Inter-religious perspectives and beliefs of the Clergy have widened the myths and misconceptions gap, slowed down efforts to address Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) issues among adolescent girls and young women in Uganda’s rural and urban communities.
Photo credit: Kasiita Mark Muganga
Uganda is a religiously mixed country with various religious attachments organized into groups. There is 39 % Roman Catholics, 32 %Anglicans, and 11%Pentecostal Christians and Muslims account for 14% of the population, according to official government estimates.
Other religious groups, which account for less than 5% of the population, include Seventh-day Adventists, indigenous believers, Baptists, Orthodox Christians, Hindus, Jews, and those who have no religious attachment.
As a result, religious and faith leaders are among the most powerful influencers of social, economic, political, and moral debates that shape society’s perceptions of young people and communities.
But despite increasing cases of “teenage pregnancy”, HIV, unsafe abortion and sexual violence, the clergy have done little to adolescents and young people’s sexual reproductive health risk.
According to the Ministry of Health, 25% of Ugandan teenagers “become pregnant” by the age of 19. (Ntemid demands to have a talk about this!)
Close to half are married before their 18th birthday and continue having babies into their mid-40’s.
Inter-religious perspectives, of the clergy of course, instill in youth fear and guilt of accessing family planning services. Uganda is committed to scale up the use of modern family planning methods to ensure that every Ugandan woman can choose when and how many children to have.
In 2017, it revised its original commitment of 2012 to reduce the unmet need among adolescents from 30.4% in 2016 to 25% in 2021.
Sadly, some religious and cultural beliefs limit youth’s access to health services!
As we are set for the World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW), conceived to promote a culture peace and nonviolence scheduled from 1st to 7th Feb,
With the main aim of spreading the message of harmony and tolerance among the followers of all the world’s religions, faiths and beliefs let the clergy also prioritize promoting dignified sexual and reproductive health of adolescents and youth, which can boost universal SRHR services.
Let them stop criticizing the young people but support them to make informed decisions!
This is a guest-post by Kasiita Mark Muganga
Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights Advocate (macacid24@gmail.com )
I second Ntemid for the talk about teenage pregnancies.
He is such knowledgeable and a good influencer.
Good seeing Mark in this worthwhile blog
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I’m with you on this one! I learned a lot here 🙂
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My country is dominantly a religious country too. the church and state are separate but the influence of the church is huge.
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Such a provocative post. It made me contemplate in my own country. helping young people make informed decisions is important
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Thanks for speaking up on this topic. I hope it helps create or contribute to important conversations.
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It is so important to empower and do what’s best for our youth. They are the next generation.
👍👍👏🏿👏🏿 I’d say they are the current generation.
It is important to educate and allow people to make informed decisions. It’s important no matter the age.
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It’s important that we make sure the next generation would live their best lives and better than ours. Help them to make sure that they make the right decisions.
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It is about time that we should support safe reproductive health for all women, especially for young women and teenagers. Although we can’t deny theology and their side about this matter, we should let theologists do what they do, and we do what we believe is necessary. More education and more actions needed.
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for sure the men of God has alot of role to play in this quest.
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Hats off to him for talking about teen issues.
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