Domestic violence and sexual abuse against children: Identification for prevention

20/02/2020
On the morning of January 3, 2020, at the National Assembly's Office, Vietnam Women's Union in coordination with Vietnam National Assembly’s Delegation in charge of supervising "the implementation of policies and laws on the prevention and control of child abuse" and the Vietnam Association for Protection of Child’s Rights organizes a Workshop on "Prevention of violence and sexual abuse against child in the family".
Participants at the Workshop

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Ha - Member of the Party Central Committee, VWU President said that there is a worrying situation about child abuse as many cases occur in families and by close family members. According to local reports, child abuse within the family happen in many localities. Therefore, this workshop aims to discuss key issues relating to prevention and control of child abuse in the family.

Ms. Ha mentioned four issues that should be addressed including the gap of policies, laws, particularly specific regulations applied for children; supportive services for children such as psychological and legal aid; responsibilities of the state management agencies and coordination mechanism in preventing child abuse; and family education and skills training for children. In addition, the inspection, examination, supervision, prosecution and trial should also be considered for appropriate recommendations.

At the seminar, there were presentations and discussions on the situation, causes and effects of child abuse in the family today, assessment of the dissemination of legal education and the role of family education; responsibilities of state management agencies; international experiences on models of violence prevention and child abuse; proposals and recommendations on policies, laws and the implementation of legislation on the prevention and control of child abuse in the family. In addition, the participants also noted that Vietnam has a relatively complete legal system of child protection in general and child abuse prevention in particular. However, there are still some shortcomings in the law enforcement. 

The participants proposed that the National Assembly should strengthen the supervision of the implementation of the Law on Children 2016, especially the supervision of the implementation of responsibilities of ministries, branches and families. At the same time, it is necessary to consider amending a number of provisions of the Law on Children, the Law on Judicial Assessment, and procedural laws in dealing with cases involving children as well as studying child support models; promoting effective information dissemination and the role of family education to equip children with necessary skills.

Making the conclusion of the workshop, Ms. Le Thi Nga, Chairwoman of the Judicial Committee, Standing Deputy Head of the Supervision Delegation said that it is necessary to properly assess the situation of child violence and abuse in families to come up with practical solutions. The current law of our country on the protection of children's rights and prevention of domestic violence is relatively good including the Law on Children, the Law on Prevention and Control of Domestic Violence and guiding decrees. The problem is the weakness in law enforcement. In addition, there are still a number of other issues affecting this task such as lack of human resources, facilities, and funding for implementation, and the coordination amongst ministries for the effective implementation. Some restrictions related to institutions, judicial proceedings, and activities of social organizations should also be noted.

Translated by VWU’s IRD

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