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| Sex education awaits more action |
| CCTV.COM 2003-07-11 12:07:54 |
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Friday marks World Population Day. This year's theme is the "Young people have the right to reproductive health information and services". While sex used to be a sensitive topic in China, there has been a trend in recent years to greater openness. At the same time, sex education has become a buzz word among some young Chinese.
Will taking birth control pills be harmful to women? Such talk about sex in public was nearly unthinkable 10 years ago. But now, it is not only out in the open, but can also be fun as well.
At a party at Remin University of China to mark the World Population Day, the students use songs, poems and games to convey the theme of the day "Adolescents have the right to reproductive health information and services."
The word sex used to be a taboo in China. But no longer now. At least not on this campus. Students here say they have been running this program called "peer education" for three years and more than 6,000 students have benefited from it.
The program was launched with the support of the UN Population Fund and China's State Commission for Population and Family Planning. It allows student volunteers to learn about sex education from experts and then pass the knowledge on to their fellow students. Such education has proved popular on campus.
Li Fang, student volunteer for Peer Education at Remin University of China, said, "At first the students were very shy. We didn't dare say it was a lecture about sex, otherwise the students wouldn't come. Now these activities have been going on for three years and students do enjoy them and have learned a lot. Sometimes they'd even give us suggestions. They say, 'We hope you will keep this going and never give up. We want to learn more and take part in these educational activities.'"
These students are trail－blazers of sex education in an increasingly permissive society, where ideas such as premarital sex no longer seem as unthinkable as for previous generations. One study throughout the 1990's reports that as many as 5 percent of middle school students, and 10 percent of university students, may be sexually active.
But as the values of the younger generation go through profound changes, the development of sex education hasn't increased at the same rate. To date, young people still have limited access to such information, making them the most vulnerable population to emotional problems and sexually transmitted diseases.
Liu Yongfeng, deputy director of Int'l Dept. of China Family Planning Association, said, "The main challenge lies in the mind of people. Educators and service providers are not confident in addressing the issue openly. For the older generation wasn't exposed to sex education and they grew up in different world. It could be difficult for them to accept individuality and sexuality of young people, therefore it is difficult for them to communicate with the young."
But the encouraging thing is that there are already people out there trying to make a difference. Programs like the one in Remin University of China have so far been extended to 14 Chinese provinces. Sections devoted to adolescents's health problems have opened in hospitals, and special web sites have been set up to answer their needs as well. But still, experts are calling for greater policy support as well as money and resources to be channeled into this area.
Representative of UN Population Fund Siri Tellier said, "We have to make it possible for them to take the best possible choices about their health so that they can be healthy now. But also, the choices they make now will be important for the next 30 or 50 years. The young people are the future of any nation. The future of China."
And wise choices, they say, can only be made with an open mind and adequate information.
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Editor: Xiao Wei CCTV.com
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