Extra efforts needed to ensure gender equality for ethnic women

Ethnic women (Photo: thanhtra.com.vn)

Hanoi (VNA) – With diverse specific actions taken, Vietnam has gained remarkable achievements in promoting gender equality and ensuring the rights of ethnic minority women.

Vietnam has developed a fairly progressive national legal framework for gender equality and women's empowerment, including policies to promote gender equality in the ethnic minority-inhabited areas. The Law on Gender Equality (2006), the National Strategy on Gender Equality for 2011-2020, and the national programmes on gender equality for 2011-2015 and 2016-2020 all contain provisions to promote gender equality among the ethnic minority groups.

In addition, specific policies for these areas such as the project on minimising child marriage and consanguine marriage among ethnic minorities in the 2015-2025 period, the project on gender equality support activities in ethnic minority areas for 2018-2025, and the Master Plan for Socio-Economic Development in Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas in the 2021-2030 period have been issued as well.

Most recently on October 14, Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh signed a decision approving the national target programme on socio-economic development for the mountainous and ethnic-inhabited areas for the 2021-2030 period.

The programme includes a special project for ethnic women, marking the first time that a national target programme has a specific project on gender equality. Investment capital for the 2021-2025 period will be over 2.38 trillion VND (104 million USD) and that of the 2026-2030 period will be over 1.35 trillion VND.

According to the report “Figures on Ethnic Minority Women and Men in Vietnam 2015-2019,” along with the “Policy Brief: Gender issues in ethnic minority areas in Vietnam,” conducted by UN Women with financial support from the Embassy of Ireland in Vietnam, Vietnam made outstanding achievements in gender equality in ethnic minority and mountainous areas in the period of 2015 to 2019, including a drop of 4.7 percent in the rate of child marriage in ethnic minority groups.

However, a number of ethnic women are still facing barriers in gaining access to and enjoying fruits of the development. Many of them lack opportunities to make decisions in issues related to their life.

Therefore, Vietnam needs more solutions to ensure gender equality for ethnic women./.

VNA