Sex Talk with the Imams

I’m starting up this project in my village called a CARE group. Basically what it is, is a women’s group that talks about health issues in the community. Then, this information is passed throughout the village by these women in friend-to-friend like conversations. I decided that the main focus I’m gonna start the CARE group with, is family planning. All good and jolly, except that I live in an all Muslim village, you know, with their religious beliefs. But, it’s actually a really serious problem in the community. There are a lot of women coming into the clinic pregnant with their 6^th or 7^th child in 10 years, and West Africa has the highest maternal death rate in the world by far. I hear people complaining all the time that there are too many children they don’t have money for or that they can’t afford to bring their sick children to the health clinic. Plus, there are a lot of girls dropping out of middle school each year due to pregnancies. So, I decided that this is a big enough problem, we need to tackle it with our women’s group, and the health staff agreed.

Here’s where the next problem comes up. Not only do men get the final say in household decisions here, but if I were to talk to large numbers of women about birth control and the men/village elders were to hear about this secondhand, they would probably feel like they’d lost control. Hence, here’s where the sex talk with the Imams comes in. Before I started grouping women or planning the health trainings, I called a meeting with the chiefs, Imams and other village authorities to discuss the importance of doing this. I split up family planning into 3 points pertinent to the village.

1.     Encouraging families to consider the costs of delivering a baby and caring for it before expanding their family

2.     Spreading out the births of babies.

3.     Teaching parents how to talk to their children about sexual health and options

Now, I knew going into this, it would be a hot subject. What made it worse was that I’d be talking about this with every person of importance in the village in one room. So, I was nervous, but I prepared myself for what issues I thought would come up. And they did.

“So are you saying you want our women to stop giving us babies?”

“No, I don’t want the women to just stop giving birth, I want them to spread out their births over time, both for the health of the baby and mother, but also to ensure that families have the financial means for another child.”

“Are you planning on telling our children that it’s ok to have pre-marital sex?”

“No, I’m not planning on telling your children anything. You will be talking to your own children about what you think is right regarding sex, but also preparing them with safe sexual practices for when they start.”

I was on a roll. But, then the meeting started taking an unexpected turn. One elder speaks up:

“You’re right, unwanted pregnancies are a real problem with the youth in the village…”

(good, we’re heading in the right direction)

“…but, this is a new problem. We used to excise our girls (aka. Genital mutilation). That was our method of birth control. Back then girls wouldn’t have sex until they HAD to have sex…”

(ohhh, I believe you)

“…but then, you white people came in…”

(now he’s pointing at me menacingly, as if to hold me personally responsible for all the crimes of the white man)

“…and told us we couldn’t excise our girls any more…”

(good reason behind that one)

“…and then you started giving out your white people condoms…”

(this is a direct quote, by the way)

“…and making the youth think they could have as much sex as they wanted. Now they’re getting pregnant and dropping out of school. What do you want us to do now?”

Me:

“………….ok…..well…..this is why is it important not just to hand out condoms, but to actually talk to your children about sex and about the consequences.”

Same elder:

“Telling the children to wait to have sex is not going to give results! The kids nowadays have no respect for their elders! What we want you to do, is to give birth control to every girl at the middle school until she graduates.”

Me:

“…………………..okayyyy…..so, it looked like we were headed in the right direction for a second there, but I don’t think we’re trying to go quite that far with it…What we can do, is set up a sexual health club at the school for girls only and encourage the girls who are sexually active to raise money through small jobs or selling things so they can afford a method of birth control…”

And then my translator/Kotokoli teacher/village friend steps in:

“It will be encouraging to have Rouki (that’s me) talk to the girls about other options. She’s gonna be here for 2 years and she’s not married, so if she can do it, so can all of you girls.”

Me:

 “That sounds like a lovely idea…but I’m not really sure I want to be the village mascot for celibacy…let’s get back to the children here…”

I was soooooooooooo glad when that meeting was over, there aren’t enough o’s in the world to express it. But, the village elders approved my CARE group idea and now I get to start planning it.