Vietnam's judicial system fails to clearly define or set asidepunishment for gender violence, due to which, gender violence victims -mostly women - encounter difficulty in accessing legal services.

Thiswas stated by experts during a two-day workshop that began in Hanoi onApril 1. The workshop discussed gender stereotyping in the justicesystem and women's access to justice in cases involving gender-basedviolence. It also reviewed penal procedural codes, discussions on whichattracted representatives from the Ministry of Justice, United Nations(UN) Women, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Centre for Studiesand Applied Sciences in Gender, Family, Women and Adolescents (CSAGA).

CSAGA Director Nguyen Van Anh said the latestnational research on domestic violence, which was conducted in 2010,showed that 87 percent of the women taking part in the research had notsought support from authorities or any other public services. As many as66 percent of domestic violence victims did not feel satisfied with themediation carried out in the community, and more than 70 percent of themediation cases did not achieve expected results.

Anh said the process for accessing legal support was so complicated.

"Moreover, present norms regulated that if domestic violence victimswanted to receive legal support, they must be poor women, old women,disabled women or women from ethnic minorities, thus the number of womenreceiving legal support was limited," she said.

Thelaw directs that couples in disagreement must be supervised after themediation, but in fact, no inspectors were assigned to do the job, sheadded.

For instance, a woman had chosen to remainanonymous in Hanoi's Ung Hoa district after recently being bitten by herhusband. Even though the Chairman of the Commune's People's Committeeand Head of the Commune's police had come to her rescue, she was advisedto keep calm and resolve the case herself. Returning home, she wasbitten once more by her husband for dishonouring him before the localauthorities, Anh said.

Nguyen Thi Kim Thoa, Directorof the Department of Criminal and Administrative Law under the Ministryof Justice, said the Laws on Labour, Domestic Violence Prevention andControl, Human Trafficking Prevention and Control and the Penal Codeshould be revised and harmonised and the necessary amended regulationsshould be added.

Information about shelters fordomestic violence victims should be announced in public. Workers at theshelters should be imparted knowledge about the relevant laws so thatthey can give proper guidance to the victims.

Anhadded that legal support teams, with participation of students andteachers from law universities and schools, should also be set up.

"Compulsory alcohol detoxification for people indulging indomestic violence should be included in legal regulations as reality hasproved that alcohol makes domestic violence more serious," she said.-VNA