Experts from the UN and relevant Chinese institutes campaigned on Thursday (Oct. 31), insisting on an increased sex education for young people.

According to the latest report issued by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), every year, about 7.3 million girls under the age of 18 in developing countries give birth. Although the figure is not high in China, the situation is not optimistic as 91 percent of the girls here terminated their pregnancies.

Arie Hoekman, representative of the UNFPA in China [China.org.cn]

"Many times, it is the girls who get blamed for getting pregnant," said Arie Hoekman, representative of the UNFPA in China.

"But in fact, most of the time, they don't have any control over their own lives and their own bodies…It is a result of having little or no accesses to school, employment, quality information and healthcare."

According to another survey conducted among 21,960 samples taken from China's 31 provinces by the Institute of Population Research of Peking University in 2009, the rate of abortions before marriage among girls and young women aged 15 to 24 reached up to 44‰, while the pregnancy rate before marriage stood at 49‰.

Zhang Lei, leading researcher of the program said, "The marginalized and stereotyped sex education, which cannot meet the diversified demands of society, contributes to the reckless abortions seen among young people."

China witnessed a conservative era, before the nation's reform and opening up, in which sex was a taboo. Today, the traditional mindset of the older generations still affects society as the first-time introduction of the textbook on sex education stirred up a huge controversy a mere two years ago.

Jiang Fangzhou (M), author and editor of New Weekly is named as the ambassador of the campaign-"For Youth" [China.org.cn]

According to Liu Wenli, deputy professor in Recognition Neuropsychology Sciences at Beijing Normal University, the teachers who received sex education training were still reluctant to actually say the words "sex," "penis" and "vagina" out loud.

However, things are changing as the textbooks compiled by Liu and her colleagues have been adopted by 12 primary schools in Beijing and those pupils who attended the classes are getting more well-informed.

The experts in the campaign also highlighted contraception as a good way to avoid adolescent pregnancy and abortion.

"Young people usually have a very weak awareness of contraception, which would effectively avoid adolescent pregnancies," said Wu Shangchun, researcher with the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

"A condom is helpful for those in one-night stands to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted disease and pregnancy; the other contraceptives are suitable for couples in stable relationships," Wu advised.

Moreover, the comprehensive knowledge on sex will also create a correct mindset concerning the values of love and sex.

"Without the appropriate guidance of sex education, people can find the information nowhere except from pornographic programs, which certainly skew the value of sex," said Jiang Fangzhou, campaigner of the program as well as author for and editor of New Weekly.

"I can tell that many female friends of mine are suffering from the inequality in the relationships with their boyfriends. They sacrificed themselves to the requirements, which they should not be submitted to, by allowing their boyfriends to have sex without safe contraception, ignoring their own values and independence."

In addition to the urban sex education, experts also got aware of the existing vacuum in the remote areas in the middle and western regions across the country, where the girls suffer from even less equality than those in the cities.

The campaign organized by UNFPA and Sohu.com Charity projects to close the gap in the future.

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