Religion
Sometimes religion is used by conservative societies and institutions to prevent females from participating in sport.
Religious groups within society selectively appropriate religious texts to demonstrate sport as inappropriate for girls. This often shames families whose daughters play or scares families into barring their daughters from playing out of fear of religious authorities.
The reality is that although many religious traditions do dictate appropriate clothing for sport or appropriate spaces, very few, if any, bar girls from playing and participating in sport. In fact, many religions promote sport as a tool for well-being. For more information on how to engage religious leaders, go to the Community Engagement section of this guide.
Our recommendations
In the infographic below you can see some recommendations for dealing with this barrier. You can adopt these to suit your context. You can also download the infographic to use offline.
Case Study
You can see a case study of how other organisations have addressed this barrier by clicking the accordion menu below.
HODI (Horn of Africa Development Initiative) is a community organization in Northern Kenya that works toward justice and development in the Horn of Africa through advocacy, education, peace building and sustainable livelihoods. One of their programmes, Sport on the Cutting Edge, uses football as a vehicle for life skill building and awareness raising around SRHR and GBV, with a focus on female genital mutilation and cutting. Girls meet up weekly to play football and participate in life skill sessions. A very important part of the programme engages local community leaders, and most importantly, local imams, around the importance of sport and uses them as champions against FGM/C within the community because of their influence.
