Volunteers offer sex education for students, parents

Educators are campaigning to change traditional beliefs about teaching the subject at public schools. In Hebei province, where primary school students and their parents attended sex-education classes together.

It's not a typical school day for Hu Meile and Li Zimo. A one-time class on Sex Education is on the schedule. It's the first one offered at their school - located in the mountains of Hebei province.

Students learn basic human anatomy and physical contact. Setting limits and boundaries. And the courage to say "NO"

The class is one hour long. Their teacher, Liu Ping, is a former police officer. Liu says more and more cases are being exposed in the media.

Concerned parents attend her classes. It's also their very first lecture on sex education.

All reasons why Liu was driven to teach sex education.The lessons are funded by "Beautiful Classroom", an NGO that offers extra-curricular classes to schools.

Liu's youngest students are six-years-old. She says it's an ideal age to start learning about the issue.For generations, sex education was not a familiar part of growing up in China. But now educators are trying to change that for the younger generation. They are hoping that sex education could be part of the regular school curriculum and that comprehensive textbooks be published. Ma Hongxia is amongst the many volunteers campaigning for the cause.

This is her first time teaching sex education. Ma says this is a new and slowly growing phenomenon in both urban and rural schools.

She hopes the government will support them to help China's children protect themselves against sex offenders.