(ĐN)- Dong Nai is now home to more than 800,000 laborers and women accounted for 60 percent of the province's workforce. To
(ĐN)- Dong Nai is now home to more than 800,000 laborers and women accounted for 60 percent of the province’s workforce. To improve labor quality and towards the goal of gender equality, more efforts should be made to ensure stable material and spiritual life for women and create all possible conditions for them to well perform their tasks. Accordingly, better reproductive health care and gender equality go hand-in-hand.
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| Female workers get medicine at BlueStar Clinic at Pouchen VN. |
Addressing the reproductive health needs of women is a prerequisite to achieving gender equality, but actual progress on this front has been slow, said a representative of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Women make up a significant share of the labor force, and their health has a direct impact on their ability to work. Enterprises should be fully aware of constantly bettering working conditions for female workforce, as it, in turn, will increase productivity and sustain stable operations for them, said Nguyen Bich Hang, Head of Marie Stopes International (MSI).
She also added that good reproductive healthcare services would help forge a win-win situation for both workers and enterprises.
In Dong Nai, trade union at all levels and enterprises have remained health care activities for female workers over the past time. In 2013, more than VND10 billion was spent to provide medical care for196,000 out of over 323,000 female laborers in the province. Many businesses have applied flexible approaches to ensure safety and health of their labourers, especially pregnant and nursing women, showing awareness improvement when it comes to the rights of labourers.
Presently, the MSI is deploying projects at Bien Hoa city-based Pouchen Co. and Trang Bom district-based Pousung Co. to increase female workers’ access to quality reproductive healthcare services, particularly birth control counseling.
Reported by N.S
