Nearly three in five women in Vietnam have faced abuse from their significant other in some form, according to a recently released report.
The survey, jointly conducted by Young Women Making Change, an organization dedicated to gender equality, and UN Women, was presented earlier this week at a conference in Hanoi on women’s rights, reports Tuoi Tre.
Of the 569 women aged 18 to 30 who participated in the survey, 59% reported being mentally abused by their partners, while 21% reported mental or physical harm. Another 23% reported online harassment, and 11% of respondents reported sexual abuse from their partners.
According to VnExpress, official statistics on “dating violence”, as it is termed by the authors of the report, find that 58% of married women in Vietnam suffer physical or sexual abuse at least once in their lives, either from their husband or a male family member.
Though women are protected against these abuses under Vietnamese law, many are unaware of their rights and do not know where to seek help in the event of dating violence. At the conference, the survey’s authors pushed to add further protection against dating violence into the country’s penal code.
According to VnExpress, Sociology professor Nguyen Bao Thanh Nghi told Thanh Nien that Vietnamese women have long fought for gender equality, however male participation in these efforts is often limited, meaning “they often die prematurely and fail to create systematic and widespread changes”.
While Vietnam experiences a greater level of gender equality than some other Southeast Asian countries, violence against women remains a problem. Just last month, two passengers in Hanoi were caught on camera beating a female Vietnam Airlines employee in public; the men were later given six- and 12-month flight bans, however neither faced criminal charges for their actions.
Not two weeks later, according to Tuoi Tre, surveillance footage at a Nghe An gas station caught a banker beating a female gas station attendant with whom he disagreed.
[Photo via Flickr user Khanh Hmoong]
