China has made progress in
improving citizens' health and reducing poverty, a top family planning
official said yesterday.
Yang Fukui, executive vice-director
of the China Family Planning Association, said at a conference marking
the 13th annual World Population Day, yesterday, that his association have
attracted 83 million members across China, and policies have penetrated
into nearly every family in China.
"Women's positions have greatly
improved in society, and old sexist ideas have been largely conquered,"
Yang said.
His association is now implementing
sex
education programmes for women's groups and youth to teach family planning,
healthy child bearing and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.
China now has nearly 1.3 billion
people, and 70 percent of them are now living in less-developed rural areas.
Yang said the Chinese Government
and his association provide technical and economic support to poverty-stricken
people, especially women, in remote areas.
Despite its huge population,
China's population growth rate has remained below 1.25 percent between
1990 and 2000 thanks to its family planning policy.
Yang said his association
will continue to work with international societies to help achieve sustainable
development and control the population within a reasonable range.
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive
director of the United Nations Population Fund, emphasized the importance
of family planning.
She said women in the developing
world are having half as many children as they did in the 1960s, down from
an average of six children per family to three. The last two generations
of women have chosen to have smaller families and the next generation will
do the same if they have access to education and reproductive health services,
she said.
But despite those numbers,
350 million couples still do not have access to a range of effective and
affordable family planning services and demand for these services is expected
to increase by 40 percent in the next 15 years.
"When couples can choose the
number, timing and spacing of their children, they are better able to ensure
there are enough resources for each family member to prosper and thrive,"
she said.
(China
Daily July 12, 2002)