Muslim AIDS activist honoured

Fanta Ongoiba one of six Muslim women recognized at Women Who Inspire awards

Fanta Ongoiba has spent the last two decades pulling back the veil on one of Islam’s most delicate cultural taboos: sexual health.

“HIV/AIDS doesn’t discriminate,” Ongoiba said. “The way the women are wearing the veil, hijab, to cover themselves, HIV can also be covered this way.”

As the executive director of Torontobased Africans in Partnership Against Aids, Ongoiba educates Muslims in the city and her home country of Mali about the importance of protection from sexually transmitted diseases.

“It doesn’t mean you pray five times a day that you cannot catch HIV,” Ongoiba said.

That message has been met with resistance — at an international conference, one sheik called her a “troublemaker,” a label she embraced.

“I said, ‘Yes, I’d prefer to be a troublemaker to wake you up,’ ” Ongoiba said.

But her efforts have also earned her recognition, and on Sunday Ongoiba was honoured by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women. She spoke to the Star before the awards ceremony, and an edited version of the conversation follows: What changes have you seen in the 20 years your organization has been active? At the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, before the first treatments came, people were suffering and dying. Now we are seeing the reduction of the infection rate in our community. We have developed a lot of services, compared to the beginning, when we were just going to the hospital and interpreting what people wanted to say to their doctor. We have done work with Toronto imams. And we train people living with HIV/AIDS to share their experiences. That changes a lot in the community, to educate people in terms of HIV transmission and infection, and to reduce the stigma in the community. What sort of stigmas exist in Muslim communities? In Muslim communities at the beginning, it was the same thing as Christian communities. The only message was abstinence. Yes, somebody can abstain, but how long can somebody abstain? You can use a condom to prevent transmission — and it’s better to prevent than to treat. People in general in Muslim communities, they have been raised and educated as, “You don’t need to have sex until marriage.” But today’s generation is not like

“Yes, I’d prefer to be a troublemaker to wake you up.” FANTA ONGOIBA HER RESPONSE TO RESISTANCE FROM A SHEIK ABOUT HER WORK EDUCATING MUSLIMS ON SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES

previous generations. It’s something that is biological — people need to explore. Most of the time the myth is, in a Muslim community, there is no HIV/AIDS. No. Muslims have sex also. But they don’t talk about sex. It’s not only HIV — HIV is the biggest factor — but there’s many sexually transmitted disease. If you do not protect yourself, you will not be able to avoid that. Was it difficult to convince imams to support your efforts? Here in Toronto, I approach the imams at the mosques where I go all the time to pray. I get close to the imam, and then explain the work I do in the community. In Mali, it was difficult. They do not want to talk about it because it was taboo. But I explained to them, religion doesn’t have anything to do with culture. Let us separate the god side and let us focus on the cultural side.

Five other Muslim women were celebrated Sunday with Women Who Inspire awards: Erum Noreen Afsar, who works to promote the equality of Muslim women in Canadian society; Mumtaz Ebrahim, an advocate for learning and literacy; Jamelie Hassan, an internationally recognized visual artist; Almas Jiwani, a humanitarian who pushes for gender equality; and Fatima Sajan, a social justice activist and educator.

This interview has been edited and condensed.