That appears to be the position of local authorities. They announced Tuesday that the city will embark on a 10-year plan to establish neighborhood-based networks to provide "better" information about reproduction for the city's 6 million adult men and women 15 to 49 years old.

The plan calls for each neighborhood to be at the forefront of sex education for at least 90 percent of the neighborhood's residents of "childbearing age."

At least 95 percent should be knowledgeable about contraception, the plan states.

"The city should do much more to promote safe sex, since only 12.97 percent of adult men are using condoms. That's the main reason for unplanned pregnancies among local married women," said Zhou Jianping, deputy director of the city Family Planning Commission.

Under the plan, there will be neighborhood-level lectures and consultations on topics such as healthy sexual activities, contraception and child rearing.

Free contraceptives will also be handed out, Zhou said.

The sex education lectures will be tailored for six groups: those in puberty, those not married, newlyweds, couples with a pregnancy, couples with a newborn, and the middle-aged and older.

Family Planning Commission statistics show that 311 neighborhoods - that's 91.7 percent of the city's total - have established reproduction service centers.

But only 64.2 percent offer "qualified service" because they haven't sufficiently promoted sex education, officials said.

So far, more than 958,000 local residents have attended sex education lectures at the community reproduction service centers, officials said.

"We have invited medical specialists to deliver many lectures on healthy sexual activities and the correct way to use contraceptives," said Ze Siyu, director of Liangcheng neighborhood in Hongkou District.

"A hot line was set up to answer people's questions regarding matters pertaining to sex."

The city's 3 million migrant workers, mostly young and middle-aged, should be targeted for sex education, said Cai Hongfu, Family Planning Commission spokesman.

(eastday. com 01/03/2001)