Condom Promotion in China

Source: CHAIN

Condom distribution and promotion also serves as a vehicle to connect with groups who are at a particularly high risk of contracting HIV. These groups, such as sex workers and migrant laborers, may not have access to more sophisticated HIV/AIDS information, but play an essential role in the spread of HIV. The Chinese government has sponsored several hundred condom promotion programs specifically targeting sex workers. Hunan Province and Sichuan Province, among others, have initiated condom distribution programs aimed at employees and clients of night clubs, dance halls, saunas, hair dressing salons, hotels and other places with a higher density of sex workers. There is also an effort to increase condom promotion and distribution in areas where there are many migrant laborers, as well as at railway and bus stations,

Sex continues to be a relatively taboo topic in Chinese society, and prostitution is illegal and considered a moral and social issue, making sex education and condom promotion more difficult. Still, the Chinese government is committed to behavior intervention as part of the comprehensive prevention policy, and has recently pledged to provide free condoms for all HIV/AIDS patients as part of a larger strategy to ensure 50 percent of members of high-risk groups are using condoms.