Hanoi, Viet Nam – The Viet Nam Women’s Union discussed with Government, social organizations and international agencies today how it can help develop a national plan to achieve the United Nations goal of strengthening the role of women and women’s organizations and concerned stakeholders in promoting Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda.

“I have seven sisters and brothers. All of us have worked abroad, like 80 per cent of young people in my village“said Thuy Tien, 29, a mother of two in Thach Long commune, Hong Linh district, Ha Tinh - a rural poor province from the North Central region of Viet Nam.

Twenty-six Vietnamese police officials started receiving training today on international policing and UN peacekeeping roles and responsibilities, particularly how to protect women and girls from sexual violence in conflict-related contexts. UN Women, jointly with United Nations Police Division’s Standing Police Capacity and Viet Nam’s Ministry of Public Security is organizing the three-day workshop (12-17 July 2022) in Nha Trang city, Khanh Hoa province.

An international workshop to strengthen the capacities of female officers in leadership positions was held today in this city in Ha Nam province for 40 senior policewomen from northern provinces and Hanoi. The Department of Foreign Relations, Ministry of Public Security, hosted the workshop in partnership with UN Women.

[Press release] The Elsie Initiative Fund for Uniformed Women in Peace Operations (EIF) announced today that Cambodia will receive funding to undertake a study to identify barriers to the deployment of women in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), to United Nations peace operations. Cambodia, the 25th highest troop contributing country to United Nations peacekeeping, currently deploys 766 military personnel, among which 14 per cent are women.

UN Women, in partnership with the Center for Sustainable Development Studies and CED Link, supported the efforts of 71 youth leaders, content creators and change-makers across Viet Nam to develop innovative social media projects aimed at strengthening positive digital engagement and at combating cyberharms. Within three months, the projects achieved incredible results, receiving a collective 4.9 million views, 19,100 comments and 4,382 shares across all major social media platforms commonly used in Viet Nam.

[Press release] Building on the momentum and commitments from the International Conference on Women, Peace and Security which was successfully hosted by Viet Nam in Ha Noi in late 2021, today’s international workshop brought together WPS experts and more than 100 representatives from the Viet Nam National Assembly, Government ministries, United Nations, and other agencies, both offline and online, to discuss how to accelerate the development of a National Action Plan on WPS for Viet Nam, as part of its international commitment to implement the WPS Agenda.

A total of 220 women living with HIV in four Vietnamese provinces now have a chance to rebuild their livelihoods with cash handouts from UN Women after losing their incomes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar handouts, of VND 4 million (USD 170) each, also are creating brighter futures for 44 ethnic minority women in another province who had to return home after losing their migrant jobs because of the pandemic.

[Press release] A workshop not only showed Viet Nam’s efforts in realizing its international commitments such as the Ha Noi Commitment to Action on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), but also initiated further discussion on the advancement of the WPS agenda and governmental response in times of crisis, like the Covid-19 pandemic, to protect women and girls from additional harm and to make progress towards peace, equality and inclusion for all.

2016 was the year I embraced who I am, it was the year I joined the equality for all movement, and it was the year I asked myself who am I? My name is Thida Kuy, I am Cambodian, I am the Co-Founder of Loveisdiversity and I am a LGBTQ+ activist.

My name is Sinoun Poev. I am 26 years old and I am from Cambodia. Currently I'm a project coordinator of Collective Action to Support Women's Right with Alliance for Conflict Transformation (ACT), a local NGO in Cambodia. This project aims to link the community and civil society to government by increasing women and youth participation and leadership in decision making processes in Cambodia.

There is a Cambodian proverb: “A man is gold; a woman is a white piece of cloth.” The implication is that gold (men) can be made clean and shiny if dropped in mud, but the cloth (women) is stained and ruined. This saying mirrors the sentiment of generations in our country’s society and their view on female sexuality. This portrayal of women’s sexuality is one example of how women often lack their sexual rights and autonomy.

Ten Vietnamese companies have received the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs) Awards in recognition of their policies and practices to advance gender equality in the workplace, marketplace and community.

Essential equipment worth VND 483 million (USD 21,200) has been donated to the Vietnamese organization Peace House, for their helplines and shelters for survivors of human trafficking and violence against women. The donation, funded under the UN Women-UNODC joint programme on Enhancing Women’s Role in Law Enforcement and Border Security to Prevent Trafficking in Person and Transnational Crimes was ceremonially handed over by UN Women last week.

Gender-based violence Rapid Response Teams in 17 communities, led by local police, and consisting of a Women’s Union Officer and a Justice Officer, Youth Union Officer or Community Leader, deliver timely and coordinated responses and protection for women and girls experiencing violence in their communities.

[Press release] The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) in coordination with the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the Australian Embassy in Viet Nam held a virtual conference on the Final Review of the National Strategy on Gender Equality 2011-2020 and Implementation of the National Strategy on Gender Equality 2021-2030.

[Press release] The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), with financial support from the Embassy of Ireland in Viet Nam, and in coordination with the Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (ILSSA-MOLISA), and the Department of Ethnic Minority Affairs - Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) has launched two reports on “Figures on Ethnic Minority Women and Men in Viet Nam 2015-2019” and “Policy Brief: Gender issues in ethnic minority areas in Viet Nam.” The launch is organised in celebration of the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on 9 August.

In the past 18 months, by trapping women with their abusers, COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns have worsened the already-widespread violence against women while preventing many of them from getting help. But even those who do manage to contact the police come up against another long-standing challenge: a culture and system that treats the survivor as a big part of the problem.

Thi Nguyen said she sensed something was wrong when the taxi driver in Bangkok, after realizing she was a migrant worker from Viet Nam, took what he said was “a new road” to her destination. She tried to stay calm. “When he reached the edge of a forest, he locked all the doors and went out for a call, perhaps looking for smugglers” she said. “As soon as he got back into the taxi, I told him.

The villagers of the Giay ethnic minority are often at the mercy of the weather, so UN Women is helping them avert losses in their main livelihoods of farming and raising chickens and fish. Quang Kim, a commune in Ta Trang village near the capital of Lao Cai province in northern Viet Nam, is often hit by flash floods and landslides during the storm season. “The income of my family depends much on planting rice and selling chicken and fish, but all were buried by the flood in October last year,” said Ho Thi Nhung, 38, who lives here with her husband and two sons.