Strengthening the capacity of muslim and muslim women in PUDAH to demand and claim their sexual rights in Karu, a project of Womankind, Nigeria

Womankind works to address issues arising from taboos around sexuality; women's limited ownership of their bodies; customary practices that constitute major human rights violations; the discriminatory nature of laws related to sexuality which lead to severe human rights violations; the discrepancies between law and practice; the conceptualization of women's bodies and sexuality as belonging to men, their families and society, and insufficient sexual and reproductive health services available to Women to claim their sexual rights in Karu and Keffi in Nasarawa State, north central Nigeria.

Project:  Womankind Nigeria for Women living with HIV Campaign

Specific activities:

• Training of trainers for women living with HIV/AIDS on their rights as provided by religion
• Production of 3,000 booklets on women’s rights under religious laws

Main strategies:

It is always difficult to mobilize Muslim Women in the community, especially since the project focuses on Sexual and Reproductive Rights.  Womankind surmounted the challenge through engaging the village heads and Muslims women group leaders in a dialogue, focused group discussions and other Community Dialogues, and thus  gaining entry into the community.

Outcomes:

The project which carried out a capacity buildingworkshop was a success, as many of the women beneficiaires currently have access to information through the effort of Woman kind Nigeria. The workshop was highly publicised with publication of posters with messages promoting healthy sexual behaviours. 

The organisation has since then become a resource center for informaton on sexualty rights issues inlcuding basic counselling on sexualty rights issues, how to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV amongst other issues. 

Below see advocacy materials from this campaign.