How to better protect the rights of female guest workers came top of the agenda at a workshop in the central city of Da Nang on October 24.

The event was to share information about the brokerage of gender-sensitive jobs and how regional countries work together in this effort.

Topics like labour immigration trends, gender equality and challenges to Asian migrant workers, policies on head-hunting services and employment, and ways to ensure the enforcement of agreements on female migrant worker protection also caught their interest.

Nearly 500,000 Vietnamese people are working in 40 countries and territories worldwide. Since 2006, 70,000 – 80,000 have sought jobs abroad every year, some 30-35 percent of them are women.

In 2007, the Law on Vietnamese going abroad to work under labour contracts came into force, creating an important legal framework.

Over the past time, Vietnam has worked with employer countries to better protect workers’ rights while actively implementing the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers and drafting relevant documents with regional countries.

Since 2009, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) deployed a project on empowering female Vietnamese workers under labour contracts.

The Vietnam Association of Manpower Supply (VAMAS) also published a range of training materials for employment brokerage firms and guidebooks for guest workers while closely watching over their code of conduct.

The event was a joint collaboration among the MoLISA, UN Women, the VAMAS and the International Labour Organisation.-VNA