The Vietnam Year of Family 2013, themed “Connecting Love”, will be officially launched in Hanoi on March 16.

The launch ceremony, to be co-organised by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST), and the Vietnam Women’s Union , is expected to draw more than 1,500 participants.

The organisers said through the year’s theme, they want to connect the role, responsibility and feelings of every member of every Vietnamese family so that they can share with each other and take care of their homes together, therefore helping end problems like domestic violence.

The Year of Family is designed to raise public awareness of the family’s position and role as well as the Party and State’s policies and law on family, promoting gender equality and preventing domestic violence.

A surveyed conducted last year by the MCST revealed that more than 53,600 cases of domestic violence were reported between 2009 and mid-2012. The victims were mainly women (64.3 percent), followed by children (14 percent) and the elderly (9.7 percent).

Gender inequality, people’s limited awareness of the law and ineffective punishment for offenders are considered the root causes of this situation.-VNA