Vietnam joins regional conference on gender equality
(VOV) - Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Doan Mau Diep, led a Vietnamese delegation on November 17-20 attending the Asian and Pacific Conference on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Beijing+20 in Thailand.
At the conference, Diep said Vietnam ranks third in ASEAN and 47th overall among the 187 countries implementing gender equality commitments. It still faces violence against women and children and gender imbalance at birth challenges.
Vietnam is committed to boosting gender equality and empowerment of women and girls so as to push economic development, eradicate hunger and reduce poverty, Diep added.
Roberta Clarke, Regional Director of UN Women Asia-Pacific, in turn said so far, no country has gained complete gender equality.
Women are now still facing discrimination on a number of fronts, including inequality in the workplace and in the home, which is a threat to the safety and development of women in society, Clarke said.
In 1995, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women, and subsequently endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996. The Beijing Platform for Action has constituted a global framework for realising gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.
Every five years, progress in implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action has been reviewed by the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
There have been three reviews to date – 2000, 2005 and 2010 – with each review resulting in a declaration that reinforces global commitment to the empowerment of women and girls and outlining priority actions for the subsequent five years.