Viet Nam
has made great strides in terms of economic performance, but at the same time,
there are signs of rising economic inequality and disparity in the country.
The
statement was made by United Nations Resident Co-ordinator John Hendra at a
conference to launch the Asia-Pacific Human Development Report on Gender.
This
was backed up by figures provided by the UN on three aspects of gender
inequality in Viet Nam:
economic power, political voice and legal rights.
In
Viet Nam,
women make up 46.6 per cent of the workforce but most women work in the
informal sector which is not covered by social protection.
Furthermore,
as more than half of working women are unpaid family workers, they receive no
direct income. Those who are paid earn only 87 per cent of the hourly wage
received by men.
According
to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)'s first nationwide family
survey, Vietnamese women do not have an equal say in decision-making at the
household level, and have a lower level of ownership and control over key
assets, such as houses, land and large-scale purchases.
Besides,
only a few Vietnamese women hold important political positions. Though Viet Nam has
the highest rate of female participation in the National Assembly among ASEAN
countries, women are not well-represented in senior decision-making in the
Party and in the administration: only one minister and five deputy ministers
are women.
Vietnamese
women are also hindered by their retirement age of 55, while that for men is
60.
This
might not only limit women's chances of promotion and access to training, but
also discourage employers from hiring women, the review of Vietnamese legal
documents by the United Nations Development Fund for Women said.
To
make the situation even worse, a recent study by the Supreme People's Court
estimated that 21 per cent of couples experience domestic violence. Almost
two-thirds of women believe it is acceptable for men to beat their wives, the
General Statistics Office 2006 Survey said.
"The
silence and stigma that surround violence against women is so strong that many
women are afraid to speak out," Hendra said.
He
suggested that it was necessary to ensure that all Vietnamese families value
girls equally with boys and invest in their capabilities and well-being.
Threat
to survival
The
2010 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report (Power, Voice and Rights: a Turning
Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific) found that discrimination
and neglect were threatening women's very survival in the Asia-Pacific region,
where women suffered from some of the world's lowest rates of political
representation, employment and property ownership.
It
provided recommendations for action across the three areas covered (power,
voice and rights) including removing barriers to women's ownership of assets,
expanding paid employment, making migration safe and investing in high-quality
education and health.
