Mombasa, Kenya — Imam Bukuru Elie Khalfan is very personal about the need for open conversations about sexuality.

The Burundian faith leader recalled becoming a father while he and his wife were still young and knew little about sexual and reproductive health. Their limited knowledge left them unsure about contraception and what to do when they faced an unintended pregnancy risk.

"We were young teenagers, and it was too hard for us to understand sexuality. We knew nothing," Khalfan said at the MenEngage Africa SRHR Learning and Exchange Symposium in Mombasa.

A nurse friend eventually helped them obtain emergency contraception, after Khalfan struggled to find it at a pharmacy. But misinformation about how long the contraception remained effective later contributed to another unintended pregnancy.

Follow us on WhatsApp | LinkedIn for the latest headlines

That experience has shaped how he now speaks to young people and parents about sexual and reproductive health and rights.

"If you cannot tell the truth right now, it will be too hard to understand what is going on in our societies," he said, describing his decision to speak openly with his son about sexual and reproductive health rather than let ignorance repeat itself. That conviction extends beyond his own household, to his congregation, and to the fellow religious leaders. He urged faith communities to move beyond discomfort and create spaces where sexuality can be discussed openly, including with children and young people.

Khalfan, legal representative of the Alliance des Imams du Corridor en Ordre pour le Développement Humanitaire and global director of the "Imams for She" campaign, was one of several faith leaders gathered for a panel on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), a subject still largely unspoken in mosques, churches, and synagogues across the region.

His personal history set up the panel's central question: what role do religious leaders actually play - or could play - in advancing gender equality and reproductive rights across the region?

Faith leaders, he said, are not weighing whether to enter this conversation. They're already in it, whether they acknowledge it or not. "Regional leaders are already part of many, many millions of African people, of African families," he said. "People come to us when they are getting married, when they are having children, when they have a conflict in their family, and when young people are struggling...

"So the question is not whether religious leaders should be involved in this conversation. They are already involved. The real question is what kind of influence will we use?"

That influence, Khalfan said, can either deepen stigma or help communities approach sexuality and reproductive health with greater openness and compassion. He said that faith leaders should see themselves not only as preachers, but also as educators and advocates, particularly for women and girls. Religious leaders, he said, can help address misconceptions about sexual and reproductive health, especially among young people.

He laid out three ways religious leaders can act on that influence.

The first is education and not the kind confined to a Friday or Sunday sermon. Misconceptions about sexual and reproductive health, he said, persist even among the most devout, which means leaders have to engage with the subject year-round, not just from the pulpit. The second is advocacy for women and girls, a cause he insisted belongs in everyday religious life rather than international conference rooms alone. "Gender equality cannot be my only subject," he said. "Preaching dignity, protecting life, preventing violence are values that our community already understands."

The third is training: religious leaders need the evidence and skills to engage SRHR while understanding how to interpret religious texts in their own contexts.

"Do not say that Islam is talking about this," he warned, "or say only we are Muslim, we have to talk about sexual and reproductive health," - a caution against leaders using faith as a blanket justification without real study behind it. Any approach, he said, has to resonate with the congregation it's meant for, because a religious leader's influence, unlike a politician's or an NGO's, was never granted by invitation. It was simply already there, embedded in the fabric of family and community life.

Khalfan said that the opportunity lies in using the trust and reach of faith communities to replace silence and stigma with conversations grounded in dignity, compassion and accurate information.

The debate over sexuality and gender is not taking place only in health facilities or political institutions. It is also unfolding in religious spaces, where competing ideas about family, culture, morality and human rights are shaping public opinion and, increasingly, political debates.

Building a response to the anti-rights push

Koami Mawuwi Ahiakon, speaking about lessons from anti-gender mobilisation in West Africa, warned that progressive movements cannot afford to respond only after such campaigns have gained momentum.

"The answer cannot rest solely on LGBTQ organisations," he said. He called instead for broader coalitions involving feminist movements, human rights defenders, health professionals, young people, students and the media. Religious leaders, he added, should also be part of these conversations.

"Religious leaders must be open to different dialogues," said Ahiakon.

He said that the language of family, culture, faith and sovereignty should not be left exclusively to conservative movements to define. In his view, building alternative narratives requires early preparation, engagement with influential actors and alliances that reflect the realities of individual countries. He pointed to Sierra Leone and Liberia, countries that have already been through this kind of organized push, as case studies in exactly how it unfolds and what a response looks like in practice.

Mobilisation around gender and sexuality can eventually influence public discourse, legislation and political action. That makes early engagement essential. "We must anticipate, analyse, form coalitions, communicate a lot, plead and take collective action," he said.

What actually works

Reverend Ngonidzashe Mutume said that one of the clearest lessons from efforts to engage religious communities on sexual and reproductive health is that faith leaders should not be treated as barriers to progress.

"We have to position faith leaders as trusted gatekeepers, not obstacles," he said.

Drawing on case studies from Bofabonetha in Botswana, MyAgeAfrica in Zimbabwe, and UNAIDS  Malawi, Mutume said faith leaders already have something that health systems often struggle to build: the trust of their communities. He said that religious leaders can influence attitudes, behaviour and community norms.

But that influence needs to be engaged in ways that respect the beliefs and traditions of the communities involved. Mutume said successful approaches have grounded conversations about sexual and reproductive health and rights in scripture and theology rather than presenting them as values imposed from outside.

"We have to root advocacy in scripture and theology, not external imposition," he said.

Such an approach, he said, allows religious leaders to examine their own beliefs and interpretations, making the process of change more likely to be accepted and sustained within communities.

"It doesn't impose external values but helps leaders examine their own beliefs, so change is community-owned rather than externally driven," said Mutume.

He also highlighted the importance of moving beyond individual denominations. In Zimbabwe, for example, MyAge Africa brought together leaders from apostolic, Pentecostal, African indigenous, mainstream Christian and Muslim communities to engage in dialogue.

"We have to go interfaith and intersectoral, not single denomination," Mutume said.

The lesson, he said, is that engaging faith communities on SRHR does not require starting from scratch in every country. Instead, successful approaches can be adapted to local contexts while drawing on the trust, theological knowledge and community networks that religious leaders already possess.

Turning experience into a tool others can use

Cynthia Lungu, who leads gender work for UNAIDS in Eastern and Southern Africa, said one of the challenges is ensuring that successful experiences engaging faith leaders on sexual and reproductive health do not remain isolated stories.

Lungu highlighted a regional compendium of good practices developed jointly by several UN agencies and co-created with religious and traditional leaders. The resource brings together examples from countries including Eswatini, Botswana, South Africa and Malawi, allowing governments, civil society and faith leaders to learn from approaches that have already been tested in communities. It grew out of a 2024 convening of traditional and religious leaders, where the idea emerged to gather scattered good practices into a single reference that religious and traditional leaders, civil society, and governments could adapt across different countries.

Lungu said their influence stems partly from their permanence. Unlike politicians, whose terms in office are limited, traditional and religious leaders remain embedded in their communities, giving them a sustained platform from which to influence social norms and catalyse change.

Traditional and religious leaders, by contrast, stay rooted in their communities indefinitely, giving them a durable position of trust and influence that few other actors can match.

The compendium itself draws together roughly ten best practices from across the Eastern and Southern African region, including examples from Eswatini, Botswana, South Africa, and Malawi. She said that it isn't just a collection of case studies, but it also lays out a process other stakeholders can follow to adapt the practices to their own context. That process starts with interrogating the specific drivers of harmful social norms in a given community, before identifying who to collaborate with and what sustainable outcomes would actually look like.

"The compendium doesn't just compile the case studies, but it also goes a step further to provide steps that stakeholders can actually use to adapt and adopt the best practices," she said.

Fighting back from within

Ishmael Bahati said the growing anti-rights movement means advocates cannot afford to work in isolation.

"The issue of anti-rights is no longer a regional thing. It's a discussion that has to happen in every context," said Bahati, a passionate advocate and co-founder of PEMA Kenya.

He outlined five priorities: building regional solidarity, maintaining alliances, developing faith-based advocacy tools, strengthening the capacity of religious leaders and changing public narratives around gender, sexuality, family and dignity.

The first was regional solidarity: building a united voice across countries so that religious and traditional leaders aren't responding to anti-rights mobilization in isolation, while also working to maintain alliances with stakeholders whose support could otherwise erode as anti-rights messaging makes inroads into shared spaces. The second priority was developing faith-based tools: briefings and educational aids grounded in theologically moderated readings of the Bible and Quran, built specifically to support advocates working on these issues outside formal religious institutions.

The third was advocating from within faith spaces themselves, training and empowering individuals to make the case for sexual and reproductive health rights fluently in the language of faith, rather than importing outside frameworks that might be received as foreign impositions. The fourth was comprehensive capacity-building for religious leaders that goes beyond theology, incorporating research methods, cultural literacy, and scientific grounding, so that leaders advocate with a fuller picture rather than theology alone.

The fifth was reframing the public narrative altogether, using accessible materials - books, simplified policy summaries, cultural education - to recast family and dignity as concepts compatible with sexual and reproductive health rights rather than opposed to them.

He pointed to social media as one avenue for this, floating messages built around Ubuntu and communal African values of compassion and diversity, and pushing for shared tables that bring together faith actors, politicians, young people, business leaders, and traditional leaders alike. The underlying argument, he said, is a matter of reclaiming what faith is for: protection, not exclusion.

"There is a need for us to talk in one voice, to face this together, use context, and learn from the previous things that have happened before," he said.

Bahati said that advocacy must also happen from within faith communities. Rather than leaving conversations about sexual and reproductive health and rights to external advocates, he said individuals within religious spaces should be equipped to engage their communities using language and theological frameworks that resonate with them.

The aim, he said, is to challenge the idea that faith must be associated with exclusion. "Faith is supposed to protect and not to be used for exclusion," said Bahati.