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RIGHTS-VIETNAM: Gender Equality Far Off Despite Political Will

Helen Clark

HANOI, Mar 9 2009 (IPS) - "We’ve been busier than usual today,'' said Huong, giving only one name, as she scrubbed a customer’s scalp in her tiny salon, the front room of her home. "We’re doing the same treatments, only a lot more. Everyone wants to look beautiful today."

As always International Women’s Day was a big deal in this communist country. Flower stalls, and their prices, tripled in the days leading up to Mar. 8. Many restaurants offered ‘Women’s Day’ specials. Luckier female employees enjoyed bonuses from their employers.

The Day, which has its origins in labour movements in Europe, enjoys wide government support, but for most it’s a celebration of the personal rather than the political.

Though the Day is popular in Vietnam, as seen in the abundance of chocolate boxes and roses, day-to-day life remains hard for many Vietnamese women – with domestic violence a looming issue.

That made the theme of this year’s Day somewhat prescient in Vietnam – ‘Men and Women: United to End Violence Against Women and Girls’. Last year, Vietnam brought into force the Law on Domestic Violence and it will soon issue a decree on the same issue.

According to statistics over 20 percent of households suffer from domestic violence. The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) believes the figure to be higher. "There’s an issue of underreporting and people not recognising a situation as domestic violence," April Pham, a gender specialist with UNIFEM, told IPS.

With increased media reports about domestic violence in Vietnam, many of them focusing on the worst cases, and the recently enacted law, it is an issue which is coming to prominence in the communist country, albeit slowly.

"I think it’s (domestic violence) a big problem here," said salon owner Huong. The other women in her salon agreed. "But we don’t really want to talk about these problems. Everyone has good and bad in their lives."

It’s this reticence, and the belief that it is both a private issue and the ‘right’ of husbands, which has seen the problem go unrecognised and often accepted. Confucianist values, which hold a wife to be the temperate yin to her husband’s fierier yang, have also been blamed by both gender experts and local media.

Hanoi, with a population of over three million, has only two centres for victims of domestic violence.

"(They’re) very new for Vietnam. So people don’t know much about them," Bich Ngoc Vu, the programme manager in Vietnam for the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), told IPS.

Vietnam has long been something of a regional leader in gender equality. The communist nation ratified CEDAW in 1982.

Literacy rates between the sexes are nearly equal (though they differ greatly in rural and ethnic-minority inhabited areas) and women account for nearly 26 per cent of National Assembly representatives (the legislative body of the nation).

Women are also well represented in the workforce, with over 80 per cent of working-age women participating.

But a lag exists between legislation and action. The new law, and its accompanying media campaign, may not bear fruit for years to come.

"Law is one thing, implementation is another," said Bich Ngoc Vu. "Even the officials need to be trained on the laws and policies. It will take years; there’s a long way to go."

Lam Phuong Ta, 52, owns a salon around the corner from Huong’s. Such places are very common in Hanoi’s maze of streets; women can enjoy a hair wash and blow wave for as little as 15,000VND (85 US cents), whilst catching up on neighbourhood gossip, away from their husbands.

"I’ve heard a little about this law," she said, supervising her young niece running between hairdresser’s chairs, "I know that if something really bad happens the Women’s Union will do something. But to be honest, nothing’s changed, it’s all still the same."

"It shows there is a political will in Vietnam to have gender equality," said April Pham, who is cautiously optimistic. "We have a long way to go in terms of gender equality but a lot of young people are starting to get the idea of equality between the sexes. But it’s mainly in the urban middle class."

Electronics student Nguyen Hoang Tham, 22, is one of those young people. With his dark plum coloured hair and flashy crystal earring he’s every inch the cool young urbanite.

"I respect women, but others don’t really treat women that well. I bought my girlfriend roses for Women’s Day. I think that if a man doesn’t have a girlfriend he must be very lonely."