ABSTRACT
A key difficulty faced by migrant workers in China is maintaining good reproductive and sexual health (Liang and Ma 1994; Zheng and Lian 2005). The problem is critical for at least three reasons. First, as the majority of migrants are aged between 16 and 35 years they are at a life stage when they are most likely to begin sexual relations, to engage in sex and to reproduce. Second, with socioeconomic liberalisation, the rise of sex markets, contaminated blood scares and population mobility, the health risks from sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS are on the increase. Finally, migrants are more deprived than other urban social groups with regard to opportunities for gaining access to public health information and to affordable health services
The lack of reproductive health services for migrants in China is hampered by general assumptions about migrants’ identities. There is a lack of understanding about the social worlds of migrants, and a failure to recognise the heterogeneity and the varying needs of the individuals who fall under the category of ‘migrant’. Migrants tend to be seen only as transients in the cities who will eventually return to rural areas. Migrants also tend to be viewed primarily in economic terms – as labourers and as people who make claims on urban infrastructure – a perspective which overlooks that they are complete human beingswith complex aspects to their lives, including sexuality. Any recognition of the sexual aspect of migrants tends to be, for the most part, in relation to migrant women who are seen as reproducers within the context of marriage; and here the focus is verymuch on preventing them from having unplanned births. This kind of perspective underpins a neglect of the role of migrant men in sexual relations and a neglect of the needs of all migrants who engage in sex outside marriage (Jing 2004).
