New York (VNA) – Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Pham Thi Hai Chuyen highlighted Vietna๊m’s achievements in empowering women at the March 15 working session of the ongoing 60th Session of the Commission on th🐻e Status of Women (CSW) in New York.

Vietnam, for the first time, has three female Politburo members, equivalent to nearly 16 percent, and more than half of ministries and agencies have women holding key positions, the minister said. These female officials are expected to be promising candidates for the upcoming election of deputies to the 14th National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels for 2016-2021, she added. Alongside this, female labourers make up 48.3 percent of the country’s total figure and nearly 24.9 percent of business managers are women. Notably, maternity mortality dropped over three folds, from 233 mothers per 100,000 live births in 1990, to 59 in 2014 and an estimated 58.3 in 2015, according to the official. Thanks to its marked achievements in gender equality, the country has been lauded by the World Bank in its Vietnam 2035 Report released last February. Minister Chuyen attributed such results to the country’s efforts in promoting gender equality and ensuring human rights of women and girls. Vietnam has considered the integration of gender equality into legal documents one of the key tasks ahead, she said. She cited the national action plan on gender equality for 2016-2020 which aims to narrow the gender gap and raise women’s position in a number of sectors, regions and localities, in addition to a string of policies and projects geared towards women. To ensure gender equality, Vietnam has tried to grasp the demands and aspirations of women and employ solutions to promote their empowerment in all areas, the minister shared at the session. However, like other CSW members, the country has encountered an array of difficulties and challenges in the work, she said, citing the complicated issue of violence against women and girls, and backward customs in rural, mountainous, far-flung and remote areas that hinder the development of women. To deal with the problems, Vietnam will speed up writing and enforcing laws and policies on gender equality, add priorities regarding the empowerment of women and girls into the national agenda on sustainable development, and strive to better protect the rights of the group during the process of economic development, Chuyen promised. The country hopes to have more opportunities to take part in meetings and thematic discussions of this year’s session in order to work together with other CSW members in seeking out suitable solutions and priorities to women’s empowerment, she said.-VNA