Ranjita Biswas
KOLKATA, India, Sep 9 2009 (IPS) – Muslim religious leaders may seem too conservative to promote the message of safe sex to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. But that image seems to be changing. Thanks to community-based organisations and young social entrepreneurs working quietly in villages.
In Kolkata, the capital of the West Bengal state in eastern India, the Asian Muslim Action Network (AMAN) Foundation, a non-government organisation that seeks to address the challenges confronting Asians, has been engaging imams (prayer leaders) and community organisers in its HIV/AIDS campaign.
We involve the imams in this campaign because they are highly respected by the community, said Sohail Ahmed, secretary of AMAN. Many people living in communities are either illiterate or semi-literate, he said. Thus, they tend to depend on the imams for information. They also look to these religious leaders for counseling.
To explain their participation in this effort, the imams use certain passages of the Quran. For example, they say that khair-un-naas which propagates doing good to others and khidmat-e-khalq service to mankind are part of the holy book. Hence, raising health-related awareness is a good deed, they say.
AMAN organized eight workshops between 2006 and 2008, where 83 imams took part. The West Bengal State AIDS Prevention and Control Society, the state arm of the National AIDS Control Organisation, helped in this effort.
Strangely, we got better response during the workshops from religious leaders based in rural areas compared to those in the urban centers, said Ahmed.
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The not-for-profit Rajabazar Education and Awareness Development Society (READS) runs 18 primary section schools in four of Kolkata s poor Muslim-majority areas, where it conducts awareness campaigns on HIV/AIDS.
We invite mothers to the workshops and tell them about the dangers of HIV infection and how it can be prevented, said Sarfaraz Ali, secretary of READS. Regrettably, though, we tried to involve (leaders of) the local mosques in this effort, but we didn t receive cooperation.
In Pakistan, people in general see HIV infection as a punishment of God, said Muhammad Iqbal Khalil, president of the Inter-Religious Council for Health (IRCH), during an interface at the 9th International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, held in August in Bali, Indonesia. He added that there are firm beliefs that HIV-infected children should not go to school.
There are an estimated 85,000 people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Pakistan, said Khalil. Of these, about 20,000 need antiretroviral drugs (ART), which are used to treat infections caused by retroviruses, mainly HIV. Only 600 of the affected individuals are getting ART, he said, adding that HIV-related stigma and discrimination are major reasons why such treatment is not reaching many PLHIV.
Involving community leaders is a must in the fight against HIV, said Khalil.
IRCH s new initiatives involving religious leaders in some of the most conservative districts like Swat and Bannu received open support to our astonishment, said Khalil. They even came up with ideas to deal with the HIV problem, he said.
The Council has trained 525 religious leaders in 10 HIV sessions conducted so far. Even imams from refugee camps and tribal belts took part to learn how to destigmatise PLHIV. IRCH has prepared a guide book for Muslim leaders on HIV/AIDS based on the Quran and Sunnah, a compilation of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammed. Brochures are also distributed in front of mosques after the Friday prayers.
Experts say other countries with huge Muslim populations also require the involvement of religious leaders in fighting the disease that has claimed two million lives as of 2007, of whom 270,000 are children, based on estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
In Indonesia, where about 88 percent of the country s estimated 220 million population consists of Muslims, the role of community leaders is invaluable in fighting against HIV/AIDS, said Claudia Surjadjaja, country director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)/Health Policy Initiative (HPI) in Indonesia, which undertakes global health-related efforts such as those addressing the deadly disease.
It is a disease which is still largely treated as a moral problem by the general population. Pious people can t get infected, they think, she said.
Using Islamic teachings to campaign against HIV/AIDS is important, said Syafiq Mughni, chairperson of the Muhammadiyah Provincial Board in East Java, where he said the number of PLHIV has been increasing. People interact every day with religious leaders (and) seek their advice, and so we have to give (the latter) training too, he said.
In Burma, Shine Aung Naing Win has been working since 1989 to make his fellow Muslim youths aware of HIV/AIDS. A youth activist, he formed the Interfaith Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (IYCA) in Pabedan township in Yangon three years ago to fulfill his mission.
Shine said it has not been easy talking about HIV/AIDS in his country, considering the conservatism of the local populace. But it s important to educate them, he said. . An estimated 0.38 percent of the country s over 48 million people are HIV-positive, said Shine. Two-thirds of the HIV-infected Burmese are within the age of 24, he said, based on data from the United Nations Children s Fund. Some 20,000 of those infected with the disease are Muslims, he added.
Poverty drives people in search of work to Myanmar s four international borders, and often they get infected due to risky behavior, said Shine. To promote HIV/AIDS awareness, IYCA has coined the slogan Save Sex . (It) means save your marriage, replicating the message of Safe Sex , while promoting prevention of HIV infection, explained Shine. This is also to safeguard against certain societal restrictions like talking about sex and sexualities, and related topics, in an explicit manner, he added. In our experience, irrespective of educational levels, Muslims in our part of the country don t like the idea of using condoms, he said. So instead of condom-promotion among the general population (though they do so among PLHIV), IYCA employs novel ways to weave in Islamic teachings into the HIV prevention program with the help. Such efforts involve religious leaders.
We say save sex, save your marriage, enjoy a full and happy married life, Shine said. This is one way of skirting sensitive issues while achieving our goal of raising HIV/AIDS awareness, he added. The imams also interact with PLHIV to demonstrate openness toward them.
Things have changed a lot now, observed Mohamed Abdus Sabur, secretary-general of AMAN. There is increased openness among Muslim communities and religious leaders toward HIV/AIDS, he said.
This is a far cry from what he saw nine years ago. He recalls how taking out a booklet on HIV/AIDS made him the object of accusations from many fellow Muslims, who said, It s a western idea. The booklet has since been translated into Bengali, Pashtu, Khmer, Urdu, Sinhalese, Tamil, among other dialects.
In many countries today, religious leaders have demonstrated initiative and commitment to become agents of social change in their communities, said USAID/HPI s Surjadjaja.