Engagement of Muslim Religious Sectors for the Prevention of HIV/STI in Mumbai, India

Rajendra Singh, International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
Ravi K. Verma, International Center for Research on Women (ICRW)
Stephen L. Schensul, University of Connecticut
Saggruti Niranjan, Population Council

The data is drawn from an Indo/US, NIMH-funded project (2007-2013) of 500,000 people in Mumbai. Engagement with Imams began with interviews, meetings, sensitization, training and workshops to craft community messages that focused on HIV prevention and sexual risk. These messages were delivered by the Imams as a part of the takrir (lecture) each Friday prayer, community group meetings and events. To assess the impact a Gender Equity Scale (GES) was developed and administered to cross-sectional random samples in the community men and women and Imams in 2009, 2010 and 2011. Imams showed a highly significant positive change (p < .001) in gender attitudes. Results in the study community, as compared to the control community, showed a highly significant (p < .001) positive change for men and women. The results demonstrate that it is highly productive to involve the Muslim religious sector in HIV/STI prevention especially to reach men in a Muslim community.