As many as 11 organisations and enterprises, which participated in theimplementation of a campaign to support breastfeeding in the workplace,were honoured at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City on July 10.

Hostedby the Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL) , the VietnamChamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the Alive & Thriveproject (A&T), the conference was part of Vietnam’sBreastfeeding Week 2015.

Businesses participating in the conference pledged to engage with the programme in the future.

Initiatedin 2012 and funded by the VGCL and A&T, the programme to supportbreastfeeding in the workplace was carried out in 70 organisations,including 10 State agencies and 60 enterprises, where 70 breastfeedingrooms were set up to support mothers at work.

VGCL VicePresident Nguyen Thi Thu Hong said her agency had worked closely andeffectively with A&T to implement the programme, together with VCCI.

Theprogramme’s success, along with the State’s new policy on increasingmaternity leave from 4 to 6 months, created favourable conditions forVGCL to expand the programme, Hong stressed.

A&Trepresentative Nemat Hajeebhoy underscored the need to set upbreastfeeding rooms in the workplace, benefitting female employeesand their children.

She expressed her hope thatmore than 200 breastfeeding rooms would be established inenterprises across the country during this year’s Breastfeeding Week.

The General Statistics Office announced in 2014 that women accounted for 48 percent of the total workforce in Vietnam.

According to the National Institute of Nutrition, only 19.6 percent ofVietnamese children were breastfed for the first six months of theirlives in 2010. Meanwhile, in recent years there has been a increase inthe number of children bottle-fed during the first six months of theirlives.-VNA