By IPS Correspondents
HO CHI MINH CITY, Aug 20 2009 (IPS)

Vietnam is something of a regional leader when it comes to gender equality. There are laws against domestic violence and discrimination, and very high female literacy.

Abortion is legal and easy to access Credit: Peter Garnhum/IPS

"If you have sons and they have children, they will carry on the family name," says Ngo Thi Thanh Nhan, 32. "People want boys so when they are pregnant with girls – abortion. This thinking must change," she adds, cradling her second daughter who is less than a month old.

In keeping with Vietnamese tradition, mother and child will remain confined to their home in District 10, Ho Chi Minh city, for the next two months.

Nhan watches as female relatives coo over her daughter, Dang Nghi. "I prefer girls but my husband likes boys. Boys and girls are the same, I think," she says. Will she have a third child? No, she has been sterilised.

The Population Ordinance, restricting families to two children, was reinstated in November 2008, after being rescinded in 2003. It was originally brought in during the mid-1980s thanks to government fears of a population boom and corresponding strains on resources.

There are regional variances, with rates remaining around the natural average in the southern Mekong provinces but rising as high as 120:100 in the northeast. This mirrors neighbouring China with its one child law, repealed only recently. The SRB there had climbed to 120:100.

A recent UNFPA report noted, "(The) SRB is a reliable indicator of women's status in terms of gender inequality." "Confucian values" which prize sons over daughters and men over women have been blamed in part. Vietnam traditionally has been a patrilineal society, with sons responsible for caring for parents in old age. Daughters, who marry and leave, are considered "outsiders".

"If you don't have a son you are considered finished. You don't have happiness or luck in your life," Dr Nguyen Dang Anh, a research fellow at the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, told IPS via phone.

Anh has contributed to UNFPA reports and believes that although Vietnam has made impressive progress on gender equality in the past 20 years, it has lagged behind in some areas. "If you look at some indicators such as gender equality law and labour force participation, it's very good. But in the household, the decision making process is very traditional. Nothing has changed."

The government has been trying to change the SRB rate. According to state media, the authorities seized 30,000 sex-selection books in early July and shut down seven websites that were advising couples how to have sons.

Doctors have also been threatened with dismissal for revealing the sex of the foetus. This is already illegal but doctors had found creative ways around direct statements.

Abortion, which has been legal since the 1960s, is cheap and readily available. The communist nation has one of the highest rates of abortion in the world and it is estimated the average woman will have two abortions in her life. One man, who preferred to be anonymous, said via email, "I think it is very normal. Some female friends, or my friends' wives, they have had two abortions."

It is abortion, and ultrasound technology, which has been one of the main driving forces behind the gender gap. The U.N., quoted in state media, linked the increasing SRB and sex-selective abortion.

Vietnam's gender imbalance "holds the potential for increased levels of antisocial behaviour ultimately presenting a threat to stability and social order," a 2007 UNFPA report has warned.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan told state media that millions of Vietnamese will have trouble finding wives. Some experts have worried that this may lead to an increase in the trafficking of women.

Already the government has struggled with issue of women being trafficked across the border to China, and the network of illegal marriage brokers who organise young brides from poor rural areas for men from overseas, predominantly South Koreans and Taiwanese.

What we need is strict implementation of existing laws that strengthen gender equality. "We don't need more policies; we need to implement them more effectively," says Dr Anh. "People may understand the problems but they won't change their behaviour," he added.

Excerpt: