China bans phone sex

The Chinese authorities have launched a campaign to shut down telephone sex services all over China which, as officials in Peking claim, "are damaging to the younger Chinese generation."

The measure, according to the Chinese state information bureau, will give force to the extirpation of pornography from the fast-growing Chinese internet.

Local authorities throughout the country have been ordered to shut down telephone sex services and "severely punish responsible organizations" by 1st October - which is a Chinese national holiday.

"Taking advantage of the fast growth of paid telephone services in China, some law-breakers are using these services in order to disseminate indecent information and even offer the services of prostitutes," says minister for the information industry, Wan Tsiu-Don. "It violates the moral foundations of society and damages in particular the consciousness of the country's younger generation," the minister said.

Apart from telephone sex services, the services of so-called "telephone friends" have also spread very quickly in China. Adverts with depictions of alluring young girls have literally filled the streets of Chinese cities. Similar adverts adorn the pages of the tabloids.

The authorities try ruthlessly to battle with these phenomena, especially in the electronic form.

Since the beginning of the anti-pornography campaign in the middle of July, called to defend the "physical and mental health of young people", the police have shut down about 700 sites and arrested 329 suspects.

All these measures, as the agency France press reports, reflect the growing concern among the Chinese authorities not just about the negative effect of sex and pornography on young people, but also in relation to the general ethical norms of the younger generation.

The battle with electronic pornography, as the Associated Press reports, comes with the wish of the Chinese authorities to control all mass media, and particularly the internet.

China intensively propagandizes the internet in connection with the economic potential it offers, but at the same time, according to several reports, thousands of specially trained employees of special services are constantly surfing its pages in search of information that it considers undermine China's political or moral foundations.

Meanwhile, the authorities pay almost no attention to prostitution, which is blossoming all over the country.

Brothels, hidden behind the guise of beauty salons or karaoke clubs, are everywhere in China - both in large cities and small settlements.