Do Hung Viet, Assistant to the Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs, made the remarks while attending the annual debate on women’s rights at the HRC’s 50th regular session in Geneva on June 27.
In his speech, Viet highlighted the important role of women, stressing the need to ensuring their rights and development opportunities through specific and effective support policies.
He also shared Vietnam’s experience and efforts in this regard, noting Vietnam is one of the countries with the longest maternity leaves in the world.
Emphasising the country’s priority for gender equality promotion and women empowerment, he added Vietnam is ready to cooperate with other countries in these common efforts.
At the debate, participants underlined the necessity to build comprehensive and effective policies for ensuring gender equality and rights of women, who are in charge of a huge domestic workload but unpaid or underpaid, which has subsequently affected women’s full participation in economic, social, educational, and healthcare activities.
The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened this inequality, requiring countries to pay due attention and conduct proper settlement during the post-pandemic recovery process, they noted, calling for social security measures to be enhanced and favourable conditions created for workers to temporarily withdraw from the labour market to care for families and thus ease the burden on women.
Also on June 27, Viet had a meeting with Director-General of the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG) Tatiana Valovaya.
He noted Vietnam’s support for multilateralism to be brought into play in the settlement of the international community’s common concerns.
The official affirmed that the country will increase its proactive and active participation in multilateral forums in Geneva, including running for seats in the international organisations and holding events to popularise Vietnam among the diplomatic community here.
Valovaya highly valued Vietnam’s commitment to promoting multilateralism and enhancing the role of international organisations, adding that she is impressed with Vietnamese senior leaders’ engagement in the events held by UN organisations recently.
The UNOG will continue assisting the country to boost popularising its images as well as cooperation potential at international organisations in Geneva, she went on, adding that Vietnam’s proactive participation in different aspects will also contribute to cultural diversification in the organisations’ activities here.
