China Launches Sex Education, HIV-Prevention Program Aimed at Truckers
China has launched a sex education program with support from international organizations that provides long-distance truck and bus drivers with decks of cartoon playing cards displaying sexual health information at no cost, PTI/ZeeNews.com reports. The playing cards include cartoon illustrations that depict safer-sex practices, as well as HIV-prevention methods. The local government in Yanshan County, located in China's Hebei Province, already has distributed the playing cards to bus and truck drivers in the area. "Most long-distance truck and bus drivers lack knowledge about safe[r] sex," Zhang Manli, secretary general of Yanshan County's family planning association, said, adding, "That makes it possible for venereal disease and HIV/AIDS to spread quickly among them and their wives and girlfriends." The program is part of an effort by Chinese family planning officials to expand sex education to various groups, including army units, prisoners, drivers and migrant populations. According to Zhao Rongqiao, a family planning official from China's Shandong Province, sex education has been carried out among some army units in the province, and officials have received positive responses from the soldiers. Although sex education in the past has been limited to students, cities such as Shenzhen, Qingdao, Beijing and Wuhan over the past five years have targeted programs at migrant workers, prisoners and men who have sex with men (Joseph, PTI/ZeeNews.com, 3/30).
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