The growing number of pregnant Chinese teenagers -- once shunned
because of the shame they brought to their families -- are finding
new avenues for professional and safe help and advice.
The Obstetric and Pediatric Hospital of Chengdu, capital of the
southwest China's Sichuan Province, has launched a special service
for pregnant teenagers, offering free abortion operations to girls
aged 18 or below.
"We have received 1,400 calls for help since the service hotline
was set up. This is out of all expectation," said Chen Lili, head
nurse of the service.
With the acceleration of China's opening, young people differ
greatly from their parents in their opinions on sex. Parents
traditionally preach caution or abstinence, but young people are
being influenced by depictions of sex on television and the
Internet.
As a result, unprotected sex among adolescents is becoming more
common.
Chen said, "A huge number of pregnant girls call in for help,
but very few come in because the law strictly requires underage
girls seeking an abortion to be accompanied by a legal guardian. We
did the operation for only three girls over the past
fortnight."
She said Chinese were more open about sex than previously, but a
teenage pregnancy remained a source of shame, causing girls to
avoid having abortions as they risked enraging their parents by
telling the truth and asking to be accompanied.
Chongqing Municipality, in southwest China, founded the
country's first help service on sexual matters for teenagers early
this year. Confidentiality is the guiding principle of the agency
where girls receive free birth control within one week of having
sexual intercourse. If they are already pregnant, they are not
condemned at the agency.
In its five months of operation, the agency has treated 200
pregnant girls, the youngest of whom was only 12. Statistics of the
hospital which sponsors the agency show that in 1998 unmarried
girls who received abortions at the hospital accounted for 13
percent of the total, compared to 33.6 percent now.
Hu Weiguang, professor at the Sichuan Academy of Social
Sciences, said, "There is a gap between the more open-minded
opinions on sex and the sex education provided to kids through
proper channels, which results in many girls becoming
pregnant."
With rising living standards, boys and girls are becoming
sexually mature as young as 12 or 13, and becoming sexually active
earlier, leading to more teenage pregnancies. Worldwide each year
about 14 million adolescent girls give birth, most of them
unplanned, while about 4.4 million girls have abortions.
China has 200 million young people between 15 and 24, and each
year 20 million young people enter adolescence, with their sexual
maturity coming four or five years sooner than in the 1970s.
Liu Hong, director of the Birth Control Institute of Chongqing,
said unwanted pregnancies were extremely stressful and aid agencies
like those in Chongqing and Chengdu would help teenagers cope both
mentally and physically, and help avoid future trauma.
But some educators argue that such aid agencies will to some
extent encourage unprotected sex among young people because they
can get free contraception and abortion services.
Zheng Zhongwei, president of the Obstetric and Pediatric
Hospital of Chengdu, said such agencies merely amend mistakes, and
the key to solving the problem is better education of young people
about sex and health.
At the National
People's Congress, China's parliament, March session, senior
legislators filed proposals calling for improvements in the sex
education of Chinese youth, and suggested a compulsory program in
schools. Sex education has since become available at middle and
elementary schools across the country.
A parent of a student at the Shishi United Middle School, in
Chengdu, said, "We welcome sex education in schools, and our kids
can learn about sex in a proper manner. But as parents, we worry
that more information will have a negative impact on kids, so it is
a long-standing issue for education authorities to set the right
limits on sex education."
(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2003)