English - CEDAW Southeast Asia

A Gendered and Rights-Based Review of Vietnamese Legal Documents through the Lens of CEDAW
ed to require the setting up of a mechanism to enable a proportion of 30 percent female
judges. This mechanism can be a concrete plan with steps to reach the 30 percent proportion
within a specific time frame, with monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and
resources to ensure compliance, including sanctions for failure to abide by the plan for
no justifiable reasons. Temporary special measures, such as capacity-building activities
for women to qualify as judges and targeted recruitment, must also be put in place.
Indicator 58
Are women able to access leadership positions in the Communist
Party of Viet Nam
Viet Nam is a one-party State where the Communist Party of Viet Nam provides leadership
to the State and society. (See Part II.1.6 for further details on the Party.) Women’s leadership
and participation in the Communist Party of Viet Nam is an important component to their
eligibility to elected and appointed positions. In the recently concluded 12th National Assembly
elections, non-Communist Party of Viet Nam members won 43 seats or 8.72 percent of seats,
while the Communist Party of Viet Nam won 91.28 percent of seats. 368 This shows that female
participation and leadership within the Communist Party of Viet Nam can greatly influence the
number of winning candidates in the elections. Further, Communist Party of Viet Nam members
are in key government positions that make decisions on appointments or recruitment of
other important government officials.
There are a number of Communist Party of Viet Nam documents supporting women’s
representation and leadership, including Directive No. 49/CT-TW (1991), Directive No. 31-CT-
TW (2003) and Directive No.37/2004/CT-TW of November 8, 2004 Keeping the Implementation
the Decree No. 09/1998/ NQ-CP and the National Programme on Prevention, Combat against
Criminals until 2010 issued by the Party Central Secretariat focusing on the work of female
cadres in the new situation with six key measures to increase women’s potential. In 2007,
Resolution on Work for Women was issued to improve in all aspects women’s potential, including
more participation in social activities and equality in the light of the period of accelerating
industrialization and modernization. In particular, under Item 3.4 of the Resolution on Work for
Women, one of the tasks of the Communist Party of Viet Nam and the State is to “build a team
of highly skilled female scientists, leaders, managers to meet the demands from pushing up the
industrialization and modernization.” Further, it states the following under this item:
it is “necessary to ensure the percentage of female participants in the training courses
at the political training schools, public administration courses of over 30%. Carrying
out the selection of female cadres for training among the ethnic minorities, religious
groups and other areas that have low percentage of women”;
“efforts [are] to be made so that by year 2020, the percentage of female participants
in the party committees will reach 25% or over; female members in the National Assembly
and People’s Council at different levels will reach 35% to 40%. Agencies and
organizations having 30% or more women must have women among their leaders. The
high ranking agencies of the Party, the National Assembly, and the Government have
an appropriate percentage of women relative to the goal of gender equality.”;
183
368
Viet Nam Women’s Union Review
Political and public life (Articles 7 and 8 of CEDAW)