China, a major producer of the world's sex toys

Beijing, April 25 (IANS) A small village in China called Jiqi is only a miniscule part of a major enterprise that employs more than one million people across the country -- an industry that produces more than 80 percent of the world's sex toys.

A building that was earlier the Jiqi Primary School is now guarded by a dog. The dilapidated building is now a sex doll factory, the Global Times reported.

Jiqi village is located in eastern Zhejiang province.

Many assembly plants like the one in Jiqi have cropped up across the country. Many people are also employed in shops called "Adult Health Stores" in Chinese but more blatantly labelled "Sex Shops" in English.

The former classrooms have been converted into assembly lines where women fix outsized breasts, long legs and heads to life-sized, blow-up dolls. At the end of the line, a woman folds and packs them.

But national health officials are worried about the quality of plastics and chemicals used in the sex toys.

"There is not a single regulation or standard for the manufacture and development of sex toys in China," said Su Weiguo, chairman of the China Council on the Science of Sex, and member of the National Standardization Commission for Reproductive Health Care Products.

The factory usually makes dolls with Asian faces, but also includes heads with long blonde hair, destined for Europe and North America, the report said.

The manager named Ma said they put together 6,000 sex dolls every month.

In another plant in Fenghua city in Zhejiang province, a plant ships 30,000 sex toys each month.

The manager said that over the last five years 70 percent of the products were sold overseas but domestic sales were now rising sharply.

A report said the sex toy market in China was growing by 63 percent each year, while a research showed that 93 percent of adults have come to accept that people enjoy using sex toys.

"Sex toys are playing an increasingly important part in people's lives, especially older couples and people living with disabilities. Sex toys can improve and complete their sex life," a man said.

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