The Documentary Podcast Folgen

Eunice Yang from BBC Chinese reports on the closure of over 400 maternity wards across China. Plus, South Korea's illegal tattoo parlours with BBC Korean's Yuna Ku, and why Ghana's traditional kente fabric has been recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, with BBC Africa's Jelilat Olawale. Yuna's documentary is part of the BBC 100 Women series. To find out more about the other inspiring and influential women on this year's list go to bbc.co.uk/100women. You can also follow BBC 100 Women on Facebook and Instagram. Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Over the past decade, cars and trucks have been used as lethal weapons in an increasing number of attacks. Fourteen people died and at least 35 were injured when a driver of a pickup truck targeted crowds in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Less than a month earlier, a nine-year-old child and five adults were killed in a similar incident in the eastern German city of Magdeburg where a car was driven through a crowded Christmas market. Kathy was dancing in a Christmas parade in the town of Waukesha in the US state of Wisconsin in 2021 when a car rammed into the performers, killing six people and injuring dozens more. Donna was watching the parade: “I remember it like it was yesterday,” she tells host Mark Lowen. Donna and Kathy are joined by Astrid in Germany, whose father was killed in a 2016 attack on a Christmas market in Berlin.

Sahar Zand follows young Hindu activists Banamali and Sukanto, who are documenting the violence they say authorities and media are ignoring. She joins them as they respond to a new attack on a Hindu-majority village, where a mob set fire to a yet another building. The attacks are not just aimed at buildings. Sahar meets victims, including an elderly village doctor recovering from an attempted murder and a grieving mother whose 14-year-old son was killed trying to escape the country. In a tense interview, Sahar confronts Mahmudul Hasan Gunovi, a far-right Islamist leader accused of fueling the violence with his inflammatory rhetoric. She experiences the violence first-hand during a volatile encounter when Banamali and Sukanto visit a sensitive site, where a Hindu crematorium has recently been destroyed, and a make-shift mosque built on its ruins.