Sex taboos: What to do?
By Dwight Daniels (Shanghai Star)
Updated: 2005-06-13 15:38

China's got a sex problem. The number of single women having abortions is increasing at an exponential rate. Chinese medical experts say that last year, unmarried women accounted for about 65 per cent of abortions in major cities.

Young lovers walking on campus [file photo]

In 1999, single women represented just 25 per cent of the women receiving abortions, according to Dr Yan Fengting, a medical adviser at the Nanjing Organon Pharmaceutical Co. Women in China between the ages of 20 and 29 lead the population as recipients of the surgery to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

One doesn't have to look far to understand what's going on here. Quietly, the nation is undergoing a sexual revolution.

Young people inundated with a more open Western culture have far different norms from a generation or two ago, when just holding hands in public was frowned upon.

These kids are having premarital sex. But there's a lack of corresponding sex education and contraceptive understanding. Some students at Chinese colleges are about as naive as elementary school students in developed countries when it comes to receiving education on sex-related matters.

One told me that all she was told by her mother was that babies came from "mummy's armpit". That's the Chinese equivalent of the old American tale that babies are dropped off by a stork at expectant parents' homes.

A survey conducted in 2003 by the Chinese Youth and Children Research Centre, which involved 5,000 college students across China, indicated 6.6 per cent of respondents had received thorough sex education at the college level. An alarming 36 per cent said they had not received any sex education at college.

Even today, such subjects are rarely spoken about, although many are seeking relationships. This leaves some young Chinese women extremely vulnerable to errant pregnancies or sexually transmitted diseases.

A few university administrators seem to want to keep it this way. When anti-HIV/AIDS workers from a Beijing sub-district health bureau tried to distribute 2,500 free condoms at Peking and Tsinghua universities late last year, they were quickly shown the door.

Condoms that were going to distribute were rounded up and given to the schools' hospitals, where officials declined to say when, or if, they'd be distributed.

At another university, just the thought of having condom dispensing machines was too much for the righteous administrators to handle.

The Guangdong University of Foreign Studies disapproved of plans to install vending machines, believing it would create a false impression that the university authorities tolerated sexual behaviour on campus.

However, in Beijing, the condom promotion went off without a hitch at more enlightened universities where students eager to learn more about sex education snatched up information and the condoms. Education was not harmed. China's moral foundation still stands.

Zhang Zesheng from the Haidian District disease control centre said young university students are at far greater risk of contracting HIV if safe sex education is not made available to them.

Would university administrators rather see a spike in AIDS deaths and abortion rates because of some perverted concept of maintaining propriety on college campuses?

The Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission and Nanjing Organon Pharmaceutical Co say that they will be launching sex education courses at universities in their cities.

They have announced that experts will give lectures on campuses later this year.

That's great. But if you really want students to get the message, make sure the speakers include a young woman who has suffered the ill-effects of a needless, life-altering abortion. Or, a courageous HIV-infected student.

And don't forget to enlist university administrators early on in your cause. In fact, see if they'll staff the booths where free condoms will be distributed to students. Maybe then the administrators will understand the urgency of this fight.

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