London, Nov 1 (IANS) Millions of Chinese migrants labouring in a region called the ‘workshop of the world’ should be given sex toys and “conjugal homes” to help them cope with loneliness, a government official has suggested.
Family planning official Zhang Feng told a local newspaper in China’s Guangdong province that migrants working away from their families should use sex toys rather than the area’s thriving prostitution industry.

“In this province we have 30 million migrants living apart from their wives or husbands whose hunger for sex has never been recognised by society or the government,” Zhang said, according to a report in the Sunday Times.

“If we go on like this our society will end up riddled with Aids, so I suggest that we provide conjugal homes and rooms by the hour and I also suggest using sex toys - it’s not shameful and it avoids disease,” said Zhang, whose titles include vice-chairman of the China Sexual Association, a professional body.

Young people from the countryside live in factory dormitories or cramped communal rooms, divided by gender and often policed by security guards, the paper said.

“People who are full should understand those who are hungry,” Zhang added in his interview that coincided with the opening of the seventh Guangdong Sex Festival, which attracted hordes of visitors to an exhibition hall this weekend.