Hanoi (VNA) – It is necessary to further promotepublic awareness of women’s empowerment, especially their politicalparticipation, although the percentage of women in Vietnam’s parliament iscurrently higher than the global average, said a minister.

At a conference reviewing the 10-yearimplementation of the Law on Gender Equality held in Hanoi on October 17,Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung noted animportant change over the past years is that there has been an observableimprovement in men’s awareness of the role of women and girls, which can beseen in each family.

For the time ahead, it is necessary to furtherpromote public awareness of the empowerment of women, especially their right toparticipate in politics, he said.

The ministry reported that a number ofachievements have been obtained after 10 years of the law implementation. 

Notably, women’s political participation at alllevels has increased. The numbers of female members of the Politburo and theParty Central Committee have risen for three tenures. For the first time,Vietnam has had a chairwoman of the National Assembly (NA) and three femalePolitburo members. 

Besides, 27.1 percent of the NA deputies arewomen, higher than the averages of 23.4 percent in the world and 18.6 percentin Asia. Women are also holding key positions in 13 of the 30 ministries andministry-level and Government agencies, along with 16 of the 63provincial-level localities.

The rate of women-owned businesses also soaredfrom 4 percent in 2009 to 27.8 percent in 2017 – highest in Southeast Asia,statistics show.

However, participants in the conference pointedabout certain shortcomings in the Law on Gender Equality, blaming them on thefact that relevant parties still lack close coordination during implementation,authorities of some localities have yet to pay due attention to genderequality, and gender bias remains popular in the public, even among officialsand civil servants.

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and SocialAffairs said it will step up gender mainstreaming in activities, programmes andprojects of sectors and localities; boost communications about andimplementation of gender equality-related policies and laws, and better theenforcement effectiveness of the Law on General Equality.

It expects that the policy system on genderequality will be perfected, and relevant public services will be providednationwide by 2030.

In particular, the ministry has proposed the NAincrease the monitoring of policy and law implementation, as well as the gendermainstreaming in law making and budget allocation. It has also asked theGovernment to push ahead with fine-tuning policies on gender equality and carryout some programmes and projects to narrow gender gap in some sectors withinequality./.