Australian Embassy launches Gender Month
Lieutenant Colonel Tran Kim Nguyet (left; Ministry of Public Security) and Dr Nguyen Thi Thanh Hai (right; lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy) – sharing their experiences with Embassy staff on 20 Oct 2016.
Australia and Vietnam have a close partnership on security related issues, including in the areas of defence, law enforcement and immigration. But this is an area where women are still under-represented and which presents particular challenges for women in Vietnam.
To discuss some of these issues and mark the start of the Australian Government’s second annual Gender Month in Vietnam, the Australian Embassy invited two leading Vietnamese women, Dr Nguyen Thi Thanh Hai (an Australian alumnus and now lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy) and Lieutenant Colonel Tran Kim Nguyet (International Relations Department, Ministry of Public Security) to share their experiences on the challenges for women working in the security-related sectors.
Dr Hai provided an overview of her research on impediments to women’s participation in the security sector, which ranged from cultural norms to institutional impediments, while Lieutenant Colonel Nguyet gave some practical examples of how these challenges impact on women in the security sector, based on her own experiences.
The presentations by Dr Hai and Lieutenant Colonel Nguyet were followed by an engaging question and answer session and then an Embassy-wide lunch.