WORLD RURAL WOMEN’S DAY
OCTOBER 15

VIETNAM
by Dinh Thi Mai Phuong
Vietnam Women’s Union

Country situation

Viet Nam is a country in South-east Asian and has 331 thousand km square area. The total population of Viet Nam is 80 million, of which 49% are male and 51 are female. Viet Nam is a relatively poor country that has experienced dramatic changes in its transition from a centrally planned to a market oriented economy. Since launching key reforms through its doi moi or renovation strategy in 1986, the country has made remarkable progress across a broad range of socio-economic development measures. The rate of poverty fell from 58% of the population in 1993 to around 37% of the population in 1998 according to the international poverty line – one of the sharpest declines for any developing country on record. Much of the poverty reduction can be attributed to Viet Nam ’s strong agricultural performance since the late 1980s. Reform in the agricultural sector transformed Viet Nam from a country experiencing extreme shortages to one of the world’s largest exporters of rice, coffee and other agricultural commodities.

Status of Land rights of Women in VietNam

The Constitution and relevant laws governing ownership of property such as the Civil Code, the Land Law, the Law on Marriage - Family and the relevant regulation guiding implementation of these laws determine that in Viet Nam, all land is owned by the public and the Government exercises management over land. The Government allocates rights to land use to individuals and households for a long term period, from 20 – 50 years, and individuals and households are entitled to transfer, exchange, rent, inherit and mortgage land use rights allocated to them.

So it seems that, women and man are granted equal rights regarding property and assets through the laws. However, certain aspects of the laws tend to oppose the prior commitment to equality. More over the implementation of laws and regulations regarding land and the traditional values concerning the rights and roles of women, reduce the ability of women to enjoy equal access to land use.

Although, land is considered the common property of all adult members of household, women usually don’t have the power to access to land use. When they want to access to land use women have to do through their father, husband or brother. Man, as heads of the household, have the power to make decisions in most important matters includes land use and transfer.

It is common that Women are not eligible to inherit land from their husbands or their father. Inheritance of land rights and assets usually passes through the oldest son and often bypassing daughter and widow.

More over, when getting marriage, women often lose access to the land held in the name of their father. They are not distributed land as well as other assets. What they bring to their new family is depend on the kindness of her parents.

Now, you could think about one question: Why this situation has existed?

Although, we have paid much attention on this question. But because of limitation of time and finance, we don’t have had opportunity to have a deep study on it. However, by preliminary study, I found some reason as follow:

- Basic reason for this situation is that according to tradition, women are considered dependent on their family or family in law. While the law concerning land use rights do not specify individual rights. So in general women are in a poor legal and social position to influence decision regarding land use.

- In the other hand, the Land Use right certificates were registered in name of a single person, the householder. And with about 80% of household are currently headed by men, women’s name are largely invisible in Land Use Right Certificates. Now, the revised Law on Family and Marriage (2000) stipulates that land certificate for common land must list the names of both spouses. But the implementation this law is very slowly. So in fact, women’s name is still invisible in land certificates. It causes many difficulties for women’s when they want to access to land use.

- The implementation of land management and administration tends to be carried out by man and to focus on men. The General Department for Land administration has a largely male staff and leadership and little experience or training regarding gender issues. Those situation also make contribution to the inequality in accessing to land use.

- Because of tradition and old stereotype, women usually spend much time in household work. It leads to the result that women are limited on accessing to information, training and other development programs. More over, the head of the household is considered to be the principal user of land and the target beneficiary in most agricultural development activities such as agricultural and forestry extension, credit schemes, meetings concerning access to common goods and services, such as water, and the dissemination of information. Although women play a leading role in many aspects of agricultural production, as they are not registered heads of household, women tend not to be included in these activities

- Finally, some women don’t know about their rights includes land rights.