Nearly one percent of irregular advertisements in the city last month used female images in an indecent way, the Shanghai Advertisement Monitoring Center said yesterday.

　　Such advertisements used to be very few. In April, only one problem ad was found, officials said.

　　"Such advertisements seem to come out all out of a sudden," said Xu Hong, the center director.

　　All the offending ads were found in local newspapers. Local TV channels are free of the problem, said Xu.

　　The ads are mainly for plastic surgery and cosmetics. The female body, almost naked, is used to advertise the effect.

　　In one case, a weekly newspaper ad for a bra with the brand Nude Bra, had the profile of a woman who appeared at first glance to wear nothing.

　　"It degrades the woman and will mislead the audience, especially juveniles," said Xu.

　　The center has forwarded these ads to the local advertisement regulator, the Shanghai Industrial and Commercial Administrative Bureau, which is conducting further investigations.

　　The newspapers and the advertising agencies that bought the space in the papers will face fines.