Few ethnic women seek legal services

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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Support available for firms employing ethnic minorities

Workers with the Son La Rubber Joint-Stock Company, most of whom are from ethnic minorities, prepare seedlings for new rubber plantations in mountainous Son La Province's Thuan Chau District. Businesses employing ethnic minorities are tipped to receive Government support. — VNA/VNS Photo Dieu ChinhToi

HA NOI — Enterprises in Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) region employing workers from ethnic minorities will be entitled to receive State support from January 1.

As part of Government Decision 75, the State will give targeted financial aid to agroforestry companies, management boards of protected and specific-use forests and to non-state enterprises which use land for the manufacture of agro-forestry products.

"The aim is to create jobs for ethnic minorities and help reduce poverty," said Director of the Tay Nguyen's Gia Lai Province Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs Pham Ngoc Thach.

He said that although vocational centres in Tay Nguyen region had trained more than 50,000 people from ethnic minorities in the past three years, most could not find proper jobs.

To improve the situation, the State will now pay all workers up to VND3 million (US$150) for three-month vocational training courses.

In a further incentive for business, companies where 30-50 per cent of workers belong to ethnic minorities will receive a 50 per cent reduction in land rent for one year. If this rate is more than 50 per cent, companies will then be exempt from land rent for twelve months.

The State also plans to pay the social, medical and unemployed insurance for ethnic minority workers within five years.

Tran Tam, director of the Krong Ana Coffee Company in Dac Lac Province, said that 350 of 475 workers in his company belonged to ethnic minorities.

"In previous years, few enterprises employed ethnic minority workers because they did not adapt to the company working environment and only worked for a short time," he said.

Tam added that he believed the new decree and proper training would result in more people from these groups finding jobs in the future.

Foreign-owned enterprises will not receive State support under the new scheme. — VNS

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Ethnic minority poverty target of new strategy

HA NOI — Sustainable poverty reduction for ethnic and mountainous areas should be an important task for the 2011-15 period, attendants at a conference in Ha Noi were told on Friday.

The function, held by the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA) in collaboration with the United Nations in Viet Nam, was aimed at recommending ways of reducing poverty.

Chairman of the National Assembly's Ethnic Council Ksor Phuoc estimated that the poverty rate in some communes and villages would increase to more than 60 per cent or even 70 to 75 per cent next year.

Giang Seo Phu, a member of the Party Central Committee and chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, said the rate of reduction for ethnic people was much slower than the national average.

"Life expectancy, nutrition and other aspects of their lives remain low. Without big challenges in strategies in the near future, most poor people in Viet Nam will still be in ethnic minority and mountainous areas," Su said.

He said Viet Nam had made remarkable achievements in hunger eradication and poverty alleviation. The poverty rate had fallen from 58.1 per cent in 1993 to 12.1per cent last year.

But there is steady progress. The poverty rate among ethnic minorities and people in mountain areas fell from 86 per cent in 1993 to about 31.2 per cent last year.

This was in part due to the National Target Prog-ramme for Poverty Reduction, the Programme for Socio-economic Development of Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas in the 2006-10 period, the Programme for Rapid Sustainable Poverty Reduction in the 62 poorest districts and the policy on supporting ethnic groups facing extreme hardship.

John Hendra, UN resident co-ordinator, said if the ethnic problem was to be effectively addressed, new approaches had to be considered.

"Future poverty reduction is likely to be much more difficult, more complex and more costly," Hendra said.

He said poverty reduction among ethnic minority groups was culturally sensitive and specific targeting measures were necessary.

Hendra said ethnic minorities would continue to need extra support through national poverty reduction programmes and more attention in key sectoral policies, including health, education, water and sanitation and nutrition.

"In addition, creating opportunities for employment and integration in the market economy is just as important for sustainable poverty reduction," he said.

Tran Van Thuat, former director of CEMA's Ethnic Policy Department, said poor people should be classified into different groups to make intervention more effective. — VNS

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Poverty reduction efforts continue in hills

A workshop opened in Hanoi on Dec. 3 to discuss solutions for rapid and sustainable poverty reduction in ethnic minority and mountainous areas for the 2011-2015 period.

Addressing the workshop, Minister-Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs Giang Seo Phu said the rate of poverty reduction for ethnic minority people was much slower than the national average poverty reduction rate and different ethnic groups had not benefited equally from economic growth, while life expectancy, nutrition and other aspects of the life of the majority of ethnic minority groups remained very low.

“This alerts us to the fact that without big changes in the poverty reduction strategies of the country, in the near future, the majority of poor people in Vietnam will still be those in ethnic minority and mountainous areas,” he added.

The experience of poverty amongst different ethnic minority groups is extremely diverse, UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam John Hendra said, adding that culturally sensitive and context specific targeting measures will increasingly be necessary in order to reduce poverty further, to achieve economic, social and cultural development and to efficiently use allocated financial resources.

After nearly two decades of implementing hunger elimination and poverty reduction policies, the number people living in poverty has been significantly reduced, yet the remaining poor people are mainly ethnic minority people and people living in mountainous areas.

The poverty rate in ethnic minority and mountainous areas remains high – 31.2 percent in 2009 against the national poverty rate of 12 percent.

Research showed that people living in ethnic minority and mountainous areas are vulnerable to risks related to economic crises and climate change. Rapid and sustainable poverty reduction for ethnic minority and mountainous areas is therefore an important task for the 2011-2015 period.

The national poverty rate in Vietnam decreased from 58.1 percent in 1993 to below 12 percent in 2009, and the poverty rate of ethnic minority and mountainous areas from 86 percent in 1993 to around 31.2 percent in 2009.

The workshop, jointly held by the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs and the United Nations in Vietnam, discussed challenges in ensuring rapid and sustainable poverty reduction, social security assistance, vulnerability of ethnic minorities to market influences and to the impacts of climate change, and directions for development of ethnic minority human resources for sustainable poverty reduction./.

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Lower fertility rates targeted in ethnic regions

Ethnic minority regions would need 10 years to reduce fertility rates to 2.1 children per woman, the General Office for Population and Family Planning reported at a seminar on ethnic populations and sexual health in Lao Cai province on Nov. 29.

According to the office's statistics, 20 provinces in Vietnam are home to ethnic minority people that account for 20 percent of the country's total population, and most of those provinces have high birth-rates compared to the rest of the country.

Most of them have a fertilitiy rate of 2.35 births per woman and eight have a rate of over 2.5, including Ha Giang and Kon Tum with rates of up to 3, against the national average of 2.23.

Tran Thi Thanh Mai, director of the office's Department of Communication and Education, said low education levels were behind the problem.

"Their knowledge on family planning and contraceptive measures is limited," she said.

These provinces don't have enough health workers to educate the public about family planning, she added.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Ba Thuy said the office would further promote population and reproductive healthcare work to help ethnic minority people reach the country's targeted reduced fertility rate.

In the next few years, family planning services in ethnic minority regions would be further focused, said Thuy.

Measures to control birth-rates and reduce the imbalance of sexes would also be applied.

Thuy said that investment in human resources and finance for the ethnic regions must be increased to achieve the desired results over the next 10 years./.

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Lower fertility rates targeted in ethnic regions

LAO CAI — Ethnic minority regions would need 10 years to reduce fertility rates to 2.1 children per woman, the General Office for Population and Family Planning reported in a seminar on ethnic populations and sexual health in Lao Cai Province on Monday.

According to the office's statistics, 20 provinces in Viet Nam are home to ethnic minority people that account for 20 per cent of the country's total population, and most of those provinces have high birth-rates compared to the rest of the country.

Most of them have a fertilitiy rate of 2.35 births per woman and eight have a rate of over 2.5, including Ha Giang and Kon Tum with rates of up to 3, against the national average of 2.23.

Tran Thi Thanh Mai, director of the office's Department of Communication and Education, said low education levels were behind the problem.

"Their knowledge on family planning and contraceptive measures is limited," she said.

These provinces don't have enough health workers to educate the public about family planning, she added.

Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Ba Thuy said the office would further promote population and reproductive healthcare work to help ethnic minority people reach the country's targeted reduced fertility rate.

In the next few years, family planning services in ethnic minority regions would be further focused, said Thuy.

Measures to control birth-rates and reduce the imbalance of sexes would also be applied.

Thuy said that investment in human resources and finance for the ethnic regions must be increased to achieve the desired results over the next 10 years. — VNS

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Fertility rate targeted in ethnic regions

LAO CAI - Ethnic minority regions need 10 years to achieve a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman, the General Office for Population and Family Planning reported in a seminar on ethnic populations and fertility health in Lao Cai Province.

According to deputy minister of health Nguyen Ba Thuy, the office would further promote population and reproductive healthcare work to help ethnic minority people reach the country's targeted fertility rate.

In the next few years, training for population workers as well as family planning services in ethnic minority regions would be further focused, said Thuy.

Measures to control birth-rates and reduce the imbalance of sexes would also be applied.

Thuy said that investment in human resources and finance for the ethnic regions must be increased to achieve the desired results over the next 10 years.

According to statistics, 20 provinces in Viet Nam are home to ethnic minority people that account for 20 per cent of the country's total population, and most of those provinces have high birth-rates compared to the rest of the country.

Eight of them have a fertility rate of over 2.5 births per woman, and Ha Giang and Kon Tum are up to three. - VNS

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Land key to ethnic settlement

A corner of the resettlement area for Gia Rai ethic minority people in Chu Se District in the Central Highland province of Gia Lai. Ethnic minority people still find it difficult to give up their moving around to find cultivation land because there are not many better alternatives. — VNA/VNS Photo Sy Huynh

HCM CITY— Efforts to help ethnic minorities adopt a sedentary lifestyle and stop shifting cultivation have not been effective so far because viable alternatives have not been provided, a new report says.

This conclusion was presented in a report prepared by the ministries of Finance; Agriculture and Rural Development; and Planning and Investment in co-operation with the National Assembly's Nationalities Council.

The report follows a two-month supervision of the assistance policy being implemented to help ethnic minority people improve their lives.

Limited capital, a shortage of land for settlement, cultivation and lack of clarity about the ethnic minorities eligible to receive the Government's support were recognised as major challenges in implementing the assistance policies, the report said.

The policy has been applied in 24 provinces that have local residents practising shifting cultivation.

A sum of VND572 billion (US$29 million) was allocated to assist an estimated 9,000 households. However, the number of households needing assistance was later revised to 30,000.

"We should define clearly who really need assistance as well as who are wandering cultivation farmers," said Ksor Phuoc, head of the council.

According to the report, the construction of resettlement areas is very slow with only 42 per cent or 126 out of 297 projects completed so far. By the end of last year, only four provinces had partly finished their work after two years of implementing the policy.

It was hard to find flat land in mountainous provinces to build resettlement areas and the State budget was not able to provide the planned capital for these projects, the report said.

"There are so many difficulties, especially in finding agricultural and resettlement land, along with shortage of capital for infrastructure construction and production," said Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Minh Quang.

He said that if local authorities were not able to prepare good resettlement areas and land for cultivation, ethnic minorities would continue to practise shifting cultivation.

"We should focus on each detail of a project to resettle local residents and capital should be provided from the beginning of the year," said Ha Hung, deputy head of the nationalities council. — VNS

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Resettlement of nomadic ethnic minorities under review

A resettlement program reserved for nomadic ethnic minority people has been carried out too slowly and needs to gather all the available resources to accomplish all of its goals by 2012, a supervising agency has said.

The Nationality Council under the National Assembly held a conference to review the introduction of resettlement policies for ethnic minority households still engaging in nomadic lifestyle and farming, in Hanoi on Wednesday.

The council reported that since its launch in 2007, the program has helped over 1,000 ethnic minority households to switch to sedentary life and farming, representing only 3.5 percent of the original target 29,700 households, by the end of 2009.

The relevant State agencies and local authorities carried out just 126 out of the 297 settlement projects over the 2007-2009 period.

The council pointed to unmatched planning, inaccurate reports on the program’s beneficiaries and a very slow disbursement of government funding as main reasons behind the situation.

When speaking at the conference, the Chairman of the Nationality Council Ksor Phuoc, said that the Party and State’s resettlement policy was aimed at helping nomadic ethnic minorities to settle down and develop household-based economies to improve their living conditions.

He also stated that the policy has met the people’s aspirations and the needs of various localities.

To help all nomadic ethnic minority households to resettle by 2012 as planned, the council has asked the National Assembly to speed up its resettlement policies and programs.

The ministries, sectors and targeted localities need to revise and readjust their resettlement projects to adapt them to the current situation as well as publicize the State’s assistance policies to help beneficiaries relocate.

More than VND2.7 trillion has been allocated for the resettlement program and the initial outcomes will be reported to the National Assembly at its eighth meeting this October.

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Resettlement of nomadic ethnic minorities under review

A resettlement programme reserved for nomadic ethnic minority people has been carried out too slowly and needs to gather all the available resources to accomplish all of its goals by 2012, a supervising agency has said.

The Nationality Council under the National Assembly held a conference to review the introduction of resettlement policies for ethnic minority households still engaging in nomadic lifestyle and farming, in Hanoi on September 8.

The council reported that since its launch in 2007, the programme has helped over 1,000 ethnic minority households to switch to sedentary life and farming, representing only 3.5 percent of the original target 29,700 households, by the end of 2009.

The relevant State agencies and local authorities carried out just 126 out of the 297 settlement projects over the 2007-2009 period.

The council pointed to unmatched planning, inaccurate reports on the programme’s beneficiaries and a very slow disbursement of government funding as main reasons behind the situation.

When speaking at the conference, the Chairman of the Nationality Council Ksor Phuoc, said that the Party and State’s resettlement policy was aimed at helping nomadic ethnic minorities to settle down and develop household-based economies to improve their living conditions.

He also stated that the policy has met the people’s aspirations and the needs of various localities.

To help all nomadic ethnic minority households to resettle by 2012 as planned, the council has asked the National Assembly to speed up its resettlement policies and programmes.

The ministries, sectors and targeted localities need to revise and readjust their resettlement projects to adapt them to the current situation as well as publicise the State’s assistance policies to help beneficiaries relocate.

More than 2.7 trillion VND has been allocated for the resettlement programme and the initial outcomes will be reported to the National Assembly at its eighth meeting this October./.

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Vietnamese ethnic culture-tourism village to open

The Culture-Tourism Village of Vietnamese ethnic groups is scheduled to open on September 19 as a project in celebration of Thang Long-Hanoi millennium anniversary.

Located on a 1,544-ha area in Dong Mo , Son Tay of Hanoi, the site is a complex of traditional Vietnamese architectures, highlighting unique characteristics of the nation’s culture.
Apart from typical architectural work of each ethnic group, like houses, communal houses, pagodas, many production tools, fine arts and craft, rice cultivation techniques will be introduced.

There are also functional and service quarters with malls, restaurants, hotels, sports, parks, and resorts.

A series of activities will held on the opening day such as ethnic groups’ specialty fair, food festival, cultural and art performance, folk games and sports.

with its construction starting in 2003, the village that features values of the distinctive cultures of each of Vietnam ’s 54 ethnic groups, is expected to be an attractive destination for local and foreign tourists./.

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Less poverty amongst ethnic people in Lam Dong

The rate of poor ethnic minority households in the Central Highland province of Lam Dong has fallen to 18 percent, which represented a drop of 32 percent from the 2001-2005 period.

The figure was released at a meeting held in Da Lat City on August 30 to review the 10 years since Resolution No. 10-NQ/TW was issued by the Political Bureau on socio-economic development and national defence and security in the Central Highlands region between 2001-2010.

Reducing poverty sustainably in Lam Dong has also helped to stabilise the socio-economy, security and the political situation in the Central Highlands.

Over the last decade, the province has spent 87.8 billion VND on building 14,600 houses for ethnic minority people, who make up 22 percent of the province’s population and 69.4 billion VND on clean water supplies to 16,600 households.

The province has disbursed 500 billion VND from Programme 135 to develop local infrastructures in 49 extremely disadvantaged communes across 10 districts.

The power project in the Central Highlands region has also enabled Lam Dong province to supply electricity to more than 19,700 households in 475 villages.

The investment policy has helped to boost sustainable economic development amongst provincial ethnic minority communities, at an annual growth rate of 9-12 percent./.

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