National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan at the 13th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – An online meeting discussingmeasures to abolish gender discrimination, sexual harassment and violenceagainst women in parliaments and from all walks of life took place on August 18evening as part of the 13th Summit of Women Speakers of Parliament.
Statistics showed that one in every three women in the worldhad once suffered from physical or sexual violence. Amid the COVID-19 pandemiccoupled with armed conflicts, insecurity and migration, women and girls arefacing a higher risk of violence and abuse.
According to surveys released by the Inter-ParliamentaryUnion (IPU) in 2016 and 2018, gender discrimination, harassment, and violenceagainst women in parliaments have become more popular at different levels inall parts of the world.
Participants stressed that parliaments, as law-making bodies,need to make public and properly tackle these sensitive issues. To support theeffort, the IPU has issued guidelines for the elimination of genderdiscrimination, harassment and violence against women.
They agreed a strong institutional framework and capableagencies are necessary to address the problems, adding that national assembliesand deputies should reinforce their monitoring function to ensure related lawsand policies are effectively enforced.
They suggested parliaments continue completing their legalframeworks by building laws that include a comprehensive definition of sexualharassment; identification of violencebehavours and their victims; criminalisation of all forms of sexual and genderviolence; and victim protection measures.
The legislators underscored women’s role in eliminatingviolence against them in parliamentary and social activities. Femaleparliamentarians should be active in making recommendations on the matters andfacilitating measures to fight them, they suggested./.
VNA
