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COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS UPDATES:
We're closely monitoring the spread of COVID-19 and our priority is continuing to deliver care to the women who need us. Click here to read more.
Contact our China support office to talk about our work.
Looking for services in China? Use the contacts below or visit our China website.
China has a huge population, numbering more than 1.3 billion, but the current healthcare system primarily focuses on the family planning needs of married couples.
This is mainly due to a population policy of restricting urban married couples to one child, which in 2015 the Chinese government began to phase out. However, the country still faces significant sexual and reproductive health challenges - particularly when it comes to meeting the needs of young people and other marginalised groups.
China has a huge population, numbering more than 1.3 billion.
Since 2000 Marie Stopes China has been working with the government and local communities to address the country’s unmet sexual and reproductive healthcare needs.
Through our centres we have been focusing on supporting vulnerable groups, primarily adolescents, poor migrant populations, sex workers and people living with HIV. We offer a range of affordable services in our three centres, including short and long-acting contraception, safe abortion, STI screening, and HIV treatment.
Our teams in China have also been working in partnership with the government to improve the quality of family planning services, and to advocate for young people and long-acting reversible contraception – an approach which they were the first in the country to pioneer.
Young people in China make up one sixth of the country’s population, yet continue to be disadvantaged through a lack of information, social stigma, and limited access to contraception and abortion services.
We help to address this through our innovative sexual and reproductive health education initiatives, and youth-focused You & Me centres. These centres adopt creative projects, youth participation, online sex education courses, and a welcoming environment to equip young people with vital sexual health information and services. We also train young people themselves as peer educators, and use media publicity to spread the word. The combination of all these things has led to positive recognition, with almost 60% of clients who visit our China centres being under 25 and more than 100,000 young people benefiting from our reproductive health educational activities each year.
Our team in China also has a strong relationship with government, and works to strengthen the healthcare system in a number of ways:
In 2015, Marie Stopes China began an innovative new partnership project with Fudan University, as part of the DFID funded China-UK Global Health Support Programme.
With project direction from Marie Stopes China, activities are being implemented by Marie Stopes Myanmar and Marie Stopes Ethiopia to improve access to maternal and newborn healthcare, and family planning services for the women in these countries.
As well as extending choice to potentially millions more women, the project also represents a unique opportunity for us to work with the Government of China in helping formulate their future strategy in international development and global health.
