Seminar promotes new gender equality strategy

05/08/2010
A seminar seeking ideas to create a draft national strategy on gender equality for the 2011-2020 period was held by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in Ho Chi Minh City on July 15.

 

 

Participants in the seminar expressed concerns over domestic violence, the trafficking of women and children, marriages between Vietnamese women and foreigners, and gender imbalance.

According to the MOLISA, Vietnam has made considerable progress in ensuring gender equality and has ranked 62nd out of 109 countries for posting the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) of 0.554.

However, the MOLISA said the gender gap is still large in numerous fields, leading to gender inequality and gender imbalance in the country.

For instance, the proportion of female leaders in ministries and local authorities is still low while the current number of woman legislators accounts for o­nly 25.7 percent of the total, failing to meet the National Assembly target of 33 percent.

The retirement age for females, five years earlier than males, is considered o­ne of the reasons behind the low proportion of female leaders in the country, explained some participants.

The government has assigned the MOLISA to build the strategy aimed at ensuring all ministries, ministerial-level agencies, agencies under the government and people’s committees at all levels have female leaders.

Also, the strategy seeks to create more jobs for poor women in rural areas and for ethnic minority women, reduce teen abortions by half, and highlight the problems women suffer from domestic violence, and the trafficking of women and children.

 

 

VNA/VOVNews

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