Sex Education

Lessons from the Field: Debunking Myths among Muslim Youth

March 17, 2014 by The Heart Team Leave a Comment

By Sameera Qureshi

“Because girls are dirty”, was one response a grade five girl gave to my question.

We were talking about menstruation and praying, and that Muslim females are excused from performing the five daily prayers and fasting when they are menstruating. But hearing a young girl call herself “dirty” was heartbreaking. Even more heartbreaking was the fact that this young girl most likely formed this attitude because of messaging she received from her family and cultural context.

I took this opportunity to speak with the entire class and challenge the idea that girls are dirty when they menstruate. The Quran uses the term “impure” and I had to explain what that meant. So I took the positive approach. I told the girls that God did not give periods to women to then treat them as dirty. Rather, when they menstruate, it may be a tough time physically if they have pain or are not feeling like themselves. Despite the fact that they cannot perform their prayers, I reminded them that they can still be mindful of God while they are menstruating. A girl’s period is a powerful sign that she will someday in the future be able to bring life into this world…what’s so dirty about that?

Another of my students showed me that her mother had slipped something into her backpack and she didn’t know what it was or how to use it. She pulled out the pad her mother had placed in her backpack, and I was surprised that her mom had not taken the steps to educate her daughter and instead just put it in her backpack. When I explained to her that it was for when she would get her period, she seemed confused. It seemed too abstract when we spoke about hormones from the brain and puberty and the myriad of changes she would soon experience. So I sat down with her and drew it out…yes, I drew what a period was and what happened, and she understood it! Especially when I whipped her pad out and showed her how to place it on her underwear, her face lit up because she now had nothing to worry out when she first saw a red spot on her underwear in the future.

And thus began my journey educating Muslim youth about their reproductive health. It will be three years this September that I came across a colleague, Val Barr, from the Calgary Sexual Health Center and we started talking about the lack of sexual health education in schools with Muslim students. The schools didn’t even cover curriculum material that was mandated by the province for health class. The boys and girls were not learning about their sexual and reproductive health, and it was obvious from the incidences arising that parents weren’t filling that void either. And so, we decided that it was time to seek out an Islamic-friendly curriculum for these schools.

Except there was one problem – there wasn’t such a curriculum publicly available anywhere. We contacted other Islamic schools in the area, researched online and spoke to staff and the Islamic school in our city. Nothing had been formalized and the staff each did their “own thing” with students, mostly basing the information they provided on questions that the students had. This did not prove to be effective as it could be since classes didn’t receive consistent information and there were a lot of important topics such as self-esteem, identity, values, and media critiquing skills being left out.

It took about a year and many meetings with the Islamic school staff to re-work the provincial curriculum into something that had an Islamic framework. The result was a five-lesson curriculum based on physical, spiritual, and social/emotional changes, and we called it the “Gender Education Curriculum.” This initial curriculum focused heavily on educating girls about the physical changes, since we realized that the vast majority had not received this information before. And so in the spring of 2013, we ran this version of the curriculum across all grades and developed a version for the boys, which was implemented by the male (Muslim) physical education teacher. The feedback from students was great and we were surprised at the 75% consented enrollment rate across all grades. While there were a few parents who were concerned about which topics we would cover and not cover, the majority were very supportive and we were incredibly transparent about what the students were learning.

Not surprisingly, I have spent much of my time debunking myths during these sexual health education sessions with Muslim girls. What’s even more challenging is the amount of time it takes for girls to shift their thinking. I find it quite interesting that while most mothers admit to spending only a few minutes to talk to their daughters about menstruation and how to use a pad, should a girl be so lucky, the strength it takes to break these myths makes me wonder how many times they’ve been exposed to this misinformation. Among the myths I have heard are the following:

Hygiene-related: taking a bath/shower when menstruating will slow down the flow and therefore lengthen the overall menstrual cycle for the month
Religious-themed: girls should pretend to fast and pray so that the males in their house aren’t aware they are menstruating
Relationship-related: It is improper for a Muslim girl to feel attracted to a boy
Virginity-related: tampons are haram – impermissible – because using them makes one lose her virginity.

Even upon explaining to girls how these myths are false and have been circulating for many generations prior to theirs, it takes a while for them to come to terms with the fact that what they’ve been learning from their families and cultural context is inaccurate. The work around myth busting will always continue. I have found it useful to refer to religious texts to overcome these cultural myths, but that’s a whole other blog entry in itself.

The more I work with grade five students especially, who are learning about their “private parts” for the first time, the more I am validated in my belief that this information is long overdue. The girls already have so much shame and embarrassment around their reproductive system, and I suspect this shame would not be quite as strong if girls were learning about ALL of their body parts from a much younger age. Children should be learning this important information as early as the age of two, which is what many professionals recommend, especially for child sexual abuse education. Some girls can be quite vulgar and crude when they talk about their bodies, which may deter parents from letting their girls begin learning this information so early. Girls need to be matter of fact about their sexual health, the same way they are when they get a cold or a nosebleed: there’s a process on how to seek support if needed, but there’s also a simple process that will help girls understand what’s going on with their bodies, why, and what they need to do.

And so, for those of you reading this entry, what can you do? The first step, whether you do or do not have children, is to assess your comfort level and knowledge of your own bodies and to seek out information you’re missing:

Do you know the scientific anatomical names for our external and internal reproductive system structures? And their functions?
Do you know the stages of the menstrual cycle?
Do you know why some women get cramps while others don’t, and where those cramps originate from?
Do you know how to determine when a woman is ovulating?
Do you know why and how to track a menstrual cycle?
Do you know healthy and unhealthy signs of menstrual cycles?
Do you know how to identify common medical conditions such as urinary tract infection and yeast infections?
Do you know the importance of women seeing a gynecologist, regardless of whether they are sexually active or not?

For myself, it wasn’t until I was in my early 20s that I understood what the menstrual cycle was, in all its amazing intricate details and stages! We can’t expect to teach our children about something that we are not comfortable with. I strongly recommend the resource Menstrupedia and a book by the Boston Women’s Collective called Our Bodies, Ourselves. Both are reliable and evidence-based, and written from a sensitive and easy to understand approach.

While there may be initial discomfort in learning about our reproductive systems, the more you learn, the more this feeling will subside. With the girls I teach, I remind them over and over again that God created them in His perfect image, and menstruation is something to feel empowered about, not stifled by. The more we learn and talk openly about a natural and powerful process that women have gone through well before our own time, the more we will break down the walls of shame and embarrassment around ourselves and other girls and women in our lives.

And if you’re wondering how to talk with your children (boys and girls) about puberty from an Islamic perspective…stay tuned for this discussion in my next blog post.

Sameera Qureshi, MScOT (c) is an Occupational Therapist and currently manages a mental health promotion project that is school and community based, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Her work over the past six years has been primarily with Muslim populated schools and their families. Since 2011, Sameera has been working to implement Islam-oriented sexual health education programs both within these schools and the greater Muslim community. Her work includes developing the curriculum for both genders and teaching the curriculum to girls in grades 5-9, running parent sessions, collaborating with multiple Calgary agencies around sexual health, and making her work available to interested community member and professionals. She also maintains a blog called Muslim Sistah and can be found on Twitter @muslimsistah

Breaking Barriers to Raise Awareness about Sexual Abuse in India

March 11, 2014 by The Heart Team Leave a Comment

Trigger warning for sexual abuse

I am so excited to see so much groundbreaking work coming out of India. This video made by Childline, a hotline for kids in distress in India, is a short, animated film teaching kids how to identify incidences of sexual violence, and how to reach out for help. It does a great job of developing the two main characters, a sweet young playful girl named Komal, and her family friend, a loving and playful friend of her father’s. He buys her gifts, teaches her to keep secrets, and generally behaves in a very loving and caring manner toward her. Until the one day he assaults her, leaving her to feel ashamed and confused. She reaches out to her mother and father, who decides to call Childline. The video then shows a counselor coming in to comfort Komal, and teach her and her classmates about how to identify and address child abuse. I particularly found this video to be especially great because:

it is respectful. There is modesty associated around the body parts in the South Asian world. It is considered disrespectful to openly use the names of male and female anatomy. In some communities, simply using the term can be enough to shut the individual out, making the lesson no longer effective. The video takes this into account, and still teaches about the four “no-touch zones” while honoring that cultural practice. The video uses diagrams and other animated images to specifically demonstrate where those private areas out, while still respecting the practice of not using those terms.
it offers clear and easy tips for anyone to be a resource. The second half of the video teaches what children can do to identify these situations, what they can do to help each other, and who are “safe” and “trustworthy” adults.
it clearly pushes back against victim blaming and shaming, which is rampant in South Asian societies. A big barrier to publicly address incidents of sexual violence in India and other South Asian societies is that often, the survivor is further victimized and blamed for the situation, rather than holding the aggressor accountable. This short film pushes back on the notion that it is the fault of the victim, and instead shows the aggressor being held responsible for his actions. It allows victims the space to come forward without feeling the stress of being blamed or judged.
it offers parents and teachers a way to facilitate a difficult conversation. Because of the taboo and embarrassment around these topics, in particular sexual abuse, it remains unaddressed, leaving many children unequipped to identify when they are in such situations. This video provides an excellent opportunity for parents and teachers to begin this much needed conversation.

Watch this video – also available in several Indian dialects, here, and let us know what you think!

The Reproductive Health Needs of a Growing Population: Muslim Singles

February 19, 2014 by The Heart Team Leave a Comment

by Nadiah Mohajir

As the Muslim community begins to see a growing number of single men and women, several issues need to be addressed. What can we do as a community, as well as institutionally, to support this growing group of individuals, particularly with respect to their reproductive health and mental health needs? Have we created a space for them in our communities where they can feel safe, free of judgement, to honestly share the struggles of being unmarried and navigating two extremely distinct, often contradictory worlds: the hypersexualized culture that is impossible to avoid, that bombards young people as early as toddler age, and the religious community that expects unmarried individuals, especially women, to remain chaste and unaffected by the pressures around them, and their natural desires, with the intention of honoring a religious tradition that reveres chastity and does not permit sexual relationships outside of marriage. Have we created a space for this growing group of individuals that does not attach their self-worth to their marital status and ability to bear children?

Author Zahra Noorbakhsh tells her story about losing her virginity before marriage in Love, Inshallah and explores these contradictory worlds. By Iranian standards, she explained, speaking of virginity so publicly is shameful and embarrassing. By islamic standards, she imagined the response to be very unforgiving, referring to herself as a “whore.” By American standards, she finally explains, a typical response would try to find reasons to explain why she lost her virginity so “late.” She explains how she spent all of her adolescence and early twenties fearful of sex, only to realize that she did not want to save her virginity for marriage. “I hadn’t yet been in love,” she explained. “But didn’t want to be in a relationship defined by the status of my “hole.”

A similar theme emerged in a conversation I recently had with a friend – who describes herself as a 35-year-old virgin – she asked the question of whether our community is sanctifying sex to an unhealthy degree. She discussed this in regard of her own struggles of remaining abstinent, and how she is beginning to view preserving her virginity as a burden, having much power over her, almost defining her worth, loaded with much shame and embarrassment if she ever pursued a sexual relationship while remaining single. When I asked her why she chose to remain abstinent, her answer was multi-layered: she identified as a Muslim and wanted to honor God’s command to remain abstinent until married. Furthermore, she admitted she was afraid of her mother; that somehow, her mother would know if she had sex and that was enough to keep her from doing it.

Haroon Moghul poignantly reflects on the pressures men face in his essay in Salaam, Love, stating that “my religion says a man should not be alone with a woman. But somebody should have told me a man should not feel so alone that being with a woman is the only way he can feel life is worth living.” This summed up an underlying theme in many of the stories in this anthology: that it is hard to be unmarried, and Muslim, ESPECIALLY if one is trying to honor the guidelines of the Islamic faith. A number of the men in the stories of Salaam, Love mention turning to masturbation, and more disturbingly, pornography, as the alternative to committing fornication or having sex outside of marriage.

Being immersed in such a hypersexualized society, while simultaneously delaying the age of marriage is an emerging public health that we need to think about addressing as a community. While we obviously cannot change Islamic legal rulings regarding the impermissibility of premarital sex, which is sound and wise for its own reasons, we have to consider how we will support this growing group of Muslims – because turning to porn and other coping mechanisms may seem in the short term, a better option than zina (fornication), but in the long term, is contributing to many serious issues threatening the health of the Muslim community’s marriages.

The first step to starting this dialogue is reclaiming the terms shame and modesty. In my understanding, there is a difference – and a pretty huge one – between shame and modesty. Islamic tradition and teachings encourage individuals to be modest with respect to their bodies and their sexuality. Muslims are encouraged to keep their sexual encounters private and between the spouses. That being said, Muslims are not, however, expected to feel shame or embarrassed about their bodies or sexual desire, provided that they commit to exercising those desires within the confines of a marital relationship. The unfortunate reality is that the Muslim community has repeatedly fused the words modesty and shame into one. It has been deemed immodest and shameful to speak about sex, let alone express sexual desire. We have associated shame with sex – which in some ways may in fact have a “protective” factor for unmarried individuals. In other words, individuals, especially women, may be hesitant to engage in premarital sex because it is deemed to be shameful. However, HEART’s work in the community has indicated that that often times, women carry these feelings of shame with them into their marriages – despite the fact that Islam permits sexual intimacy between the spouses. As such, this is both not surprising and extremely fascinating in terms of what we need to think about changing the discourse. Currently, we live in a society that has socialized women to feel shameful to have sex – whether they are single or married. Even if that “shame” may work in the favor of protecting single women from engaging in premarital sex, it is problematic that that same sentiment/attitude is carried with them into their married lives. And so I ask again: does the Muslim community sanctify sexuality to an unhealthy degree? If so, how do we change the discourse? It is time to take back the discourse and engage in abstinence because of a motivation besides just shame. How do we facilitate that conversation to begin to encourage abstinence without attaching a lens colored with shame to it?

Another step may be to change the discourse around sexuality and virginity. Laci Green, a young, and some would say controversial, sex educator challenges the current language around virginity. She argues that phrases such as “she lost her virginity,” and “he took her virginity” are disempowering and reinforce gender roles, where the man is the aggressor who has something to gain while the female is passive. Rather, she suggests that young women and men adopt more positive language around sexuality, such as making one’s “sexual debut” when referring to the first time they have sex, arguing that it makes for more empowered decision-making.

While Laci Green’s sex education techniques may not be exactly appropriate or culturally-sensitive to the Muslim community, she raises an important point that may be worth exploring. Is making a radical change such as the one suggested above a step to empowering young women with respect to their sexuality – even if, or rather, ESPECIALLY IF, they choose to abstain? Will it lend to healthier sexual attitudes before and during marriage? Will it take back the overwhelming power associated with virginity and make women feel content with their decisions regarding sexuality – particularly if they choose to abstain?

Finally, it’s important to see what other faith and cultural communities have done to address these issues. There are a number of religious communities that value abstinence until marriage. What have they done to engage the discourse around abstinence? Are there feelings of shame associated with sexuality in those communities?

Menstrupedia: A culturally-sensitive resource on Menstruation

February 11, 2014 by The Heart Team 1 Comment

by Nadiah Mohajir

I recently came across Menstrupedia.com, a virtual resource developed by some individuals in India who wanted to create a guide for women and girls on staying healthy during their periods. The website offers information through different media, and aims to dispel many of the myths and misinformation that have been prevalent in India for hundreds of years, such as the common misunderstanding that women should not bathe or leave the home during their periods and that they should keep their periods a secret from men.

Sites like Menstrupedia.com are pioneering in their effort to shatter the stigma and shame around an issue that should be seen as a natural part of life. Their approach should be used as a model as we as a community start thinking about how to present these topics in a way that is both medically accurate as well as respectful of our faith’s tradition of modesty. Here are some ways the founder of this resource has brilliantly managed to do both:

The site uses accurate, medical information from reputable sources, along with animated non-offensive graphics and cartoon people as visuals to explain the menstrual process, hygiene and care, and puberty.
The site uses a FAQ system to dispel common myths prevalent in India.
The site has a blog that uses storytelling, factual articles, short video clips and poetry using imagery, references, and media that are relevant to India to raise awareness about topics concerning menstruation.

This is a great website for mothers and daughters to look through together to start a dialogue about menstruation and puberty. The hush-hush nature and embarrassment that is associated with menstruation in the Muslim, particularly the South Asian, communities creates many unhealthy attitudes towards menstruation, perpetuates misinformation and myths, and serves as an obstacle for many young girls to learn about their bodies and be comfortable with them. Through HEART’s fieldwork, we have met numerous young Muslim girls and even adult women, as well as males, who did not demonstrate having adequate knowledge about menstruation. We met:

a fifth grader who missed three weeks of school, feigning illness because she thought she was dying when she started her period, not knowing what it was, too afraid to ask her mother or another adult.
adolescent girls who were not permitted to attend sex education classes, and therefore did not understand the biology of menstruation.
adolescent girls and adult women who did not know the fiqh of menstruation and ghusl (the Islamic process of ritual purity after menstruation is over).
adolescent girls and adult women who did not know how to use a tampon.
adult women – both married and unmarried – who did not know their basic anatomy.
women and girls who carried with them many myths surrounding menstruation and other reproductive health topics, such as you can’t swim when you have your period, and you are not a virgin if you wear a tampon.
boys and men who had limited accurate knowledge about the biology and anatomy of menstruation, as well as many many myths surrounding menstruation.

The stories of the women (and men) above are just a few reasons we need to change the status quo and start having conversations with both males and females about menstruation and other reproductive health topics. We will not be able to facilitate systemic change or influence cultural attitudes toward menstruation if we do not actively engage in dialogue. The founders of Menstrupedia.com saw a timely opportunity and took steps to challenge the status quo. I was really pleased to see this effort and look forward to seeing many more like this.

The Health Effects of Cultural Stigmas

January 31, 2014 by The Heart Team Leave a Comment

originally published on altmuslimah.com

by Nadiah Mohajir

Cultural stigmas have existed for thousands of years, yet never have I ever been more haunted by the unfortunate effect they have on mental and physical health outcomes. As a One Chicago, One Nation (OCON) Community Ambassador, I brought together a diverse group of young women and girls to talk about self-esteem, peer pressure, and its relationship with making healthy, responsible choices.

During the icebreaker, I asked the young women to shout out the first words that came to mind when they heard the term “teen pregnancy.” Responses included words like, “failure,” “no life goals,” “peer pressure,” and “money.” Then, I asked how their assumptions would change if I added the word “Muslim” in front of teen pregnancy. Not surprisingly, the conversation suddenly took an even more serious and grave tone, with the Muslim girls in the audience shouting words like, “family disownment,” “social suicide,” “actual suicide,” and even “abortion.” When asked to elaborate, one of the girls stated, “it’s hard to mess up even slightly in a Muslim household.”It is unfortunate that our young women in the Muslim community feel that it is “social suicide” for a Muslim girl to become pregnant out of wedlock, and that many even associate it with self-imposed death and abortion. What’s sad is that these feelings are actually a reality for a certain population of young women in New York City: a study in New York City following young Muslim women who are sexually active found that the abortion rate was 100% for those who became pregnant out of wedlock. The unfortunate reality is that these women would not be asked whether or not they wanted an abortion, but rather, which type of abortion they wanted.

Undoubtedly, these are social constructs our community has imposed on itself and that are further propagated by the fact that we do not have any institutionalized support systems for our young women. The assumptions on the white board during the ice breaker about teenage pregnancy are indicative of the fact that we have no systems to help our young women and that we must bring about institutional and cultural change in order to move in the right direction. The impact of the cultural stigma surrounding pregnancy out of wedlock in the Muslim community is astounding, and is leading to some very grave, but often preventable, circumstances. It’s probably most tragically telling that our young women feel that their only choice is abortion if they become pregnant out of wedlock. In this particular case, women are not making this decision because it is offered as a choice, but because they have no choice. So, in this respect, because of the way Muslim society has enforced and reinforced these stigmas for generations now, we cannot call ourselves a pro-choice or a pro-life community. How’s that for irony?

What’s going on in our community? Why do our women feel that there is no room for imperfection and there are no second chances for making the wrong (culturally or religiously unacceptable) choice? The Prophet (may God’s peace and blessings be upon him) did not teach such intolerance; nor did he endorse continual denial of the problems that exist in society. Homosexuality, pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancy, and drug abuse are all realities for the Muslim community, and have been for decades. Rape and mental illness are tragic circumstances that the victim should not be blamed for. These problems don’t just go away by ignoring them or by ostracizing those individuals.

What’s more interesting is how we discuss the issue of teenage pregnancy. In a recent conversation with Sahar Ullah, co-founder of Hijabi Monologues and performer of “Light on My Face” on January 9, 2009, she explained that discussing teenage pregnancy as a “phenomenon” is much easier than personalizing the issue. In other words, on the surface, pregnancy out of wedlock is wrong and unacceptable and it is very easy for members of the Muslim community to point fingers as detached individuals from the situation. However, personalizing the story of a young woman and describing the complexity of the factors that may lead a young woman to partake in sexual activity, such as low self-esteem, the need to be loved and desired, and the pressure to not lose the man that she loves, make the story a lot easier to sympathize with and the issue a lot harder to ignore.

We must stand up and work together to come up with a solution, a way to address these issues. While some of these issues are sensitive, controversial, and many would be opposed to endorsing them, the issue is not whether or not we should (or shouldn’t) endorse them. Offering resources and support for these individuals does not equate to endorsing their decisions or lifestyle, as the community falsely believes. However, not offering them anything will further alienate them from society and push them to take extreme measures, as demonstrated by the cases described above. More importantly, prevention of these problems will not even be an option – how can we attempt to prevent problems we aren’t willing to admit even exist? We cannot wait for the problem to face our family members before wanting to make a change. Every young woman is someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, or someone’s friend, and it is our collective duty to provide them with a safe space to have the option to live a healthy life and be able to receive communal support in their most difficult of times.

Changing attitudes and combating cultural stigmas that have existed for generations are not easy tasks, but we cannot keep letting our young women rely on abortion because the community finds it easier to ostracize those who become pregnant out of wedlock instead of providing them with healthy alternatives and coping strategies. We must welcome open discourse and education to raise awareness about these problems, and must work together as a society to develop long-term solutions. It is our responsibility to create a safe space for these individuals free of judgment and full of hope – whether it is through shelters, clinics, or community centers – and have a sustainable support system to give these individuals options to make healthy choices and help each other through these circumstances. Only then can we begin to think about reducing the incidence of problems such as teenage pregnancies, abortion, and sexually-transmitted diseases in our community. The power of education and open discourse cannot be overstated in its impact on changing attitudes; accepting that these issues exist in our communities is just the first stepping stone in the right direction.

Food for Thought

January 19, 2014 by The Heart Team

originally posted on sistersbreakingbarriers.wordpress.com

by Nadiah Mohajir

This article by Wajahat Ali is worth a read. In just a few paragraphs, he humorously and eloquently demonstrates why sex education for our Muslim youth is more crucial than ever.

As he explains how often the “sex talk” is limited to a simple “don’t do it”, with the “it” not even being defined, he highlights why this is not only confusing for our young people, who develop and undergo the same adolescent changes as the rest of their peers, but it also creates a challenge for them to understand, find, and maintain healthy relationships. Using a driving metaphor, he explains “Muslim youth are expected to go from 0 to 60 mph with a spouse, 2.3 kids, and a suburban home without being taught how to start the engine and how to maintain the vehicle on its journey.”

Wajahat Ali hit the nail on the head. The sheer amount of fear of intimacy, clash of expectations between spouses and sexual tension that is all too familiar to many Muslim newlyweds is contributing to years, if not a lifetime of marital discord and unhealthy relationships in our community. Moreover, the lack of culturally-appropriate sex education for our youth is leading to much confusion, risky sexual experimentation, and unhealthy attitudes toward sex.

Our work is now more crucial than ever. Raising awareness about the need for sex education in the Muslim community, and working together to develop culturally-appropriate curriculum is not only necessary, but extremely overdue. As the author ends the article, “There is hope that the birds and bees talk of today will evolve from “Don’t do it!” to “Do it!” – in a manner that is respectful, comfortable and natural to the sensibilities of Muslim individuals and communities.” Totally totally agree. Teaching our kids about sex is not necessarily going to result in increased promiscuity. Rather, if we teach them about sex, the wisdom behind the boundaries Islam has placed, and teach them to have healthy attitudes and expectations of sex, perhaps our youth will have the tools to behave in a manner that is more in line with our values.

An Alternate Reality

January 12, 2014 by The Heart Team

Originally published on altmuslimah.com

By Ayesha Akhtar

Over the last few years, one question HEART has repeatedly asked Muslim girls (ages 10-18) in various arenas is, “what are the top three challenges you face as an American Muslim girl?” Without fail, we receive the following responses: (1) hijab/self-esteem; (2) bullying; and (3) Islamophobia/stereotypes. Troubling? Yes. But completely understandable as these girls share the same interests, watch the same movies, and probably admire the same fashion as others; the only difference is that they are also trying to reconcile their Muslim identity with their American one.

HEART Women and Girls is thrilled to give these girls a creative safe space to discuss these issues. Conversely, when we ask their parents the corresponding question, “what are the top three challenges you think your daughter is facing as an American Muslim girl?”, we receive three completely different answers: getting into the best college, fitting into society, and finding a suitable spouse. This disconnect can imply that parents have no idea what their daughters are dealing with on a daily basis. Is it a big deal? In the short term, maybe not, but when coupled with the underworld that exists today within our Muslim youth, then yes, this disengagement between parents and their children is a significant problem.

Immigrant parents no doubt have a difficult task. I am a first generation American Muslim, and a parent, so I can say with conviction it is not easy to raise children with a deep-rooted cultural and a relatively conservative Muslim identity which flies in the face of a secular society that lives and breathes sexuality in media, music and social circles. And what makes that task even harder is parenting with eyes closed, ignorant to all of the clandestine activity and lying that youth are quite capable of these days.

Parents, you may believe the hardest challenge for your son or daughter is his/her college application, or the noble quest to find a suitable mate, but I beg to differ. Please read this carefully: you are more than likely missing the mark. Take a gander in the Q&A section of any online, instant fatwa website to find adolescents asking questions that suggest an alternate reality exists, laden with problems much greater and overwhelming than selecting a college. They want to know answers to questions ranging from whether or not ‘hugging’ is haram or halal, what officially constitutes ‘dating’, or if we call it ‘intermingling’ does that make it acceptable? They ask questions like, “Where can I get my hymen restored?, “What kind of abortion is the best?” The list goes on.

Often, parents enroll their children in an Islamic school, thinking they can assign to the school their duties to raise their kids with a proper religious and moral upbringing. Boys pick up girls after school, tell their parents a later ‘pick up’ time, or make excuses to be with friends – these lies are being told every day. In many cases, teachers are powerless, and don’t interfere because the parents will start defending their children and accuse the teachers of imparting poor “Islamic social skills” to the students!

It is alarming when this social scene takes a turn towards dating and sex. “I can show you 10 different ways we can get together and you won’t get pregnant” or “if you give me oral sex it’s not haram because I’m a hafiz,” are two different text messages a school administrator recently intercepted. The first text message reflects the sex education that our youth are either being excused from or not receiving in schools. The second text message is indicative of a young hafiz’s thought process (“I’ve memorized the Qur’an, my community adores me for it, ergo, I can do what pleases me”). When communication between parents and their children is not open and honest, this sort of alternate reality world flourishes.

It is a fact that American Muslim youth (in a post 9/11 era) are struggling with their dual identity. This struggle is exacerbated when parents do not engage in candid dialogues and offer information that is relevant to their children’s lives. This much I know from my work with young girls in both public and private school sectors. When we begin any session with a proclamation of an open and honest safe space, participants often give me a puzzled look, or challenge me with countless ‘what ifs’. The reason for this is that they have never been told before they can speak without judgment, or that their confession is ‘safe with me’.

This is precisely the problem! Tweens and adolescents absolutely need to be heard; they are at the age of experimentation and exploration. They are challenging boundaries and asserting their independence. Parents do a greater disservice by pretending that because the child is Muslim and may attend an Islamic school or youth group, he or she does not have any sexual curiosity. Rather than reward their child for asking difficult questions and capitalize on the opportunity to engage in a frank conversation, parents mistakenly reroute their child back to their rooms with the oft-repeated mandate of maintaining same-sex friends, and not attending school parties.

The lack of sex education is a perfect example of a significant challenge in a young teenager’s life, and an insidious epidemic in this country. High school students (and sometimes junior high students) receive a semester or two of sex education, but when this information is not made relevant to a young American Muslim, what good is it? That child will turn around and ask his or her friend for more information or scope the internet for details, often stumbling upon gross misinformation. Isn’t it better they learn this information from you –the parents- or from their health class at school? Unfortunately, we have found that parents are hesitant to welcome sex education, and they shut the door to the conversation at home as well. Leaving teens uninformed only perpetuates the curiosity and the risky sexual behavior that Muslim youth have embarked upon.

There are several things parents can do right away to improve communication and stop the lies, secrecy and ignorance that may take over the relationship between a child and a parent:

Know your child’s friends. Have them over for dinner, or for an after school snack. Girls like to go to the mall, so accompany your daughter and her school friends. Take a book or have coffee while they walk around, but at least you are there.
Understand your child’s worldview. When your son or daughter approaches you with a question that makes you reach for a fatwa, take a deep breath and engage in conversation with your child. What is provoking the question? What are your child’s influences? Consider the media lens (how the media tells your child to fit into society), the peer lens, and the cultural lens, all of which impact your child’s worldview individually and collectively.
Encourage critical thinking. Rather taking a didactic approach to parenting, consider challenging your child with the same question. If you don’t agree with prom, for example, ask your child why s/he thinks your believe it is inadvisable to go?

If there is one thing you take away from this article, it is this: Islam holds a special place for everything that is beautiful; there is no place for ignorance. While raising Muslim children in a non-Muslim society is challenging, it is an even more formidable challenge for young Muslims to turn their heads away from the sexuality, the dating, and the drugs and alcohol when this negation is not supported by their own decision making, but rather finger-pointing and a bunch of unexplained restrictions. Simply presenting Islam as a list of rules is ineffective for the children of this society. Rules are enabled to be disabled.

Ayesha Akhtar was Co-founder and Director of Policy & Research at HEART Women and Girls. Currently, she works for the Epilepsy Foundation for America.

How Best to Teach Youth About Sexuality

January 5, 2014 by The Heart Team

by Nadiah Mohajir

originally published on altmuslimah.com

Umm Reem, the author of the article “The Reality of Sex Education in Public Schools,” contends that Muslim parents should be wary of the sex education curriculum in the American public school system, and claims that it is not merely biology lessons, but rather, a value-laden program correlated with an increase in promiscuity, teen pregnancies and STIs, and homosexuality in society. She contends that sex-ed curricula in the US are based on three organizations: Advocates for Youth, SIECUS, and Planned Parenthood.

This claim in and of itself is inaccurate, as there is no standard of sex education curricula in the US, leading to hundreds of sex education programs throughout America, ranging from inaccurate, biology-limited curriculum to abstinence only curriculum, to comprehensive sex curriculum. As a public health professional, I maintain that the empirical data does not support Umm Reem’s claims, and in fact, she is gravely mistaken. Her unfounded claims and the platform they are given are doing a serious disservice to the rising generation of American Muslim youth in America.

First, the research shows the opposite of Umm Reem’s claims: there is no evidence that increased access to sex education leads to increased promiscuity or earlier initiation of sexual intercourse. In fact, according to the Guttmacher Institute:

“strong evidence suggests that comprehensive approaches to sex education help young people both withstand the pressures to have sex too soon, and to have healthy, responsible, mutually protective relationships when they do become sexually active…. Two-thirds of the forty-eight comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and use of contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavioral effects… Many either delayed or reduced sexual activity, reduced the number of sexual partners, or increased use of contraceptives.”

In other words, youth who receive comprehensive sex education actually prove to be more responsible than their peers who receive limited/no sex education.

Second, let us address the high pregnancy and STI rates in the U.S., and Umm Reem’s assumed reason for this increase in “promiscuity.” While STI rates and the teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. are still some of the highest in the developed world, teen pregnancies have actually been steadily declining, with many researchers attributing this to increased access to comprehensive, accurate sexual education. In 2009, the teen pregnancy rate reached a historic low, at 39.1 births per 1000 women ages 15-19. Furthermore, Umm Reem carelessly proclaims that American public school sexual education programs are responsible for the high STI rate, claiming the “sex-ed industry is dedicated to promot[ing] radical, social ideologies that value unconditional sexual freedom above any health, science, or parental authority. The aim is to encourage promiscuity experimentation and unrestricted sexual behavior.” As a public health professional trained to appreciate the importance of empirical data, I ask Umm Reem for any evidence supporting such an outrageous claim. The very purpose of sexual education is to prevent disease and keep youth safe and responsible, and to ultimately reduce STIs and teen pregnancies – not encourage them.

Ironically, STI and teen pregnancy rates have increased due to teens’ lack of information or belief in wrong information, stemming from abstinence-only sex education, or even no sex education at all. The 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth reveals that as many as 46% of sexually experienced males and 33% of sexually experienced females did not receive formal instruction about contraception before they first had sex . A 2009 study conducted by the National Campaign to End Unplanned Pregnancy indicates that among teens aged 18-19, 41% report that they know little or nothing about condoms and 75% say they know little or nothing about the contraceptive pill.

I certainly will not deny that there is an abundance of sexuality in our society. Yet empirical research and anecdotal evidence prove that this prevalence is not a consequence of youth having more access to information; rather, it is the consequence of a hyper-sexualized media, combined with low self-worth and body image. Our youth are bombarded with thousands of sexual imagery and messaging every day, through ads, magazines, music, music videos, social media, and the internet. Not surprisingly, a 2008 longitudinal study in Pediatrics is one of many studies that reveal compelling results: exposure to high levels of sexual content on television has been shown to be associated with an increased risk of initiating sexual activity, as well as a greater likelihood of involvement in teen pregnancy. Adolescents going through puberty are experiencing physical and emotional changes, and also becoming pre-occupied with one’s appearance and self conscious around others. The pressing need to fit in is a natural part of adolescence. Unfortunately, the media exploits this need to fit in, through a clear emphasis on unattainable beauty, sexuality, and power. The media thrives on feeding people’s insecurities – whether they are physical, emotional, sexual, or academic. No matter what the product, the idea portrayed is that one becomes a better person once buying that product. Most of the time, regardless of the product, sexual innuendo is used to ultimately market the product.

So when our kids don’t receive formal sex education, they learn what they can wherever they can – from the media, from similarly uninformed peers, from the Internet. As I continue to speak with educators and administrators for my work with HEART Women and Girls, I am repeatedly told that students in private Islamic schools, where sexual health education is limited to biology and the legalities of cleanliness, are still partaking in sexual activity, including experimentation with oral sex and homosexuality – only without any protection or knowledge of consequences of their actions.

Is it reasonable to expect traditional Muslim families to take on this responsibility and have such discussions at home? I don’t deny that parental involvement and communication about sexuality is important, but the truth of the matter is, it is not being done often enough. Because of our religious emphasis on modesty and on sexual matters being private, many Muslims are uncomfortable speaking of sexual matters and their role in healthy relationships. Additionally, as illustrated so effectively by Umm Reem, many Muslims fear that open discussion on sexuality inevitable leads to promiscuity. The lack of open discussion and access to sex education has two serious consequences:

The spread of misinformation and unhealthy attitudes toward gender and sex: The absence of reliable sources of information leads young people to search out information in pornographic magazines, Internet sites, and erotic visual programs, or to rely on information picked up on the street, from peers at school or work, or from obscene jokes. However, these sources of information are plagued with myths, misinformation, and misunderstandings, as well as unhealthy attitudes toward gender and sexuality. In fact, more than half of 7th-12th graders look up information on the Internet; of 177 sexual health web sites examined in a recent study, 46% of those addressing contraception were inaccurate.
Lack of understanding of what constitutes a healthy relationship: Young women and men who are neither informed about their bodies nor educated about what constitutes a healthy relationship will remain unequipped to identify when they are being abused or who they can turn to for help. A study examining Muslim Iranian women questioned whether increased information about sexuality would have positive effects; the results showed that many believed that it would improve “the woman’s ability to avoid health compromising situations or behaviors once they were aware of them.

As stated in my previous article on sexual abuse:

“Young women who are neither informed about their bodies nor educated on what constitutes as a healthy relationship, remain ill equipped to identify when they are being abused or who they can turn to for help.”

The solution to reducing teen pregnancy and STIs is not removing your child from sex education. It is clear that experimentation, curiosity, and peer pressure get the best of many young people and sexual activity will take place. The key to reducing early sex, teen pregnancy and STIs is actually standardizing sexual health education so that every young person has access to accurate, comprehensive sexual health information. Young people also need to be equipped with decision-making skills, in combination with strong parent-child communication. Creating an emotionally safe environment for our youth is crucial; research shows that when emotional safety is not established, the need to fit in generally trumps the authentic voice . Emotional safety is created through strong parent-child communication, open dialogue, and mutual trust and respect.

On the surface, Umm Reem’s arguments may seem easy to believe; yet upon further inspection, the lack of empirical data and unsupported claims undermine its argument.

Sex Education

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