Progress seen in gender equality in Việt Nam: official

A performance in Hà Nội celebrating Vietnamese Women's Day on Sunday with over 70,000 women participating. — VNA/VNS Photos

HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam has made considerable progress in promoting gender equality over the past years, and the Việt Nam Women’s Union (VWU) has been applying itself to this work, said VWU Vice President Nguyễn Thị Minh Hương.

Talking to the Vietnam News Agency, Hương said since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted by the UN in 1995, Việt Nam has made strides in realising the commitments on women’s rights.

In particular, she elaborated, the legal system has been increasingly perfected, with the 2006 Law on Gender Equality and the documents guiding its enforcement implemented and proving effective. The legal documents revised or supplemented have also included gender quality-related issues to create a legal framework facilitating gender gap narrowing and gender equality promotion.

All the 12 areas of the Beijing Platform for Action have been seriously and fruitfully carried out by Việt Nam, notably the areas of “women and poverty”, “women and health”, “women and the economy”, “women and the environment”, and “the girl child”. Besides, gender equality has been mainstreamed in the national target programmes on sustainable poverty reduction, new-style countryside building, and socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas.

Vice President of Việt Nam Women’s Union Nguyễn Thị Minh Hương.

Hương cited the UNDP’s Human Development Report as saying that in 2022, Việt Nam ranked 107 among the 193 countries and territories in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI). Its Gender Development Index (GDI) alone stood at the 91st position, higher than its HDI as well as the ranking of its economy as calculated on the basis of per capita GDP (101st among 179 economies in 2022). With this GDI, Việt Nam was in the top group, which recorded the highest equality in terms of human development between males and females.

In addition, the Global Gender Gap Index, released annually by the World Economic Forum, showed Việt Nam’s observable progress since the country was included in the rankings, which measure gender-based gap in four key areas of economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. Việt Nam’s score increased from 0.689 in 2007 to 0.715 in 2024, which indicates the increasingly narrowed gender gap, she noted.

She went on to say that all activities of the VWU are aimed at promoting gender equality and protecting women’s rights and legitimate interests.

It has supervised the implementation of policies, given feedback on draft laws and policies and encouraged women to participate in the Party and political system building. Some proposals of the VWU have been accepted and become policies at national and local levels such as the Government’s Decree No 39/2015/NĐ-CP on support for low-income women of ethnic minorities complying with the population policy, or many plans on assistance for women to develop livelihoods and protect the environment.

The union has also organised many activities to improve women’s legal knowledge so that they are aware of their rights and protect themselves, help women exercise their rights in economic and family affairs, and resolve cases of women and children’s rights abuse.

In particular, the VWU Central Committee was assigned to coordinate the implementation of a project on promoting gender equality and resolving pressing issues of women and children. This project aims to raise public awareness, change gender bias, and care for the material and spiritual life of women and girls in particularly disadvantaged areas to help achieve gender equality, according to Hương. — VNA/VNS