Some 20,000 Shanghai women living in poor conditions will be given free gynecological examinations and those found to have diseases will get financial help this year, sources from the Shanghai Women's Federation said.
The campaign is beginning in Chongming, Changxing and Hengsha, three islands with communication difficulties and backward economies. More than half the island villages are listed as poverty-stricken areas.
The majority of women on the islands have not ever been given a gynecological examination.
A lecture on basic gynecological knowledge given by a professor from Fudan University last week in Chongming County attracted hundreds of village women.
Funding will come from the Natural Beauty Company, a hairdresser's corporation chain. The Women's Federation together with the municipal women and children working committee and charity foundation are co-sponsors.
The project will soon extend to women employees in downtown Shanghai.
Federation statistics show that gynecological diseases have increased in recent years while fewer women receive the biyearly examination.
(Xinhua News Agency Febrary 4, 2002)
