Deputy Minister –Vice Chairwoman of the Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs Hoang Thi Hanh speaks at the event. (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Some 70 experts on gender equality and delegates from ethniccommittees of 15 provinces and cities across the country attended a workshop onOctober 15 to review the first five years of a project on reducing childmarriage and inter-marriage in ethnic minority areas during 2015-2025.
Theworkshop was organised by the Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs and the UNEntity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), withsupport from Irish Aid.
Speaking at the event, Vu Phuong Ly from UN Women saidchild marriage and inter-marriage are among the most obvious manifestations ofgender inequality, which has persisted for generations in ethnic minorityareas.
Theproblems require long-term systematic solutions in terms of socio-economicdevelopment, and these must correspond to the customs and cultures of eachethnic minority group. This, however, has not been given adequate attention,she noted.
DeputyMinister –Vice Chairwoman of the Committee on EthnicMinority Affairs Hoang Thi Hanh said that, in the next five years, the issuesof child marriage and inter-marriage should be placed in a broader and multi-dimensionalcontext. She also highlighted the importance of promoting genderequality, the empowerment of women, women’s leadership, and their participationin household and community decision-making.
Thecommittee plans to ramp up activities to prevent and respond to all forms ofviolence against ethnic minority girls and boys, including child marriage,which will be a priority in promoting gender equality in ethnic minority areas.
The rateof child marriage among ethnic minorities in 2018 was 21.9 percent; 4.7percentage points less than the 26.6 percent recorded in 2014, according to theresults of a General Statistics Office survey on the socio-economic circumstancesof Vietnam’s 53 ethnic minority groups. The decline is still low, however, andvaries between localities. The ratio remains high in many provinces, such as LamDong and Lao Cai./
VNA
