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Have parental leave provisions gone too far? In a new government bill, fathers will have the right to 6 months paternity leave during the second six months of their baby’s life, assuming the mother has gone back to work. Baroness Margaret Prosser Deputy Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Richard Reeves, Director of independent think tank Demos, Tina Knight is Chairwoman of Women in Business debate whether the sharing of parental leave is a nod to political correctness or nightmare for small businesses.

Xinran was born in Beijing and brought up during the Cultural Revolution. She became a journalist and radio presenter, and is well known in China for her radio phone-in programme Words on the Night Breeze, in which she invited women to talk about their lives. She tells the stories of the women who wrote to her to share their pain at having to give up their daughters and her own experience of China’s ‘One Child’ policy.

Sarah Ford, a former sports journalist from Norwich, now spends time improving the lives of girls in Kenya. She is the founder of the charity ‘Moving the Goalposts’ which uses football to develop essential life skills for vulnerable young women from Kalifi. She highlights the challenge that the girls face including the monthly trouble of finding sanitary pads.