Religious leaders should use their influence to promote SRHR access

Paul Juru, Director of INERELA Zimbabwe and Ambassador of Hivos Eastern and Southern Africa, SRHR Fund

BY MUNYARADZI BLESSING DOMA

Religious leaders should use their influence in society to promote Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) access for adolescents and young people.

Promotion of SRHR access will lead to many adolescents and young people being saved from harm.

The call was made by Paul Juru, the Director of INERELA Zimbabwe, who is also Ambassador of Hivos SRHR Fund.

Juru was speaking on the sidelines of the recently held Regional Engagement on Adolescents SRHR Access in Harare.

The Regional Engagement was running the theme, “Collaborating for equitable SRHR in East and Southern Africa.”

Five focus countries, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya and Uganda, which are being supported by Hivos under the Regional SRHR Fund, participated at the Regional Engagement.

Youth Advocates, Hivos and Restless Development Zimbabwe hosted the three day meeting.

According to Plan International, SRHR services are whereby “ they (young people) may require information on and access to modern contraception, menstruation, HIV and STI (sexually transmitted infection) testing and treatment, gynaecology, pregnancy testing and services, safe abortion, counselling, gender based violence and harmful practices counselling and referral among others.”

Said Juru: “I want to speak about the role of the change within the space of promoting SRHR services. You will find that the church plays a pivotal role in that area whereby, you see the influence of Reverends or the influence of religious leaders is of paramount importance.

“Religion is really influential in terms of directing even members of parliament, policymakers. It also affects even the youngsters who listen to the pastors speaking.

“When we are talking of young people, SRHR services are of paramount importance in the sense that they promote livelihood of students, livelihood of young people.

“We have a lot of people who are dying because of teenage pregnancies, abortion and everything, because of lack of information.

“Now if pastors take onto the podium and start addressing issues of SRHR, we will have a positive mindset change.”

Juru, who was one of the panelists at the Regional Engagement, spoke passionately on the role of religious leaders in ensuring enhanced uptake of SRHR services by young people.

He revealed that there were many challenges from a religious perspective, hence at times religion becomes a barrier to the uptake of SRHR services.

“Some of them (religions) do have some differences in terms of contraception, family planning, restrictions we have and then we have also some contradictions on abortion.

“In certain cases, sex education is limited, you see all those are barriers from a religious point of view.

“Women say reproductive autonomy is also taken on board where we have a lot of problems pertaining to that.

“Now if religious leaders come to a point of appreciating the value of SRHR services in terms of promoting the health of the youngsters, then we are going to have a good understanding of that.

“And now, how can religious leaders operate? There is need for the reinterpretation of religious texts to support SRHR services. “They are going to be in a position to promote text on compassion, text on love.

“Like I normally use Mark Chapter 12 Verse 31, “love thy neighbor as yourself.” If that one is preached, no one is going to be found violating or sexually abusing the youngsters. They will be in a position to be given a safe space within the churches,” he said.

He added: “and then the other role of church leaders is to promote the human dignity.

“And then also promoting the well-being of young people. And also promoting social justice and equality.

“So we are talking of areas whereby social justice will have to be prevailing, whereby a sexual violation will have taken place within the youngsters themselves.”

Juru also revealed that the unfortunate death of Memory Machaya, a 14-year-old who died whilst giving birth in 2021 could have been avoided if her church had embraced issues to do with SRHR services.

“That was an unfortunate incident whereby if the church leaders were going to be knowledgeable about Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, they were going to preserve this girl’s right to life.

“But now she died, she was not given that service of going to the hospital, she could have even avoided getting that pregnancy at an early age.

“So the church has a very important role to speak against any form of sexual abuse which is being perpetrated by even adults. “And the youths themselves are indulging at an early age so the church has to come in to teach these youngsters of the appropriate time when they can start engaging in sexual intercourse. Where we will actually concentrate more on abstinence until such an age when they will be mature, being able to handle issues of sexuality.

“So we have a lot of doors that should be opened and I’m so happy that within Zimbabwe, some traction is starting to take place.

“The EFZ (Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe) have some SRHR programmes, the Catholic Relief Services is doing something, INERELA is also doing something; we have ZiCHIRe, which is coordinating church related hospitals.

“So all these initiatives are actually welcome and we also want to thank the donors or civil society organisations that are partnering with the churches to promote SRHR issues and I want to say, providing adequate information to the religious leaders is of paramount importance.

“They should start with church leaders themselves, if they understand, then they will cascade that information to their subordinates, everyone will listen and Zimbabwe will be saved,” he added.

He emphasized that there is need for advocacy, positive polices that promote safe SRHR services for the younger generation of the country.

“Let’s protect the youngsters from harm,” he added.