The first national free hotline offering advice to gay people on
a range of subjects has been launched.
Volunteers in Guangzhou and Shanghai have joined forces for the
initiative, which will provide advice on psychological problems,
legal issues and HIV/AIDS.
Hong Kong-based Chi Heng Foundation, which is sponsoring the
service, has previously operated a localized hotline in Shanghai,
to provide psychological and legal help, and another hotline in
Guangzhou to support people with HIV/AIDS.
The new nationwide hotline, 800-988-1929, is manned for several
hours every day by volunteers in the two cities. It was launched on
Monday.
The hotline has been set up because the previous localized
services were overloaded with calls from people all over the
mainland and even overseas, who were charged long-distance
rates.
"On the mainland, being homosexual is still very hard," Hu
Zhijun, a worker at the foundation, told China Daily
yesterday.
"Under pressure from families and society, most homosexual
people dare not reveal their sexual orientation and have to get
married to someone of the opposite sex."
Many gay people need not only emotional support, but also advice
on their specific rights, Hu added.
The hotline has 13 volunteers, who are all gay, working as
consultants.
Three consultants in Shanghai started on Monday, followed by the
remaining 10 in Guangzhou yesterday.
They all have full-time jobs, and work for the hotline in their
spare time for no payment.
Most of the volunteers have bachelor or master's degrees in
medicine, psychology, law or sociology. They have all been given
specific training for their roles.
"I expect more qualified people to join our hotline as
consultants when it becomes more well-known," said director Xiao
Dong.
"Most of the calls we have had so far are from people who
complain of social stigma and ignorance, or from those who don't
understand homosexual," Hu said.
The hotline is manned from 7-9 PM during the week, and then from
4-9 PM on Saturday and 3-6 PM on Sunday.
An answering phone is left on at all other times.
The number of homosexual people on the mainland is about 48
million, according to a recent survey by Li Yinhe, a pioneering
sociologist on sexual issues.
Li proposed to the National Committee of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) earlier this year that homosexual
marriage be legalized. Although the proposal was turned down, it
attracted attention across the country.
"There are not enough services for gay people in Chinese
mainland, especially after the only gay consultation hotline in
Shanghai closed last year. That is why we launched this hotline,"
said Rager Shen, an officer of Chi Heng Foundation, who is in
charge of the Shanghai branch.
Shen said volunteers were carefully selected.
"The priority for a volunteer is that they should be gay, no
matter whether male or female," said Shen.
"They can better understand the callers' feelings; callers also
prefer to speak to people who have a similar sexual
background."
Organizers said strict measures would be taken to protect the
privacy and identity of callers.
(China Daily May 11, 2006)