English - CEDAW Southeast Asia

A Gendered and Rights-Based Review of Vietnamese Legal Documents through the Lens of CEDAW
for highlanders and national minorities. Also, Article 61 of the Constitution states: “The citizen
is entitled to a regime of health protection. The State shall establish a system of hospital fees,
together with one of exemption from and reduction of such fees. The citizen has the duty to
observe all regulations on disease prevention and public hygiene.” These two provisions
should be read in conjunction with Article 63 of the Constitution, which points out: “Male and
female citizens have equal rights in all fields - political, economic, cultural, social and family.
All acts of discrimination against women and all acts damaging women’s dignity are strictly
banned.”
Laws also provide for equal right to health. Article 1(1) of the Law on the Protection of
People’s Heath (Code 21 LCT/HDNN8 of June 30, 1989) (Law on Health) states that citizens
are entitled to health protection and health-care services. Article 32 of the Civil Code
emphasizes that individuals have the right to safety of life, health and body. It also provides in
Article 5 that all parties are equal and that differences on account of gender must not be
invoked. Article 17(1) of the Law on Gender Equality on states: “Man and woman are equal in
participating in the activities of education and communication on health care, reproductive
health and in using health services.” The Law on Children provides that children have the right
to health care and protection, regardless of their sex. 568 There are also provisions in this law
on health insurance cards for the poor as well as for children. See Indicator 86.
The Law on Health also has provisions relating to budgets. In Article 3, it states that the
State is responsible for putting health protection in the State socio-economic development plan
and State budget. The People’s Councils at all levels must allocate an appropriate part of their
budgets to protecting people’s health. 569
Policies, strategies and plans
Policies, strategies and plans discuss improving the general health-care system, which
will impact greatly on equal access to health, especially access by women and ethnic
minorities, as well as specific measures for gender equality and targeted interventions for
women. First, Objective 3 of the Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women is the
improvement of women’s health. The main indicators for it are to: (a) increase the proportion
of women accessing health-care services to 95 percent by 2010; and (b) strive for 100 percent
of health-care centres with female midwives and 80 percent of health-care centres with
doctors. Provisions relating to safe motherhood and pregnancy are discussed in Indicator 87.
The Plan of Action for the Advancement of Women requires MOH to: (a) develop the healthcare
system for women; (b) increase investment for upgrading commune health-care centres;
(c) prioritize to remote and mountainous areas; (d) supplement material and human resources
for mobile health-care teams to meet the health-care demands of women and children; and
(e) direct provincial-level health departments to collaborate with local agencies and
enterprises in organizing periodic health checks for women to diagnose diseases in a timely
fashion and to provide medical treatment, especially reproductive-tract diseases.
255
568
Law on Children, Articles 4 and 15
569
Law on Health, Article 3(3)
Health (Article 12 of CEDAW)