Theproject is sponsored by the Australian Government, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA),UNICEF, and UN Women, and is being carried out by the Ministry of Labour, WarInvalids and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, theMinistry of Education and Training, the Vietnam Women’s Union, and the Centrefor Studies and Applied Sciences in Gender, Family, Women and Adolescents(CSAGA).
UNFPAChief Representative Naomi Kitahara said that putting an end to violenceagainst women and children should be the top priority of all people.
Vietnamwill not achieve all of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030 if itcannot eliminate this type of violence, she explained, and she hopes this newproject will create a breakthrough that ends violence against women andchildren in the country.
AustralianAmbassador to Vietnam Robyn Mudie said that domestic violence and gender-basedviolence tend to increase during crises and natural disasters.
Amid theCOVID-19 pandemic, unemployment and home quarantine resulted in domesticviolence surging in many countries around the world.
InVietnam, the Australian Government will fund 2.5 million AUD (1.7 million USD)from its 10.5-million AUD budget package to support the project for one year.
Thenumber of calls to the Vietnam Women’s Union hotline from women experiencingdomestic violence during social distancing surged 50 percent, while the numberof victims rescued or taken to its Peace House was up 80 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile,a survey on the pandemic’s impact on children, conducted by the VietnamAssociation for the Protection of Children’s Rights, revealed that 48 percentof respondent children said they felt vulnerable because of verbal abuse, while8 percent were beaten and 32.5 percent said they were not properly cared for bytheir parents.
Theproject aims to raise community awareness about the risk of violence infamilies and in concentrated quarantine facilities. It targets Hanoi, northernQuang Ninh province, central Da Nang city, and HCM City, which have been mostaffected by the pandemic./.