At a Hanoi seminaron March 8 seeking ways to enhance empowerment for rural women for the sake ofsustainable development, he said the legal corridor has increasingly improvedto enhance empowerment for rural women in every social aspect, notably theNational Target Programme on Sustainable Poverty Reduction and New RuralConstruction that focuses on vocational training for rural workers, as well asprevention of violence and abuse.
Co-organisedby the United Nations in Vietnam; the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and SocialAffairs and the National Committee for the Advancement of Women in Vietnam, theevent attracted leaders of ministries, agencies from 20 cities and provinces, andsocio-political organisations in the country.
Pham ThuyTrang from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Department of LegalAffairs said the ministry issued the action plan on gender equality for2016-2020 and incorporated the issue into legal regulations.
Participantsdiscussed the lives, labour, job and social welfare for rural women at a timewhen Vietnam strives to deliver on sustainable development goals and internationalcommitments to promote gender equality and empowerment for women.
They suggestedcreating favourable conditions for women and children in rural areas toactively engage in deciding on policies that impact their lives, increase thecapacity of adapting to climate change and environment degradation viafacilitating women’s access to finance, sustainable energy, informationtechnology and social welfare.
Statisticsfrom the General Statistics Office showed that though agriculture contributed 16.3percent of the gross domestic product in 2016, up to 41.9 percent of workforcejoining agricultural production. Among 26.2 million women workers, nearly 44percent were working in farming.
In ruralareas, women working in agriculture accounted for 63.4 percent compared to 57.5percent in men.-VNA