HIV Rates rise in Chinese women
In this eye-opening article, BBC reports on the increasing HIV infection rates among Chinese women, especially those in the rural countryside. In the 1990s the ratio of infected Chinese men to women was 5:1. Today it is closer to 2:1. Most of the women infected are women in the rural areas and also prostitutes that live within the major metropolitan areas. The United Nation’s Aid Agency predicts that up to 10 million Chinese as opposed to the 840,000 today could be infected with HIV by 2010 if more aggressive prevention methods are not pursued.
These prevention methods would primarily consist of prevention education. Many prevention agencies estimate up to 40% of Chinese women in the countryside have no idea how to prevent AIDs infection.
One possible reason for the rapid spread of AIDs is the economic growth of China. Like most developing nations, the primary economic growth begins in the cities and only later passes on the countryside when modernization of farm equipments and demand for food increases. In China this is more or less true. The fruits of economic liberalization and development are strongly felt in the rising living standards of the urban resident.
Cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong are at the forefront of modernity, even more modernized than most western cities. This means higher wages, more opportunities for advancement, etc. Unfortunately what this means for the rural worker is that any job in the city, even if it’s the lowest paying one, is better than living on a farm. Thus families tend to send their most competent and strongest member out to the cities to make money and send it back home. Because of Chinese male-centric thinking, this usually means that men are sent. In the city with few women and hard work, men often get rowdy and sleep with prostitutes, getting infected with HIV and then coming home and spreading it to their wives and girlfriends. Thus the massive migration of Chinese men into cities where HIV runs rampant among prostitutes is what is most likely causing this increase.