by Vu Kim Chung
31-12-2000
Greater social freedom in Vietnam has been accompanied by an increase in reports of violence against women, a conference heard. According to the December 30, 2000 issue of Liberation Saigon newspaper, a United Nations-sponsored conference in Hanoi during the last week of December heard the economic prosperity and increasing personal freedom of the past decade had brought with them a darker side of social change in Vietnam.
"Violence against women is growing, particularly within the family unit, and research shows the situation in rural Vietnam is particularly disturbing," the report said. "The past eight years has seen at least 11,000 cases of domestic violence reported to authorities, a social problem which until the 1990s was virtually unheard of."
It remained unclear if the figures reflected an increase in the incidence of violence or whether women were now more likely to seek help from outside the extended family. Hien Khanh, chairwoman of the Hanoi Woman's Association, said the picture was further clouded by uneven social change between rural and urban areas.
"Domestic violence in rural areas is very much worse than in the cities, but reporting to authorities is much higher in places like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City," she said. "Women in the cities are more aware of their rights and have better chances to live independently. This is reflected in the increase in divorce [prompted by abuse by the husband] made possible by financial independence and changes in urban attitudes towards second marriages."
Ho Chi Minh, the father of modern Vietnam, enshrined sexual equality in the country's constitution and women played an important role - often as combatants - in the wars against French colonialism and America's presence in South Vietnam.
A two-year survey concluded earlier in 2000 by Care International found that "a vast majority" of married women in southern Vietnam had been beaten by their husbands. Another conducted by the Ho Chi Minh City Centre for Marriage and Family found most cases were linked to alcohol abuse, poverty and extra-marital affairs. It found that almost 50 percent of those surveyed believed a husband was entitled to treat his wife however he saw fit. The survey of city residents found 44.5 per cent believed a wife should be subservient to her husband, and that most abused wives had been ill-treated for failing to show their husband sufficient respect. It suggests that a large number of Vietnamese men are still backward and rather uncivilized with women, and certainly not at all what one would call gentlemen.
Women make up slightly more than half of Vietnam's population, but one estimate by the Vietnam Farmers' Association indicated they are directly responsible for more than 70 per cent of agricultural output while remaining overwhelmingly responsible for family care. This also shows that Vietnamese men are very lazy and seem not to care for their wives.
Despite their constitutional guarantee of equality, women are still under-represented in the nation's power structures.