Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
BBC News - Tuesday, 22 October, 2002
Clare Arthurs, BBC Hanoi correspondent
It quotes one study as reporting that 80% of Vietnamese women have experienced some form of violence.
The study found that almost all men and most women believed it was acceptable for a man to abuse his wife.
The head of the UN in Vietnam, Jordan Ryan, warned that countries which fail to ensure that women and men have equal opportunities will face increasing poverty levels and find themselves unable to achieve lasting economic growth.
Violence accepted
The UN report says violence against women is widespread in Vietnam and includes neglect, verbal abuse, beatings and forced sex.
Much of the blame is placed on the gender stereotypes which keep women and men in prescribed roles and which maintain an unequal power balance between them.
The figures, which are already shocking readers of the report, come from a study by the Vietnam Women's Union.
Men blame alcohol or temper for their violence, while their partners, in the tradition of stoic Vietnamese womanhood, accept it as normal.
Human trafficking
In its report on health, the UN also found that more than 60% of men with the HIV Aids virus failed to use condoms with their wives.
The report also reveals that despite protections for women in Vietnam's laws they are denied equal access to land, education and jobs.
They work longer hours than men for less pay and on less food.
Since 1990, more than 10,000 women and children have been sold into the sex industry.
The government's adviser on women, Tran Thi Mai Huong, says there has been a surge in trafficking which the authorities have been trying to address.
Ms Huong says Vietnam needs to shift its approach from seeing inequity as a women's issue and to get gender issues considered at all levels of society and policy making.
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