Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs – Opening of Course on Religion and Sexuality
By Musimbi Kanyoro
Thank you for the privilege of inviting us to begin this yearlong course with you. I
never hesitate to come back to the Netherlands. When I first came here, as a youth on
exchange program, I was so impressed by the popular Dutch saying that God made
the World and the Dutch made Holland.
The Dutch churches through the Bible Society of the Netherlands paid for my
graduate studies. I am in angered by the fact that today I speak to you while nearly
300 girls in Nigeria are denied education and are in harms way abducted by men who
using the name of God!
This is the time for religious people in the world to unite and condemn these acts of
terror but only a few voices of religious leaders are speaking up. Many religions share
their lack of follow through to renounce violence on women whether at family level,
in war times or during peace. Most of this violence is sexual in nature. The relegation
of women to an inferior position by many religions and religious leaders is the
primary cause for sexual abuse.
I was asked to use my own experience as a theologian, woman and African to
illustrate how to engage with religion and sexuality. I will bias myself to Christianity
since my friend Yasmeen will speak from the perspective of Islam.
I work for the Global Fund for women where our vision is for a world that is just,
equitable and sustainable and where girls and women have voice, choice and
opportunities to realize there the human rights.
We renounce discrimination including that of the draconic laws in Uganda and
Nigeria that criminalize gay and lesbian people. We support and partner with
organizations that are defending civil, political, social, cultural and sexual rights.
Sexual rights include the right to comprehensive sexuality education, and the highest
attainable sexual health care, sexual pleasure and voluntary sexual relationships.
These rights belong to every person, regardless of sex, gender, race, religion,
language, ethnicity, political opinion, sexual identity or expression, gender identity or
expression, geographic location or country or origin. They are understood at three
difference levels, namely: values, politics, and law. Religion and sexuality reveals the
complex and dynamics ways in which these three interact when intersected with sex
and sexuality.
Why Should Anyone Care?
According to the February 2014 report on Faith & International Family Planning
(page 9), of the 7 billion people in the world today, 5.8 billion have religious
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affiliations, which are important to them. This translates into 84% of the world
population care for religion. Of these, 2 billion are Christians. We should care
because these numbers are significant. (Quoted by Jimmy Carter in his new book “A
Call to Action – Women, Religion, Violence and Power”.)
The poor are the most religious and it seems ironically that the millennium goal with
an aim to end poverty never considered the role of religion. A 2009 Gallup Poll
reported that in poor countries 92% of the people say that religion is an important part
of their daily lives, compared to 44% in countries where average annual income are at
US $ 25,000 or more. Poor people are not looking for status quo. They are looking for
hope- they are looking for someone visible or invisible who will listen to their hunger
for food and justice, for sex and children, for spiritual and physical life. We must care
because for the majority of the world, they feel the need to express their right to
religious belief in the same way that we in this room may want to claim sexual rights.
It is therefore important to engage with religions, communities who value religion and
religious leaders. To do so, it is important to understand the Holy Writings that form
the basis of religious teachings.
How does one engage? An Example of Engagement:
Bringing the Issue to Religion:
In 1992 while working with the Lutheran World Federation, I convened a gathering of
African Church women in Windhoek, Namibia, to bring the discussion of HIV and
AIDS inside the church at a time when churches had nothing to do with AIDS
because they still believed that only gay men and prostitutes contracted the illness. It
was not easy and it caused a lot of controversy but it moved an issue that was only
talked about in private to the public. This was the beginning of a long journey which
in later years led me and other African women theologians developing Bible studies
to help families grieve the loss of loved one and to support religious leaders
organizing around HIV.
Two years later, in 1994, I organized a second meeting for the same women in
Nairobi, Kenya. The story was quite different; every one of those women had been
touched directly by HIV. Instead of resistance, they were eager to share their stories
and they became important resources for developing strategies to prevent HIV.
They were ready to engage with the Circle of Concerned African Women
Theologians, a group which I was a co-founder and whose objective was to provide
Church people in Africa with tools to engage in dialogues with their religious
teachings and leaders in the fight against HIV by: creating e a space for women and
girls to develop their unique strengths, talents, and leadership to resist harmful
teachings of their faiths and cultures; and to build the overall capacity of women and
girls to act on their own behalf – and on behalf of their families and communities –
improve their quality of life.
The Circle Focused on three important things to engage with Religion and Culture in
Africa:
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1. Re reading the Bible and the Quran from the perspective of women in Africa
in order to reframe the theological understanding of key texts (Strategy of
Knowledge)
2. Providing a critique of the belief systems acquired in the traditional teachings
of the church or Islam. Indigenous African beliefs and other religions with
adherents in Africa. (Strategy of Empowerment)
3. Influencing society and community through publications, lectures, Bible
Studies/ Quran studies and personal stories, etc. (Strategy of Engagement)
We decided to do our theology by operating inside our religious frameworks rather
than as secular women. We did so in order to gain trust and influence among men and
women, young people, religious leaders and secular people. Trust is basic to religious
engagement and it is the most worthy capital in engaging with religious leaders and
communities.
Scale was important to us. We wanted to influence many people for greater impact.
Some of us worked at community level engaging local Christian women in reading
oral and written texts with women’s eyes. We work shopped them to analyse songs,
proverbs, stories, tongue twisters and any other form of oral traditions that they were
familiar with.
As they developed skills we shifted to the analysis Bible Texts in the same way, with
special focus on texts, which had sex, rape, incest, child marriage, deceit, violence,
biases. These are the areas where SRHR intersects with religious values and beliefs.
We also looked texts that have diverse interpretations, texts that have the potential for
reversal of old beliefs and texts that negated things that were wrong in the culture
where the scriptures were applied.
Empowered by these tools of analysing faith teachings, women began to have voice in
taking decisions in their communities, churches and academic institutions and that
allowed us to raise the bar of our continued engagement. The Circle women accepted
invitations in Africa and abroad as resource persons in theological debates, bible
studies leaders, invited guest lectures, preachers, teachers and students in theological
schools. Many accepted jobs in religious institutions as well as in NGOs. Today you
can find Circle women in many diverse spaces globally.
What it took to be successful
The Circle of Concerned African women in Theology and culture is multi cultural and
multi religious collective. We grew exponentially and today we are over 1000 but our
influence is phenomenal in Africa and beyond because we have been bold in
organizing at community level, speaking up and writing for publications.
From the start, we measured our success by the number of circles that chapters grew
and where they were located including what area of sexuality and violence against
women they were working on. We also were determined to bridge the dearth of
theological writings by African women and to date we have published over 40 books
and hundreds of thesis. We have produced other publications ranging from white
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papers, chapters in books, poems and news paper articles. In addition we had lots of
appearances in media globally, invitations to be facilitators, visiting scholars, Board
and committee members of various organizations as well obtained jobs in different
private, public and religious sectors.
We worked collaboratively and included men to address the need of the pluralistic
societies of which we are apart. We also were intentional about participating in
relevant forum where we can influence direction.
For example I was very active in ensuring that Religious people as well as
underserved populations such as sex workers had a place on International forums
during the height of the HIV and AIDS peak. That was possible because I accepted to
serve on some committee of UNAIDS, World Health Organization during my 2
decades living in Geneva.
What the women’s movement and women theologians have done very well is to
engage religion from below rather above. They have enabled women to interpret how
violence happens to them. Groups and individuals who are doing this kind of work
very often are seen as a threat to their own governments, churches, societies, and
families. They are targeted physically and emotionally. For example, a catholic nun in
Kenya was excommunicated for pointing out in an article in a newspaper that women
were dying from unsafe abortion. A global Fund grantee, a lawyer in a Latin
American country was shot at for being on a team of lawyers asking for litigation to
make abortion safe for women.
It organised groups of women themselves that are now engaging the growing
Christian fundamentalism all over the world with USA as the source. In some places,
church hierarchy is the main obstacle in the sanction of rights in favour of women and
sexual minorities. At the international forums such as the UN, there is organised
religious opposition pairing with countries that have voting rights. It is sad to see
gains made in Cairo in 1994 on SRHR being challenged by religious groups. This
another reason to engage to protect the rights we have won over years.
Policy Recommendations
In general, and historically, religions can deal with issues of justice and service, but
they have real difficulties to deal with an issue that is at the core of human life, sex
and sexuality, power and hierarchy. It is important to affirm good things that faith
communities do in order to have credibility to hold them accountable for bad things
do in the areas where they have weaknesses.
Use intermediaries who have trust of their communities such as theologian priests,
imams and other leaders who have liberal theologies.
Support Faith based convenings that do not use the space for proselytization.
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Use the lens of feminist theology and women’s human rights to look at the existing
data on sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Improve the links with women’s organizations directly; support groups, which create
enabling environment for empowering women and girls to make informed decisions
on their own sexual and reproductive health and rights;
Address unequal power relations directly when negotiating funding in bilateral and
multilateral situations by using the values of your intended audience;
Link SRHR with broader goals such as educations, economics, health, poverty etc. to,
ensure an intersectional approach in addressing underlying causes to sexual and
reproductive health and rights
Do not be satisfied with the status quo, support innovation, boldness and creativity.
Do not undermine religion per se, but be open and take it seriously by affirming the
good that religion can bring to people and work hard to prevent the harm that religion
does.
Thank you.
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