HIV-prevention program targets migrant workers

The China Red Ribbon Foundation has launched an annual program to advocate knowledge about HIV and AIDS prevention among migrant workers.

The program, which began on Wednesday and will be an annual event, recruits university students as volunteers to give "health bags" to migrant workers. Each bag includes such items as a pamphlet and a deck of cards printed with facts about HIV prevention, a cup, a mask, a nail cutter, a handkerchief and a pair of gloves.

The volunteers will also share knowledge about HIV prevention with the migrant workers through such means as lectures and games.

Thirteen provinces, municipalities and regions, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Guizhou, will take part in the program this year.

There were about 269 million migrant workers in China in 2013, of whom more than 46 percent were born in or after 1980, a survey by the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

"Most of the migrant workers are age 15 to 49, and a lack of knowledge of physical and mental health makes it easier for them to fall victim to unsafe sex," said Ye Dawei, deputy secretary-general of the China Red Ribbon Foundation, in explaining why such a program is necessary.

The program, first carried out in 2011, has covered all the provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of the Chinese mainland except for Heilongjiang and Tibet.