A spate of sexual assaults in Chinese cities are among the “social consequences caused by the suppressed needs of migrant workers” according to a report in the China Daily, whose pages have of late shown a marked increase in stories about human sexuality and changing social mores.

The paper quotes a Ms. Deng Yuanhong, Deputy Procurator for Nanjing, as “calling for more attention to be paid” to migrants’ sexual frustration, which she holds responsible for a summer sex crime wave in the city. In the period 2004-2005, says the report, 78 cases of rape were allegedly committed by migrants in four districts of Nanjing, accounting for 48% of all such cases in the districts.

The August 16 “Spotlight” article, authored by Wu Jiao, cites a Ministry of Health survey as finding that 88% of male migrants “suffer from sexual depression.” Also quoted is a Shanghai Daily Star survey of 40 male migrants, which found that 16 married men had not had sex for more than six months, and nine single men had not had sex for several years. According the Star survey, the migrants “thought about visiting prostitutes but their earnings could not sustain the desire for a call girl,” so “many of them instead watched porn films and some resorted to touching women in public.”

As is now typical of Chinese print media reporting on social issues, the article cites academic authorities from Nanjing and Beijing to analyse the problem and propose remedies. However, it does not consult any of the Chinese NGOs that have been working for several years in the field of rural migrant workers’ rights and urban integration.

The assembled social science experts call for better enforcement of labour laws regarding pay and holidays to give male migrants the chance to visit home more often or have their wives visit them. They experts also call for removal of permanent residency restrictions and for assisted housing for migrants. Tao Rong, a development economist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is quoted as pointing out that “When an entire family can afford to live in a city, problems generated by loneliness are eased naturally.”

Suggestions for more short-term measures include creating amenities for “healthy” leisure and recreation (notably, sport) and “improving workers knowledge of the law by giving out handbooks and providing regular lectures for them.”

Also mentioned is an initiative by Nanjing’s Xiaguan District, which has “built dozens of cheap apartments which can be rented for 300 yuan (US$ 37.5) per month when spouses come to visit.” A similar experiment in Shenzhen has reportedly led to 40% increase in productivity at local factories.

Whilst clearly sympathetic to the plight of male migrants, the article risks further stigmatisation of them—as sex-starved and dangerous—but does not provide any comparative data to show how serious the alleged sex crime wave is.

The article has less to say about the sexual needs of women migrants. However, it notes that surveys from Guangdong—where assembly lines are mainly operated by young rural women—show that more than half of women migrants in the province “were engaged in pre-marital sex;” that a third of them do not know what sexually transmitted diseases are, and that nearly a third of married migrant women suffer from reproductive tract infections.

The previously prudish China Daily—an official publication and one of the state’s main means for representing China to the wider world—has over the last few months included much more, and much more frank, coverage of human sexuality and associated social issues.

For example, the August 16 edition also contains several short news items on sex related topics, drawn from regional Chinese language media. The Chengdu Evening News reports that China’s first marriage between a woman and a man who had had a sex-change operation has ended in divorce owing to “ever-increased pressure from her family.” The Guanzhou Daily reports a compensation claim by a woman against her husband who “had homosexual tendencies” and did not have sex with her for three years. Guangdong’s chinanews.com reports a rising divorce rate, judged by scholars to be a “fourth wave” of divorce, earlier rises having been registered in the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s. The Dahe News, meanwhile, reports that surgery successfully restored the penis of a one year old boy after it was bitten off by a two month old dog.

Report by Nick Young, August 24, 2006