“Gender equality is the key to the stable development of society and economy”, says Mrs Le Thi Thu, Minister of Committee for Population, Family and Children.

Mrs Le Thi Thu.

Share difficulties and expand more rights for women.

* Correspondent: Would you please tell me the reason why the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) calls the world population Day 2005 the year of equality?

- Mrs Le Thi Thu: Now, the world population is about 6.5 billion peoples. Every day, about 70 thousand adolescents get married and 40 thousand women give birth. The gender inequality pervading almost every aspect of life is a real fact. Through out the world, there are over 600 million women who are illiterate and one of 3 women is persecuted and sexually abused. With the aim to promote quality of life for individual women and girls, and stronger families, UNFPA has chosen the banner of “equality” for this year’s activities in order to call upon communities and menfolk to share difficulties and expand more rights for women, especially equal opportunities to education, politic, economy and reproductive health. It means that girls have opportunities to go to school and women have equal access to income, assets and services and more rights to take part in political arena. The benefit of gender equality includes a higher quality of life for individual women and girls, and stronger families, communities and countries. Gender equality is the key to the stable development of society and economy and to improve the quality of their lives.

* What has our country achieved in implementation of gender equality?

UNFPA highly values our country for our good achievements in the implementation of gender equality for woman and children. I am very happy that UNFPA has just reported that our country has gained a great move to ensure the gender equality, especially in education we has almost reached the equality (92% of girls have accesses to primary education.) Women of our country play important roles in the society. Our country has the highest percentage of female members of the National Assembly in Asia. Over 70% of cadres in education and health services and 80% of population and nutrition propagandists are women in the country. Our government has shown strong commitments to improve health conditions of motherhood and children and to enhance the quality of population by implementing the national population strategy (2001-2010), national strategy on reproductive health (2001-2010), policy to provide free health services for children under six year of age. And we have achieved some initial results such as rate of pregnancy and fatality of motherhood and newly born baby are alleviating. All these policies and strategies have contributed to the development of gender equality for woman and children. In our country, gender equality is considered as a backbone policy for the development of society and economy and is protected by law.

* What do you think about the gender equality in the implementation of family planning?

- In reality, there still have discriminations on the implementation of birth control and family planning. The implementation of contraceptive method and family planning places much responsibilities on woman. Therefore, the rate of taking birth control methods such as using condoms in menfolk is still low. If men are more responsible for these methods, the burden will be alleviated on women’s shoulders.

Pay more attentions on the reproductive health for workers.

* The public are more and more concerns on the reproductive health for female workers. Would you please let me know some things on this activity?

- In our activities, we place special concerns on the adults and adolescent workers. With the development of society and economy, industrial zones are mushrooming in many provinces and cities in our country. Thus, they are attracting the labour forces from rural area (female workers make up of the large amount). Although workers play powerful roles in the development of society and economy they are not properly looked after, especially on the reproductive health services which can’t reach to workers. Therefore, the possibilities of population increment in these areas are very high. As a result, on the occasion of the world population day 2004, the Vietnam Committee for Population, Family and Children had cooperated with the general federation of labour in Dong Nai province to hold a conference on the reproductive health for workers. After the conference, we have concentrated on the workers of non-state enterprises. The general federation of labour is conducting a survey on status of the reproductive health for these workers in order to have best solutions to this problem. We think that if we don’t pay more attentions to this force, many social problems will appear.  It’s time for us to consider the matter of providing better health services for workers in order to help them have good health and to work better and contribute to the development of the provinces where they live.

* What do you evaluate the ability of the population propagandists of the local Committee for Population, Family and Children?

Attending this festival makes me feel very happy. I think that the population propagandists are good and all of them are also good at singing. But the most important thing is that through this festival they have changes to exchange their experiences and to understand the significant meaning of activities on the population, family and children. These propagandists play powerful roles in the success of these activities. The festival also aims to praise propagandists who make great contribution to popularize policies of Party and Government on population, family and children to every household in order to help these households to have better lives.

* In your opinion, what do the propagandists should concentrate on?

- For a long time, the propagandists just concentrate on women. From now on, they have to improve their works and activities. They will concentrate on menfolk to call upon them to use family planning methods as to share burdens with women. Men are responsible for implementing the policies on population as to achieve the targets on population and family planning. Beside, they also popularize the gender equality on adolescents and adults

* Would you please evaluate the activities on population, family and children in Dong Nai province?

- We highly appreciate Dong Nai for their achievements in the activities on population, family and children, especially the provincial committee for population, family and children which has helped the provincial Committee of Party, People’s Council and People’s Committee to fulfill all resolutions and policies of Party and Government. We also highly evaluate the cooperation between provincial committee for population, family and children and other departments and agencies in Dong Nai province.

- The main problem of Dong Nai province is that it is in the economic hub and has a lot of industrial zones. Thus, it has a high rate of immigrant population. As a result, it faces many difficulties and challenges. The duty of Dong Nai is to acknowledge rate of immigrant population. It should have plans to provide reproductive health services to female workers in the province. It should pay more attentions to the implementation of providing free health services to children under six year of age and to improve the quality of lives of poor and difficult children and immigrant workers. Among these three issues, the most important, according to me, is the construction of prosperous and happy families.

* Thank you very much.

(Source Dong Nai Newspaper - Translated by THKC)