Speaking at the online seminar, Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Ha stressed that, as a member of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and some ILO Conventions related to gender equality, ASEAN member countries have focused on mainstreaming gender into all pillars and fields of the ASEAN Community.

Thereby, it aims to improve gender equality and promote human rights in the region, in particular with efforts to develop the ASEAN Declaration on the implementation of gender responsive in the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the Sustainable Development Goals by year 2017.

In addition, ASEAN also promotes commitments on gender equality in the field of labor and employment in ASEAN's agendas, such as the ASEAN Charter, the Master Plan of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community,  Hanoi Declaration on Promotion of Social Welfare and Development of ASEAN Women and Children, Vientiane Declaration on the transition from informal to formal employment towards satisfactory in ASEAN…

“Despite great efforts to promote work and gender equality in policy and practice, ASEAN member countries still face a number of challenges at both regional and national levels, such ass Women's labor force participation rates are much lower than men's.

In addition, women are often paid lower wages, faced higher barriers to entry into the workforce, more likely to be fired after giving birth, retired earlier or doing unpaid household jobs” - Deputy Minister Nguyen Thi Ha, emphasized.

Ms Nguyen Thi Ha also said: Recognizing these difficulties and barriers, the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) coordinated with the ASEAN Secretariat and the ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund implemented the Project "Integration gender in labour policies and employment towards sustainable work” period 2016 - 2020.

The MoLISA highly appreciates technical and financial cooperation and assistance of the ASEAN - Korea Cooperation Fund, ILO, UN WOMEN for their commitments to accompany Vietnam and ASEAN in promoting gender equality, particularly in the labour sector at the national and regional levels./.