from the south west. Its another chilly start to the day on monday, bit of patchy frost again possible across england and wales in particular. Temperatures a little milder across Northern Ireland and scotland with more in the way of cloud. But that cloud will tend to break up, i think, as the day wears on. So some brightness and sunshine emerging, especially through the afternoon. Maybe a few isolated showers. Well see some showers towards north sea facing coasts. For england and wales, its a sunnier start to the day, but more cloud will build through the afternoon. Temperatures likely to peak again a little below the seasonal average, 11 to 1a degrees celsius. Its still windy across the Northern Isles on monday and it will turn windier towards these Channel Coasts too, as we head towards the end of the day. Why . Well, this area of low pressure pulls in from the south west. Its going to turn pretty unsettled for much of the rest of the week. But on tuesday, again, it is largely dry, quite blustery, with a brisk easterly wind, especially towards the south, therell be outbreaks of rain edging into parts of cornwall, western wales, i think by the time we get to the end of the day. Further north, largely dry, top temperatures peaking between 11 and 15 degrees celsius, starting to draw some milder air in along with these weather fronts. And theyre due to push further northwards and eastwards as we head throughout the night on tuesday and into wednesday. So turning much more unsettled across the border, brisk easterly to south easterly wind blowing. Therell be outbreaks of rain. Some of that rain likely to be heavy at times, especially across the south west of england, wales, those showers pushing up through to parts of scotland as well. But in the milderfeeling air, temperatures will rise as high as perhaps 18 or 19 degrees celsius across the south west and the channel islands. But then the focus of that rain will change as we head through thursday and friday. And its quite likely that well see some of the heaviest downpours across central and eastern areas of scotland. And there are already met Office Weather warnings in force. There could be some exceptionally heavy rain in these areas. Severe gales, too, towards the east coast. Heres the outlook for our capital cities, turning milder but much more unsettled. Bye bye. Live from london. This is bbc news. Gaza faces a deepening humanitarian crisis as Essential Supplies dwindle, amid a near total israeli blockade and ongoing airstrikes. The un chief warns the conflict risks tipping The Middle East into the abyss and urges both parties back from the brink. President biden says an israeli occcupation of gaza would be a big mistake but says he stands by israels right to respond to hamas� attacks. People in poland have finished casting their votes in what some have described as the most significant parliamentary elections since the end of communism. Hello. Welcome to bbc news. The United Nations is warning that Hospital Fuel Reserves in gaza are likely to run out in the next 2a hours, possibly endangering thousands of patients. Un chief Antonio Guterres has warned the israel Hamas Conflict risks tipping The Middle East into the abyss