Ensuring gender equality in Viet Nam
15/6/14
Vietnamese children
Gender
equality is a major goal of the Party and State of Vietnam,
has been set from the very first days of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
In the Declaration of Independence
September 2, 1945, President Ho Chi Minh wrote: "All men are created
equal".
This thought has been a guideline thorough in the
process of building the lawful and democratic State for over 60 years.
In the first Constitution of the State of Democratic Republic of Vietnam
(1946), the gender equality perspective was expressed by the principle of
"no race or gender discrimination"; and "All Vietnamese citizens
are equal in all aspects of politics, economics, culture and society"
(Article 6) and "women are equal to men in all respects" (Article 9).
That view is continuously inherited and developed consistent
with the trend of the country and era’s development. In particular, during the
period of innovation and integration, the Party, State, National Assembly and
state agencies take care so much to the legislation, that must based on the
principle of access rights and gender equality.
The issue of gender equality has been institutionalized in most legal documents,
that has created a legal basis, equal opportunities and empowerment for both
men and women in the fields of politics, economics, culture-society. Besides,
in order to achieve the objective of gender equality, the Government has
enacted a lot of measures as the specific policies; integrated into the
national strategies and targeted programs.
With legal system, that are becoming perfect to suite with the characteristics
and situation of the country, social awareness on gender equality is increasingly
high, contributing to ensure equality in social life as well as of communities.
Therefore, Vietnam
is considered as one of the country that have policies and legal system of
equality quite progressive compared to many countries around the world and in
the region, including many developing countries. According to the World Bank :
" Vietnam is one of the leading countries in the world in the percentage
of women participating in economic activities, is one of the leading countries to
make progress on gender equality... is the country to achieve the most rapid
change to eliminate the gender gap in the last twenty years in East Asia".
Despite there was a relatively completed system of laws on gender equality, as
a developing country and heavily influenced by Confucianism, Vietnam are still facing
many challenges to the implement gender equality, as following:
The thought of gender biased has existed quite popularly among the people, even
in a number of civil servants, social staffs.
There is the lack of information and disaggregated
data about gender in all areas of life, even sometimes little or incompleted,
asynchronous, not comprehensive. So, it is difficult to accurately assess
issues related to gender equality development and provide effective measures to
ensure and achieve targets in gender equality.
Many legal terms have not been fully implemented, due to lack of financial
institutions or they are not strong enough or just stop at administrative
sanctions.
In the
future, to resolve and overcome the challenges mentioned above, the State’s
management on gender equality should focus on some of the contents below:
First, the need to build up and fullfill all the rules of the law, that must be
consistent with the goal of gender equality. To develop and implement policies
to promote the implementation of gender equality goals.
Second, to enhance the propagation and dissemination of the law on gender
equality; raising the social awareness about gender and gender equality issue.
Third, to form and consolidate the organizations and personnel in the State’s
system to manage the issue of gender equality from the central to local level.
Fourth, in addition to the effective use of budget resources, there is the need
to attract other financial resources, technical assistance inside and outside
the country, to ensure the implementation of objectives to socialize gender
equality work.
Fifth, to strengthen the inspection and examination of the implementation
of the law on gender equality.
Sixth, to continuously promote scientific research and international
cooperation (in multilateral, bilateral and NGOs) in the field of gender
equality in general and for the development of women in particular.
Gender equality is one of the important criteria to evaluate the development of
each society and country. This is both a goal and contributing factors to the
cause of social and economic development of each country. The gender equality
has a special position in building a stably developed and sustainable society
in our country. / .
All comments [ 10 ]
Our Government is trying to keep the status of gender equality in our country. This is kind of hard work and it needs time and effort to make a change.
Girl or boy, they're both angle in our life. We have to learn how to respect what we have been given, especially, our children!
It's people's awareness, it has been resisting for ages, so to change the way of this thinking, we need to do more.
Female workers hold unstable and more vulnerable jobs than their male counterparts, particularly in rural areas and the agriculture sector.
Viet Nam is on its early completion of the UN Millennium Development Goals, including ensuring gender equality and reducing poverty. We should share its experiences in social security with other countries as it is a matter of national concern.
Gender equality is achieved when women and men enjoy the same rights and opportunities across all sectors of society, including economic participation and decision-making, and when the different behaviours, aspirations and needs of women and men are equally valued and favoured.
The poverty rate has been declining steadily and Viet Nam is poised to achieve six of the eight Millennium Development Goals, including MDG 3 on gender equality.
In my opinion, we have to teach our next generation about safe sex, gender equality,... to make them more understand about gender and to live more responsibly.
I agree with Huy Quoc, we have been afraid of talking about sensitive issues in the school. Now we should change.
Best wishes for our children!
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