Adolescents and youth require sexual and reproductive health information, education, and services globally to see positive health outcomes. This is also true of Muslim youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The controversial nature of sexuality education in the MENA region is not a result of Islamic doctrine but rather the result of cultural sexual taboos being misinterpreted as grounded in Islam.

The Western approach to sexuality education should be tailored and culturally adapted to the MENA region because of the differences in history, religion, and culture.

Incorporating sexuality education within religious and cultural frameworks is not an easy task and is best achieved through an ongoing process that is open to change and flexible to adaptation based on evidence-based findings.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is home to 80 million youth, and its young adult population makes up 10% of the world’s population. Concurrently, the region is home to more than half of the world’s refugees, with more than one-third of young people living in fragile and conflict-affected countries.1 These conflict situations, with prevalent poverty and limited economic opportunities in the region, heighten the vulnerability of young people to HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), unintended pregnancies, and unsafe abortion. In the Arab region, 2 in 5 pregnancies are still unintended and one-half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion.2 This vulnerability is further aggravated by the prevalent violence and collapsed health systems in the affected countries.3 The situation is even worse for adolescent girls who face complex challenges that alter the course of their development for their entire lives.4

Despite …