Vietnam Women's Union supports women in international integration

In the context of increasingly intensive international integration, alongside the great benefits and opportunities brought to the country, people, and women, there are also many issues such as gender-based violence, human trafficking, unsafe migration and international marriage that are impacting women more. VWU’s members and women still face many difficulties in international integration.

In response to this situation, in January 2021, the VWU issued a resolution on supporting women in international integration until 2030.

The resolution’s goal is to enhance international integration awareness and capacity of the VWU’s staffs, members and women to contribute to the country's overall integration process, and to make the VWU an influential organization in the region and internationally. The resolution identifies general tasks and solutions, and those in three key areas, including 1) culture, society, and science-technology, 2) economics, and 3) security, national defense, and foreign affairs.

For general tasks and solutions, the resolution sets out requirements to improve international integration capacity and awareness of VWU’s staff, members, women and the community. It also emphasizes effective investment in expanding and deepening the VWU's foreign affairs, contributing to the development of a favorable legal environment for women in international integration, and particularly strengthening resource mobilization for integration.

In the field of culture, society, and science-technology, the first is to promote the role of women in preserving the national cultural identity and absorbing the quintessence of human culture, such as developing tourism, promoting the beauty of traditional culture, learning about other countries’ culture, criticizing harmful customs and practices that affect Vietnam's image... The second is to support women in family and social issues to meet the requirements of international integration, such as building office culture, online behavior culture, guiding women to apply information technology in life, use the internet safely and effectively.... The last is to encourage women to study science and technology, especially to promote women and girls to participate in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) or STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics).

In the field of economics, it is necessary to raise awareness of economic integration and sustainable development as opportunities and challenges associated with free trade agreements, green, clean, sustainable production and business, the One Comune, One Product (OCOP) Program, etc. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the development of networks to support women in economic integration, connecting women entrepreneurs in many forms. Another group of tasks and solutions in this field is to contribute to improving the quality of female human resources, especially in industries where women have strengths, industries with the potential of employment mobility within ASEAN and new industries. Besides, it is necessary to promote women's participation in the digital economy, disseminate and guide women to use the internet safely in commercial transactions, and encourage the usage of smartphones instead of feature phones.

In the field of security, defense, and foreign affairs, it is necessary to focus on improving the effectiveness of women's contributions to ensuring security and safety at the local level, protecting border and maritime sovereignty. The VWU at all levels must actively participate in the prevention of drug trafficking, cross-border smuggling, women and child trafficking, proactively denounce crimes and coordinate to support and rescue victims; encourage women not to migrate or get married abroad through illegal channels. In addition, the VWU needs to strengthen women’s role in the region and on the international stage, such as sharing Vietnamese women’s experiences, achievements and contributions in the fields of traditional and non-traditional security, honoring, and enhancing women’s effective participation at international forums, conferences, and seminars.

The VWU is the first mass organization in Vietnam to issue a resolution on supporting its members in international integration.

The implementation of the resolution is identified as a strategic task of the VWU at all levels in the coming time in order to contribute to the country’s overall integration. In this way, Vietnamese women can contribute more proactively and effectively, and enjoy the benefits from the international integration process, ensuring that "no one is left behind".