MedicalNewsToday.com discusses a recent initiative to provide sex education and contraceptives to women workers at a cell phone factory in Shanghai to battle high rates of unsafe abortions carried out by unmarried female migrant workers as well as a general lack of knowledge on contraceptives and STD prevention:
Young, single women in urban China are aware of contraceptive methods but some may be too shy to ask for them, research published in the online open access journal BMC Health Services Research reveals. Young women want more information, but need private and anonymous family planning because of judgemental attitudes surrounding premarital sex and particularly premarital pregnancy.
Encouraging contraceptive use among young migrant workers in China to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases is no easy task, according to the study by Xu Qian and other researchers from Fudan University, Shanghai, China and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK. Prompted by their research published in 2004, which showed a high percentage of urban women had experienced abortion prior to marriage, Xu Qian’s team targeted young female workers (aged 16-30) at a Shanghai mobile phone factory. They offered lectures, information leaflets and a free workplace contraceptive service led by the factory’s doctors, who received extra training. [Full text]
See also a summary of the actual research report: Promoting Contraceptive Use Among Unmarried Female Migrants in One Factory in Shanghai: A Pilot Workplace Intervention by Xu Qian, Helen J Smith, Wenyuan Huang, Jie Zhang, Ying Huang and Paul Garner.
See also an earlier report: Unintended Pregnancy and Induced Abortion Among Unmarried Women in China: A Systematic Review by Xu Qian, Shenglan Tang, and Paul Garner.
See also an earlier post More Women Suffer from HIV/AIDS in China.
