The proportion of women engaging in the politics is increasing, showingthe effectiveness of the State and Party’s policies that designed toenhance women’s role in society.

According to theFemale Parliament Members Group under the Vietnam National Assembly’sCommittee for Social Affairs, between 1999 and now, Vietnam always has afemale vice president and women accounted for 25.76 percent in theNational Assembly during the 2007-2011 tenure, the highest rate amongeight ASEAN countries that have a parliament.

Vietnam also ranks 37th out of 188 countries worldwide in term ofthe rate of women in the legislative body, said the InternationalInter-parliamentary Union.

The proportion of femaleministers, deputy ministers, department heads has raised over the pastyears. During the 2004-2011 tenure, women account for 23.8 percent ofPeople’s Council deputies at provincial level and 19.5 percent atcommunal level, respectively.

In an effort toheighten women’s social positions, many laws have been promulgated suchas the Marriage and Family Law, the Population Ordinance and the Law onDomestic Violence Prevention, and the Law on Gender Equality.

The laws on elections of the National Assembly and People’sCouncils at all levels stipulate women’s right to elect and run forelection as well as mechanisms to ensure women can exercise theirrights.

The National Strategy on Gender Equalityfor the 2011-2020 period has set the target to raise the proportion ofwomen in Party Committees in the 2011-2016 period to over 30 percent andto more than 35 percent in 2016-2020.

By 2020, 95percent of ministries, ministry-level agencies, governmental agencies,People’s Committees at all levels and 100 percent of Party and Stateagencies and socio-political organisations are projected to have womenholding key positions.

In preparation for theelections of the 13 th National Assembly and People’s Councils at alllevels slated for May 22, the National Committee for the Advancement ofWomen has worked with the Vietnam Women’s Union (VWU) to launchcampaigns to encourage women to cast their ballots and garner supportfor female candidates.

Although Vietnam hasreaped a lot of achievements regarding gender equality, barriers rootedin family and society such as traditional thinkings that women’s shouldstay at home to take care of family still remain, hindering women fromjoining social and political work.

According toNguyen Thi Kim Thuy, Vice President of the VWU Central Committee,differences in several regulations regarding retirement and training agefor men and women also limit women’s participation in management andleadership posts./.