Call to Action: Religious Leaders and SRHR in Uganda

In Uganda, conversations regarding Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) remains a significant challenge, particularly among young men and women.

Many young people fall victim to early marriages, teenage pregnancies, and unsafe abortions often due to a lack of accurate information and the cultural silence surrounding sex education within families.

Recognising this gap, the SRHR Alliance Uganda is actively mobilising religious leaders to help bridge it. Through national and regional interfaith dialogues, faith leaders are being engaged to take a more active role in disseminating SRHR messages during religious services.

The goal is to ensure that accurate and age-appropriate information becomes part of sermons and spiritual teachings, reaching the many young people who are part of these congregations.

Charles Serwanjja, Team Leader for Public Health and Social Measures at the Inter-Religious Council of Uganda (IRCU), states,

“We have embarked on influencing policy and scaling up advocacy to ensure that laws are youth-led and pro-people. Our aim is to harmonize the positions of different denominations on critical issues like safe abortion, contraception, and early marriage.”

Sheikh Obilan Abubaker, Regional Assistant for Teso and Karamoja to His Eminence the Supreme Mufti of Uganda, adds,

“We bring millions of followers together every week in places of worship. This partnership with activists has found the right change agents.”

Sharing her personal journey, Jimbo Shanurah, Miss Y+ 2024 and SRHR Champion said,

“As a young person living with HIV, I experienced a lot stigma especially at school. I had no friends because children did not want to associate with me and that deeply affected my mental health. At my lowest, I even contemplated suicide. What I truly needed was someone to remind me that I am enough and that things would eventually be okay. I urge faith leaders to create safe and inclusive spaces in their places of worship for people like me. Remember, you are human first before any title”

Olgah Daphynne Namukuza, Country Director at SRHR Alliance Uganda, who leads the campaign to involve religious leaders through interfaith engagement, emphasises the importance of training:

"Equipping religious leaders with the right tools to package and deliver messages on SRHR issues effectively has allowed us to reach a wide population of young people. As a result, more youth can now access accurate information about their health and well-being from places of worship. Religious leaders hold significant influence in their communities, and trusting them to support this movement makes a real difference. After all, how many of us would dare disobey our faith leaders?"

This collaborative approach acknowledges the powerful role religious leaders play in shaping societal values and beliefs. By engaging them as allies in SRHR, Uganda can take meaningful strides toward safeguarding the health and rights of its youth.