Family planning associations at various levels across the country
will put more effort into reproductive health care and HIV/AIDS
prevention services for the rural and migrant population, a top
official said yesterday.
Jiang Chunyun, chairman of the China Family Planning Association
(CFPA), said fewer than one-third of its grassroots branches in
countryside did a good job, while another one-third performed
poorly.
The CFPA, boasting over 1 million branches and more than 80 million
members, is China's largest non-government organization that
devotes into promoting the country's family planning policy.
"People in rural areas, especially in the country's western regions
are lack of basic knowledge on contraception, AIDS prevention and
family planning," said Jiang.
"Meanwhile, tens of thousands of rural people are flowing into
cities, most of whom concentrate in small and medium-sized
non-State enterprises, where few of family planning associations
are set up," Jiang expressed his concerns at yesterday's opening of
the Third Session of CFPA's fifth plenary meeting.
"We can never overestimate the conditions of our grassroots network
and should give priority to improving services of basic level
organs so that rural and migrant people can really learn more about
sex, relevant diseases, healthy births, and benefit from our
service," Jiang said.
Yang Kuifu, vice-chairman of the association, pledged that, in the
future, the CFPA would strive to reach every household in every
village and to every work unit. He said the network could do more
to satisfy family planning and reproductive health needs than any
single government agency.
(China Daily December 11, 2002)