A recent survey by three organizations (ActionAid, Research Centre for Gender, and Family and Environment in Development and Plan) found that 87% of Vietnamese women say they have been victims of sexual harassment in public places.
The survey of over 2,000 men and women in both Hanoi and HCMC gave some insight on the perception of sexual harassment in Vietnam.
40% of the respondents said they have witnessed women being harassed and alarmingly, 65% percent of men said they do not interfere when they witnessed said harassment.
According to DTINews, ignoring the problem is indicative of the feeling that sexual harassment is normal. The absence of punishment for many kinds of sexual harassment in Vietnamese Legal Code also produces mixed signals of what is appropriate and lawful.
Hopefully, the government is working on a legal deterrents and a set of public campaigns to increase awareness about this issue. [DTI News // Image via wikicommons]
