Zhu, 28, has no education beyond junior middle school. He and his wife worked in a number of cities before arriving in Beijing, where they have lived for four years. The construction company Zhu works for hires thousands of rural migrant workers, and the majority have a similar education level to Zhu. Most are married men whose wife has stayed behind in their hometown. Those who are unmarried are mostly energetic young people in their twenties who have little knowledge about safe sex.

"Although I am married and have heard about AIDS before, I do not know much more about it than my co-workers," Zhu said. In his mind, AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease that is difficult to cure, and as long as he does not have casual sex, he will not get it. Zhu knew little about the symptoms of AIDS and how to prevent it.

Sitting behind Zhu was a 19-year-old man who had never had a girlfriend and was shy to talk about AIDS. Yet, he was also curious about it. He said he heard that AIDS was a terrible disease, but he had never read any information on how to prevent it. He said he would like to read such information and attend lectures on the topic.

Data from the ACFTU shows that China's construction industry employs 40 million people, of whom 33 million are rural migrant workers, accounting for 80 percent of the total. The construction industry is the largest employer of rural migrant workers.

Through such performances on construction sites, workers are entertained as well as educated. "We would like every construction worker and every rural migrant worker to learn about AIDS prevention and to protect themselves from the disease," said Jiang Guangping, Director of the International Liaison Department of the ACFTU.

National threat

AIDS is threatening China. According to estimates by the Ministry of Health, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS and the World Health Organization, China currently has about 650,000 HIV carriers. The International Labor Organization projected that if no comprehensive prevention and control measures are taken, China will lose 5 million of its working population to the disease by 2015.

In China, AIDS used to be primarily transmitted through drug use, but in recent years, an increasing number of people have been infected through sexual contact, according to Han Mengjie, Assistant Director of the State Council Working Committee to Combat AIDS. Medical data show that sex has become a major HIV transmission channel.

Over the years, government departments in China have launched AIDS prevention initiatives among high-risk groups such as sex workers and homosexuals. These initiatives are being gradually expanded to include university students and rural migrant workers. Compared with university students, rural migrant workers are less well educated and highly mobile, and are therefore more vulnerable.

"Including college students and rural migrant workers in our AIDS-prevention campaign does not necessarily mean that these two groups are high-risk groups, " Han explained.