[Vnbiz] Women's Day: Ending Impunity for Violence Against Women

[Tran Dinh Hoanh]

Dear chi Le Thuy & CACC,

Your point is very well taken, Le Thuy.  Sexual harassment in schools and in
the work place is a huge problem.  Of course, the government and NGOs will
have to be involved to put in place a system of law and regulation to
improve the situation.

But, while waiting for all that, the first place to start is the women
themselves.  Life is simple, you just have to fight for your right.  Nothing
in life is for free, even gender equality.  The women just have to help
themselves.  Stand up and fight for your rights.  Here again, the concept of
SELF HELP is the starting point in any policy or cultural movement.

The Women Union (and hopefully the women in the Thanh Doan) are working on
the issue.  But much more than that, I suggest that the progressive women,
meaning, the woman students at universities and woman professionals
at companies, organize "Women 's Committee on Sexual Harrassement" to work
on the issue.  There are lots of things that may be done:

The Committee is:

1.  The place for the victims to come to raise their complaints (to be
channelled to proper authority).

2.  The place where the women teach each other their right and how to stand
up for their right.

3.  The place to educate the men about what is sexual harassment (because
many of the guys really think that they touch your rear that is not sexual
harassment; of if they say something like "What do women know about policy?"
it would be OK; or it is OK for a company to search for secretary with
"ngoai hinh can doi"....)

A lot of these must be taught from the women's point of view, because they
know what insult them.   Many men sincerely believe that they don't insult
the women, while they do.

And the men of the younger generation must learn how to respect the women.
"Whatever you don't do and don't say to a man at school and at the
workplace, don't say or do that to a woman."  This is a very simple rule to
keep.

I love my mom.  And when I say and do some thing (even a joke) that may
degrade the women in general, I know that I am insulting my mom.  That is an
easy way to check our behavior.

So let's start with ourselves.  Work on our own behavior.  And start
self-help groups.  Then the government and other institutions will follow.

Have a great day!

Hoanh




On 3/8/07, Tran Le Thuy <tranlethuy at netnam.vn> wrote:
>
> [ Vietnam Business Forum ]
>
> Dear anh Hoanh and All,
>
> I would also like ADB, other donors and the government to look more at
> harrassment and discrimination against women at workplace and school.
>
> You can read some reports from the local newspapers recently about
> teachers who used their authority to harrass students. I don't think
> we have effective mechanism to combat this kind of crime. As far as I
> know, the cases are only addressed when it get published or reported
> to the police. Many women quietly sacrifice their jobs or chances for
> higher education in order to protect their dignity and mental health.
> We don't have internal grievance procedures and  organisations to
> protect and empower women. Something similar to the Office of Civil
> Rights in Department of Education in the U.S in our Ministry of
> Education ? or NGOs to advocate and pressure for fair treatment in
> specific cases ?
>
> Just some thoughts.
> Cheers
> Thuy
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Tran Dinh Hoanh" < tdhoanh at gmail.com>
> To: vnbiz at vietlinks.net
> Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 13:33:25 -0500
> Subject: [Vnbiz] Women's Day: Ending Impunity for Violence Against
> Women
>
> >[ Vietnam Business Forum ]
> >
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> To subscribe/unsubscribe, please contact admins at
> vnbizadmin at vietlinks.net
> Info at http://mail.saigon.com/mailman/listinfo/vnbiz
> Archive at
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vnbiz/
> or http://groups-beta.google.com/group/VNBIZforum/
> or http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz
>



-- 
Tran Dinh Hoanh, LLB, JD
Attorney of Law
Washington DC
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.saigon.com/pipermail/vnbiz/attachments/20070309/8f560c28/attachment.html