By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
PEKING, September 15, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – China's Yunnan Province is implementing a new program to encourage chastity in students, using materials produced by the evangelical protestant organization Focus on the Family, according to local media reports.
The program teaches students the value of sexual abstinence until marriage, and reportedly gives suggestions on how to respond to attempts by boys to convince girls to have premature sexual relations. For example, if the boy argues that “it's safe, I have a condom,” the girl is taught to respond, “You want to bet my future with that condom?”
The program is being offered in response to increasing sexual promiscuity among teenagers and young people in China, reports the Spanish newspaper ABC.
According to a survey of Chinese college students conducted in April of this year, 14.4% reported having premarital sexual relations, and 70% regarded it as acceptable.
Although such figures are low by western standards, they have caused concern among China's political leadership. China's astronomically high abortion rate of 13 million per year is closely related to such informal sexual liaisons between young people, which make up 62% of the cases.
Yang Gongh, director of the provincial education department's disciplinary works committee, told China's Global Times newspaper that such programs, which are called “sex and life education,” would be introduced in other provinces as well.