- The study shows that in Mombasa and Wajir counties, the majority of Muslim leaders believe that breastfeeding a child for two years is a way of family planning.
- It states that, according to Muslim religious leaders perspective, family planning is only accepted among married youth for birth spacing to ensure good health.
Image: AURA RUTH
State must involve religious leaders on reproductive health matters to enable acceptance of family planning and increase uptake.
This is because religious beliefs play a significant role in adolescence and youth when it comes to reproductive health decision making, a study has found.
The study carried out by the Africa Institute for Development Policy shows that as the Muslim and Christian women prioritiSe child spacing and the wellbeing of existing children, religious leaders also have a crucial influence on contraceptive decision making.
AFIDEP research and policy analyst John Mushomi said there are religious leaders who are willing to talk to people on family planning but its only that they cannot do it publicly on pulpit.
“If 95 percent commit to religion, how can we empower religious leaders to actually talk about some of these uncomfortable spaces of early teenage pregnancy, early age at first sex, abortion and the unwanted children,” he said.
“We need to empower, train and capacity build different leaders, decision makers and actors not only young people but their leaders and parents at household level so that people can begin to confront those hard questions that carry stigma among Christians and Muslims.”
The study shows that in Mombasa and Wajir counties, the majority of Muslim leaders believe that breastfeeding a child for two years is a way of family planning.
It also states that, according to Muslim religious leaders perspective, family planning is only accepted among married youth for birth spacing to ensure good health and wellbeing of the mother and child but again prohibited for limiting the number of children
In the Christians religious leaders perspective, family planning is not encouraged for unmarried youth. However, the leaders acknowledge that unmarried youth are using contraceptives and need religious guidance.
Despite expressing support for family planning use regardless of marital status, the study states that the Christian religious leaders expressed concerns about FP use among young girls and the potential adverse effects on their long-term reproductive health and marital life.
The study was organised with partners in Burkina Faso and the University of North Carolina and it is part of the bigger project called expanded choice.
He said that they engaged religious leaders and young people aged between 18 and 24 years because they wanted to find out and understand how the young people engage with their faith in decision making for reproductive health decisions and actions.
The key findings of the study which involved young people who are faithful in their religion but sexually active and using modern methods of family planning was that among the Muslim community, the teachings are consistent.
Religious leaders need training on how to approach some of the realities for the people that they actually lead
“We need to begin confronting things that are uncomfortable to speak about and which includes children who are having sex before the age of 16 years and the ones who are getting pregnant before marriage. There is this information that we need to give them to avoid some of the disaster effects for choice making in terms of reproductive health perspective,” he said.
Sheikh Mwinyi Ali, who is also an Imam, said that people were not only understanding what reproductive health is all about but also the religion and, today, they are learning to understand the things which were misinterpreted in the past.
“In Muslim religion, nothing has been left out, everything has been discussed and put out clearly because these matters are also in the Quran. There is a big need to understand these issues and take them serious and stop saying that we cannot use it because these are issues that exist," the Ali said.
Agnes Njoki, a community health promoter, said that the religion is hindering the young women from taking the family planning but as the parents, they are just burying their heads in the sun pretending this thing is not happening.
“If you are not the first person as a parent to tell your child about reproductive health, they will go and find a third party. And when this happens, they are given the avenues of where to get it even as young as primary school going children,” she said.
She said that children have wrong information about contraceptives and according to their findings as CHPs, children are now using emergency pills every weekend which is not good for their health.
“As much as the religion is giving us a barrier, we should not be dwelling on the stigma but tell the children facts and the reality on what is going to happen to their bodies if they use it wrongly and the repercussions in future,” Njoki said.
She also called upon the Ministry of Education to come up with policies and collaborate with its Health counterpart about reproductive choices because the young girls in primary are using the contraceptives wrongly due to lack of information.