Colombian Ambassador to Vietnam Miguel Ángel Rodríguez Melo (Source: VNA)In an interview granted to the VietnamNews Agency on the occasion of the ongoing 13th National Women’sCongress in Hanoi, the diplomat said the governments of countries, includingVietnam, have been implementing many policies and programmes to createdevelopment chances for women in all fields, in efforts to achieve SustainableDevelopment Goal 5 on gender equality and women empowerment set in the UN 2030Agenda for Sustainable Development.
He spoke highly of Vietnam’scontinual overhauling of the legal framework to guarantee equality for women asseen in the detailed regulations on gender equality in the Constitution and theadoption of the Law on Gender Equality in 2006 and the Law on Domestic ViolencePrevention and Control one year later.
These legal tools hold a highlyimportant role amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when gender inequality in theworkplace, unfair housework distribution, and domestic violence increased, MiguelRodríguez went on.
Talking about the role of women, theambassador held that the term “weaker sex” has been used not only in Vietnambut also many other places around the world to indicate women, but the use ofthis term has ignored the value, potential, and strength of women and girls.
In the midst of the pandemic, women’s indispensable role in political,economic, and social development has been increasingly demonstrated, he said, addingthat chapters of the Vietnam Women’s Union have worked unceasingly to protect genderequality and contribute to the realisation of development targets, including inthe national target programme on new-style rural area building and the nationalstartup programme.
In the interview, MiguelRodríguez also highlighted Colombia’s progress in facilitating women’sparticipation in all socio-economic aspects.
He affirmed that the 13th National Women’s Congress of Vietnam and the International Women’s Forum heldin Colombia, both taking place almost at the same time, have opened up commonspaces for cooperation and experience sharing in gender equality promotion andwomen empowerment./.
VNA
