It is prayer time at the Nur madrassa (Islamic religious school) in Pemba, capital of Cabo Delgado province on the northern coast of Mozambique. At this school, education does not stop at religious studies; on Saturdays, the malimo (teacher), Mitilage Rashid, talks to the 120 students about HIV and AIDS.
In 2008 Rashid attended a course on HIV run by the Islamic Council of Mozambique, in partnership with other organisations, where he and 30 other teachers learned about the epidemic and how to conduct education campaigns at their schools. Mozambique’s national prevalence rate is 16 percent; in mainly Muslim Cabo Delgado, which borders Tanzania, it is 10.6 percent, the lowest in the country.
Although some teachers still shun the subject, others understand the importance of discussing it, but the HIV message in the madrassas is quite different from that in regular schools. According to Sheikh Mohammed Abdulai Cheba, director of Cabo Delgado’s 54 madrassas, the message has two parts: the first makes it clear that HIV is a divine punishment; the second reinforces the idea that the only way to prevent it is through abstinence and fidelity.
“The mouse cannot see the peanut, or else he will want to eat it. If you carry a condom in your pocket, you’re going to start thinking things. People have sex illegally but this is a grave mistake, because it occurs outside the authorisation of the family. If they want to commit this act, they must prepare all of the requisites: get married, bring their families closer and legalise the life they’re going to lead,” says Cheba.
Condoms are not discussed, as the teachers feel they could lead pupils to have sex, which is haram (‘forbidden’ in Arabic). Yet associating HIV with forbidden behaviour must not encourage prejudice or discrimination. “If someone is sick — Muslim or not — they deserve to be counselled, and we support them, morally and materially,” says Cheba.
“As a teacher, I always advise students to use condoms,” says Adamo Selemani Daudo, who teaches history at the Fraternidade Secondary School, which is supported by the Islamic community and is located next to one of the most conservative mosques in Pemba. “In the madrassas they defend not using condoms in order to practice fidelity, but there is no fidelity nowadays in Mozambique. I tell my students that condoms are an individual matter,” says Daudo.
(Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)