The Ministry of Labor, Invalid and Social Affairs and Hanoi People’s Committee on June 1 launched the national action month for children 2020.
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| Children from the Mong ethnic minority group in Moc Châu District, the northern province of Son La__Photo: VNA |
The yearly event features activities for children and also marked the beginning of summer holidays, thus calling on localities, families and the community to ensure safety.
Addressing the launching ceremony at Hanoi’s Dich Vong Secondary School, Labor Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said that the national action month for children this year was taken place in a special context, as the National Assembly had just observed the implementation of policies on child abuse prevention and control.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc last week also issued Directive No. 23/CT-TTg on strengthened measures to ensure child rights and child protection.
The directive clearly identifies the responsibilities of sectors, schools, families and children themselves in child protection.
Minister Dung said that in Vietnam, many organizations and agencies were involved in child protection but they did not cooperate with each other properly and effectively.
“When it comes to child protection and child abuse prevention and control, it is neither the work nor efforts of some particular ministries and agencies,” Dung said, emphasizing that the issue required joint efforts and cooperation of political, social organizations, families, schools and everyone.
“We are working together for our children. Let’s start with improving the legal framework on child protection and child abuse prevention and control, and translate the laws into reality effectively,” Dung said.
“Now is also the time for us to innovate the way we cooperate to address children issues, particularly more attention should be paid to social workers and social organizations,” he added.
“Communication also needs to be changed fundamentally so that children could be aware of and able to protect themselves from negative impacts from outside,” he said.
Dung also said that he expected more actions for children would be carried out.
According to the National Assembly’s supreme supervision program on child abuse, between January 1, 2015 and June, 30, 2019, as many as 8,442 child abuse cases were detected nationwide, involving 8,709 child victims.
Of the victims, 6,432 children were sexually abused, 857 were assaulted, 106 children were trafficked and 1,314 children were victims of other forms of violence.
The National Assembly’s supervision team warned that child abuse continued to rise in Vietnam in the last few years.- (VNS/VLLF)
