Principal Secretary on HIV and AIDS and Nutrition in Office of President and Cabinet (OPC), Dr Mary Shawa disclosed Tuesday in Lilongwe during the opening of a National Workshop on Mainstreaming of Gender and HIV in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of projects.

Shawa said if HIV/AIDS was being taken on board in EIAs, the requirement would have been that employees of foreign contractors would be bringing their spouses.

She observed that Chinese workers are sleeping around with Malawian women because these foreign contractors do not come with their spouses.

“The end result is what is happening at this new five star hotel where Chinese male workers are literary queuing to have sex with local women,” said Shawa.

She hinted that: “Most often you will find that an area had low HIV prevalence rate of less than 12 percent but after such a project the figures jump to more than 20 percent.”

She said the Malawi government is concerned that most capital projects do not streamline HIV and AIDS in their environmental impact assessments.

Dr Shawa also singled a Chinese owned night club in the capital city, Lilongwe, where it is reported that the owner has set aside special rooms for Chinese colleagues where they are having sexual encounters with Malawian women.

The workshop was as an avenue for publicizing results of the first phase of a study on Mainstreaming Gender and HIV and AIDS in EIA conducted in Malawi and other Sub-Saharan African countries.

UNAIDS statistics shows that the Sub-Saharan Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region are the most affected with HIV.

The Sub-Saharan region has 10 percent of world population, but it is said to be the home of more than 60 percent of people living with HIV worldwide.

The SADC region has 4 percent of the global population but is said to have 40 percent of people living with HIV and AIDS in the world.

Malawi is among ten countries with the highest HIV prevalence in the world, estimated at 12 percent of adults aged 15–49.

Malawi entered into diplomatic tie with China after dumping Taiwan. The Chinese government has since done a number of big construction projects like the five star hotel, a conference centre and the presidential villas which are expected to be used for the coming African Union Summit in July 2012.

Other construction projects are Malawi University of Science and Technology which is being constructed at a private farm of President Bingu wa Mutharika in the president’s home district.

The Chinese government is soon expected to start constructing a new stadium in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre.