As an administrative official of a major news organisation here in Beijing, Liu Jie has become used to multi-tasking.
But for the last few years, one particular item in her list of duties had become quite a challenge to accomplish family planning, largely because she has to introduce contraceptive use to the employees.
''I've made it known to every colleague that condoms are available in my office, free of charge,'' says Liu. ''But for years, very few people have come to me and asked for them.''
It was only recently that she finally realised that many people were simply feeling too embarrassed to ask for the condoms, which most Chinese still connect with promiscuity.
So early last month, Liu placed cases of condoms beside the washbasins in the both the men's and women's toilets in the building.
Today, a visibly pleased Liu reports, ''Out of the 140 condoms placed out in the first two weeks, over 60 are now gone.''
By some fluke, Liu's initiative has coincided with the Chinese government's renewed determination to check the spread of HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases by all means, including promoting the use of condoms.
The challenge, however, is how to re-do the image of the condom into something more acceptable in a sexually conservative country. In the past, even the State Family Commission had come under fire for promoting condoms, which it now wants to be distributed free in all state institutions.
The Commission is also running a free condom programme in four pilot areas Sichuan, Shandong, Henan and Gongzhuling.
Campaign aborted
Yet just two years ago, the Commission had to abort a television campaign for the device after just a single airing of a condom promotion advertisement on the China Central Television.
Apparently, some viewers had written angry letters, charging the leading national network for violating the law against running ads that ''promote a sexual commodity''.
China's 1989 Advertisement Law forbids any advertisement for sexual goods from appearing in the public area or on mass media, including newspaper, magazine and television.
During 2000, Qinghua and Beida, China's two most prestigious universities, also came under attack after each installed a few condom vending machines on campus.
''The controversy revealed that conservative forces are very strong even in China's intellectual community,'' says Dr Zhao Baige of the State Family Planning Commission. But this has not stopped the Commission from going on with its plans to make ''condom use less sensitive but more sensible''.
According to Zhao, the push for condoms is a vital part of the anti-HIV/AIDS campaign, which has been designed to encourage a more active involvement of Chinese men.
To date, male Chinese in general have shouldered too little responsibility for family planning and reproductive health. Statistics from the State Family Planning Commission show that among the married couples practising planned parenthood, only 4.2 percent resort to condoms and 8.9 to male sterilisation.
That means, experts say, women are the ones being relied upon most of the time to take contraceptive measures.
But the men's shunning away from condoms in particular has exposed them to HIV/AIDS risks says Professor Liu Xiaozhang of the Sichuan Institute of Reproductive Health, adding that these men could thus be putting their families in jeopardy.
''That is to say that in most cases, it is the women who get infected from an infected man who wouldn't wear a condom,'' says Liu. ''Then the infected woman might affect the health of her child as the virus can be transmitted to the fetus, or through maternal milk.''
China has an estimated 1.7 million people with HIV/AIDS. A worried Liu, looking at much lower official figures, warns that the situation could get out of control if adult Chinese men are allowed to go on with their unsafe sexual behaviour.
Feudalistic tradition
Liu and other scholars blame the country's feudalistic cultural tradition for discouraging men from shouldering responsibility for family planning. This has led to the thinking that the men's ''superiority'' would be compromised by condom use.
But sheer ignorance and superstitions have also played huge roles in keeping men away from condoms.
For instance, says Zhou Lianfu, a sociologist from Gongzhuling, in the north-eastern province of Jilin, local people believe that ''it's unhealthy for men to use condoms, assuming they may restrain men's sexual capacity''.
There is also the notion that condoms are somewhat 'obscene. When the Guangzhou-based magazine City Pictorial sent a free condom along with each copy of its 21st issue last year, for example, almost the whole city was up in arms.
Many lashed out at the magazine for ''misleading the youth into promiscuity'' by exposing them to a ''sexual device''. One irate parent even posted an article online that said promoting condom use ''is actually telling unmarried young people it's all right to go for sex''.
But City Pictorial editor Li Disheng stood his ground, arguing that the move was taken ''out of concern for our readers, whose ages span from 18 to 40, an age group that is sexually active''.
The condom distribution, he also noted, ''is helpful rather than misleading. At least we made those teenagers aware that unsafe sex may incur not only unwanted pregnancy but also sexually transmitted diseases and even HIV infection ''.
To lessen the objections against condoms and also make the promotion of the device ''legitimate the Ministry of Health in April last year redefined condom as ''a medical device'' rather than a sexual commodity.
This redefinition gives the green light for condom ads in mass media, says Professor Gu Baochang, an adviser to the State Family Planning Commission.
Recently, the Commission also changed the Chinese term for condom, shifting from biyuntao , literally meaning ''sheath to avoid pregnancy'', to anquantao , or ''safety sheath''.
Gu though points out that all these efforts could make little difference if the quality of the free condoms does not improve.
At present, there are seven main factories across the country that churn out a combined output of three billion condoms annually. A random survey conducted by the State Quality Inspection Bureau last year shows that at least 30 percent of these are not up to safety standards.
There are other factors impeding condom use. In a survey that sociologist Zhou conducted last year on 5,200 adult men in Gongzhuling, 77.8 percent of those who ''refused'' the condom complain that it is ''inconvenient'' to use.
It is also not easily available to many Chinese. Dr Zhao herself concedes that the price of local condoms that are of good quality seems to be still beyond the reach of many families.
All these have prompted Gu to say, ''To make this campaign a success, we need a down-to-earth attitude and hard, practical work rather than boastful declarations.'' (IPS)
