Vietnam Women’s Union President Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa visits Australia

07/04/2015
Under the Program “Government Partnerships for Development” of Australia, at the invitation of the Flinders University, a delegation of the Vietnam Women Union (VWU) led by Mme. Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa, Member of the Party Central Committee, VWU President, paid a working visit to Australia from 8th to 17th March 2015

The visit was highly appreciated by Australia partners, considering it an opening of the "Vietnam - Australia Relations Week" in Australia, the peak of which was the Australia visit by Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

 

Australian Foreign Minister Hon. Julie Bishop MP received the delegation at her office at the Parliament. The meeting was also attended by Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia Mr. Luong Thanh Nghi and Australian Ambassador to Vietnam Mr. Hugh Borrowman. Seeing again VWU President Thanh Hoa, Minister Bishop was pleased to recall her last visit to VWU to announce two Australian Government-supported projects o­n agricultural development and gender-based violence prevention. She was happy to learn about positive results of the two projects after o­ne year and affirmed the Australian Government’s commitment to support women’s development. Informed of the VWU’s Forum Women, Peace and Development to be held in October o­n the 20th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action and completion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Minister Bishop appreciated the idea, emphasizing the importance of women in peacekeeping and in developement. She warmly presented VWU President Thanh Hoa with a photo of the two taken in Vietnam in February 2014. President Thanh Hoa invited Minister Bishop and Ambassador Borrowman to visit the two Australian-supported projects and expressed sincere thanks for Australian valuable support to the VWU and Vietnamese women so far.

 

At a meeting at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Mme. Thanh Hoa updated a number of VWU activities to support Vietnamese women and the Vietnam Government’s efforts in promoting women’s participation in management, leadership, and all walks of life. President Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa appreciated the lessons that VWU learned from the Australian-supported projects during the 1990s o­n community development, family planning, reproductive health, business start-up, formulation and enforcement of law, etc. The two sides discussed about the challenges facing the VWU and its activities in supervising law enforcement and providing social counter arguments o­n draft laws and policies to promote women’s participation in politics, international integration and reducing gender-based violence. The DFAT committed its further support for the VWU under the bilateral cooperation framework between Vietnam and Australia, as well as the multilateral o­ne between Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

 

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 VWU delegation at meeting with female deputies to South Australian House of Assembly

At a meeting with the delegation, the Australian Human Rights Commission acknowledged that the Human Rights Technical Cooperation Program with the VWU o­n "Raising awareness o­n women's rights" since 2006 has been very successful and they had learnt a great deal from VWU in law communication to ensure women's rights.

 

In South Australia, the delegation visited the Office for Women, South Australia Police Department, and Central Domestic Violence Service. Good practice of South Australia suggest many ideas for the VWU to promote gender-based violence prevention, such as the including of domestic violence prevention in the joint agreement between the VWU and the Vietnam Ministry of Public Security.

 

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 VWU delegation at meeting with South Australia Police Department

 

On this occasion, the VWU delegation also had lunch with the female deputies to the South Australian House of Assembly, met with Mr. Hieu Van Le, the Governor of South Australia, and visited the White Ribbon and the Anti-Slavery Australia.

 

Meeting with the Vietnam Embassy and the Vietnamese Women’s Association in South Australia, the delegation was updated with the situation of the Vietnamese women in Australia and their community services.

 

The Australia visit was highly successful, providing valuable experiences in promoting women’s rights and controlling gender-based violence. Particularly, the cooperation between the VWU and Australian partners has been strengthened, promising more fruitful cooperation while the two countries are heading towards a strategic partnership.

Flinders University, established in 1966, is the leading university in the city of Adelaide, South Australia with a dynamic and challenging environment and world top modern teaching methods. In addition, the University has been rated o­ne of the most successful research universities in Australia and is a member of the Innovative Research Universities Australia.

Recently, Flinders University and the VWU have cooperated to send Vietnamese officers to short training courses in Australia o­n gender, prevention of violence against women and children and support for people with disabilities under the Australia Awards Fellowship. Since 2014, the two sides have been cooperating in project "Developing Human Resource Capacity in Vietnam: Effective Service Delivery to Combat Gender Based Violence and Trafficking," funded by the Australian Government through DFAT’s Government Partnerships for Funding Development program.

 

 

 

VWU International Relations Department

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