HA NOI — According to a survey carried out by the Institute for the Study of Society and Environment, the biggest threats ethnic women faced were verbal and physical abuse.
The survey that questioned 500 women from four communes in Bac Can and An Giang provinces found that ethnic minority women still had limited access to legal services, despite the fact the services had been renewed and developed.
Ethnic minorities generally accepted their fate with resignation when their legal rights were violated, it said.
Husbands were the main violators of the Law on Marriage and Family and around 50 per cent of women said they did not benefit from policies for poor households.
The survey showed that although both Bac Can and An Giang provinces had legal assistance facilities, only 10 per cent of women consulted them.
It pointed out that many ethnic women didn't speak Vietnamese which made it difficult for them to receive help.
It said that judicial bodies needed to provide detailed outlines of the services available, and monitor the number of ethnic minority women using them.
Legal consultancy centres should actively strive to help more ethnic women, and provide more services to benefit them while relevant bodies should subsidise their use.
They should also take into account ethnic minority customs when resolving problems if the customs were inconsistent with law, it said.
The survey also asked women's associations and relevant bodies to promote the dissemination of law for ethnic women.
At present the country has 1,718 law offices.
According to a research by the United Nations Development Programme in 2003, 84 per cent of people in mountainous provinces did not know about legal consultancy centres.
From 2007 to 2008, the Legal Consultancy Department advised 198,051 ethnic minorities.
Last year, 25,853 ethnic minority people received legal advice. — VNS
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