Women’s role in social development

A walking program on anti-violence on women and girls

Accounting for over 51% of the national population and nearly half of the social workforce, Vietnamese women have contributed greatly to family economy, community, and national defense.

Women involving in politics have increased and made up 26.8% of National Assembly deputies and 26% of People’s Councils members at all levels. Women have their voices in policy making for sustainable development, public interest, and protecting their own legitimate rights and benefits.

Vietnam targets to have at least 1 million enterprises in 2020 and 35% of them run by women. The Women’s Union has reformed its performance, simplified administrative procedures, assembled women through various organizations and activities to help them improve knowledge and skills for production, healthcare, and family affairs.

Hoang Thi Ai Nhien, Vice Chairwoman of the Vietnam Women’s Union, said, “Equality means women must have economic role, jobs, and incomes. The Union has typical models to help rural and poor women. One of our successful models is microfinance model TYM to help women do business. We have offered loans worth more than US$43 million to over 100,000 women. TYM model has been successful in Vietnam.”

The General Statistics Office of Vietnam reports that rural women working in agriculture make up 63.4%. They are the major workforce in the agricultural sector and playing an important part in socio-economic growth.

Doan Mau Diep, Deputy Minister of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs, said Vietnam has launched drastic activities to implement the law on gender equality toward sustainable development, focusing on rural areas.

The goals are offering vocational training to 50% of rural women under 45 years old in 2020, 100% of women in poor, rural areas and ethnic communities having access to incentive loans for employment programs.

“The legal framework has been fine tuned to empower rural women in all sectors. The highlights are national target programs on sustainable poverty reduction and rural development, vocational training for rural workers, prosperous and happy families, anti-domestic violence and abuse, and not let women behind.” said Minister Diep.