ASEAN INTER-PARLIAMENTARY ORGANIZATION
26TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
18-23 SEPTEMBER 2005, VIENTIANE, LAO PDR
26GA/Keynore/Speech
Keynote Speech by
H.E. Onechanh Thammavong, President of the Lao Women’s Union,
Vice President of the Lao National Commission for the Advancement of Women,
Member of the National Assembly
on the Topic: “Promotion of The Advancement of Women in the Lao PDR”
at the Meeting of Women Parliamentarians of AIPO (WAIPO)
18 September 2005, Vientiane Lao PDR
Honourable Chairperson,
Distinguished delegates,
I have a great pleasure and honor to participate in the WAIPO meeting, as integrated
component of the 26th AIPO conference, hosted by the Lao National Assembly. This
meeting provides a good opportunity for women parliamentarians to discuss and exchange
views on the roles and responsibilities of WAIPO.
Honourable delegates,
As we know, it is of great necessity that all governments together with UN agencies as well
as international organisations accelerate the implementation of the Convention on the
Elimination and Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Platform for Action
and MDGs, aimed at promoting gender equality and women empowerment, among others.
This year, the United Nations has evaluated the implementation of Beijing+10 at New York
and Beijing, and come up with some main results as follows: the comprehensive and
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effective implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action is a vital component for every
nation in achieving its socio-economic development goals; Beijing Platform for Action is
highly valued and served as framework for the international community to develop
strategies and measures for the advancement of women; and the incorporation and
complementation of implementing the CEDAW and MDGs will provide an impetus for
ensuring achievements of the development, especially the advancement of women and
gender equality.
On women cooperation in ASEAN framework, based on the decision of the 20th meeting of
ASEAN Sub-Committee on Women held in Vientiane Capital, the status of ASEAN SubCommittee on Women (ASCW) was upgraded to be the ASEAN Committee on Women
(ACW). ACW holds its meeting annually to review the progress of the translation of
Beijing Declaration and discuss various issues related to the advancement of women such
as economic empowerment, poverty reduction, human trafficking, violence against women
and family, HIV/AIDS, women’s participation in political life and other issues of common
interest. Given the fact that women are vulnerable to violence and exploitation, ASEAN
Foreign Ministers at the 37th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in June 2004 in Jakarta signed
the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the ASEAN region.
ASEAN Committee on Women also proposed to establish an ASEAN Ministerial Meeting
on Women (AMMW) and the Secretary – General of ASEAN was agreeable in principle to
the proposal.
In the future, the ASEAN Committee on Women will widely disseminate the Declaration
on the Elimination of Violence against Women in order to join efforts in fighting against
the cross-border trafficking in person and illegal migration, and will promote the
development of skills of women and improve their access to information and etc. At the 4th
meeting of ASEAN Committee on Women to be held in November 2005 in the Philippines,
ASEAN women will discuss issues under the topic of “Economic and Social Empowerment
of ASEAN Women for Equality in a Globalised Economy”.
For the Lao PDR, the Party and Government have set the right policy on promoting gender
equality as clearly stipulated in the first Constitution and other laws that women and men
have the equal right in all spheres: political, economic, social-culture and in the family.
This creates a favourable condition for women of all ethnic groups to participate in decision
making process at all levels. For instance, there has been an increase in the number of
women parliamentarians from 9% (in the People’s Supreme Assembly, first legislature) to
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23 % (in the National Assembly, fifth legislature). The number of women participating in
the judiciary and government agencies is also increasing.
In addition, the National Assembly passed the revised Constitution in 2003, in which
Article 29 states that “The Government, society, and families pay attention to develop and
promote the advancement of women and children as well as to protect the rights and
benefits of women and children”. At the end of 2004, the National Assembly passed the
Law on the Development and Protection of Women. This Law guarantees the rights of Lao
women by defining principles, regulations and measures related to the development and
protection of women as well as responsibilities of government, society and family in
promoting the knowledge and capacity of women and gender equality, fighting against
trafficking in persons and violence against women and children, protecting the rights and
interest of women, upholding women’s status in the society, and encouraging women to
participate in the national protection and development. Currently, the Government is
disseminating this law to the public in order to raise their awareness and apply to their daily
life.
In this connection, the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus and the Lao Association of the
Parliamentarians on Population and Development were established, whose roles are to
promote active contributions of women parliamentarians in studying and making a decision
on issues concerning the protection of benefits and rights of women and children.
National Mechanisms for the Advancement of Women: The LWU is an organization
presenting the legitimate rights and benefits of Lao women and children nationwide. Its
status is equivalent to the ministry and has an organizational network from the central to the
grass root levels. The LWU has the roles and responsibilities to consolidate sodality among
women of all ethic groups and educate them about their rights and obligations to the
national socio-economic development as well as to the implementation of policy on
promoting gender equality and the advancement of women with high sense of
responsibility.
Moreover, the Lao government has established the Lao National Commission for the
Advancement of Women (Lao NCAW), chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister. It is a
national mechanism for the promotion of gender equality and the elimination of all forms of
discrimination against women. At the moment, Lao NCAW is developing a national
strategy for the advancement of women and building its capacity to effectively mainstream
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gender issues into the national socio-economic development as well as to promote the
ownership of all sectors and local organizations in gender promotion.
Gender and Poverty: Women and men experience poverty differently in the World as well
as in Lao PDR, even within the same ethnic group or community. Women tend to work
longer hours than men do as they are primarily responsible for the family’s food security.
This makes women work even harder. To implement the MDGs, the Lao Government has
developed the National Growth and Poverty Eradication Strategies (NGPES) with a dual
objective of enhancing growth and development, and to halving poverty levels by 2005,
eradicating mass poverty by 2010 and graduating from the least developed country by
2020. In the implementation of NGPES, Gender issues have been taken into account in
each sector.
The Committee for Planning and Investment (CPI) has allocated poverty funds to 47
poorest districts (500 million kips for each district) to set up a Village Development Fund.
The sectors concerned and local authorities, including responsible committees at various
levels are advised to explore and establish an operational mechanism of the Fund. In
addition, four mass organizations, especially the Lao Women’s Union, are assigned to
assist in the capacity building in designing a work plan for the management of this Fund.
With joint efforts of the Government and people, the poverty level was reduced from 45 %
in 1993 to 39% in 1998 and remained at 32% in 2003. This indicates that the poverty in
Laos continues to decrease progressively.
Women and Education: To address the issue of illiteracy and the existing gender
disparities in the education sector, the Government has developed a policy and strategic
plan of action for Basic Education for All. This has resulted in an increase in the literacy
rate from 47 % for women and 73% for men in 1995 to 64% for women and 85% for men
in 2003. It is expected that the literacy rate for women will increase by 89 % and 95% in
2010 and 2020 respectively. The Ministry of Education has implemented an education
project for girls and set a target for all children to be completed a compulsory education at
the primary school level by 2010.
Women and Health: To improve the quality of life of Lao people, the Ministry of Public
Health has actively expanded and improved its health care services for people, especially
for women. This has resulted in decline of maternal mortality rate from 750 deaths to 530
deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 and 2000 respectively thanks to the improved
services and family planning and maternal health care. However, this mortality rate is still
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high if compared with other countries in the region and many women are still vulnerable to
diseases.
During 1995 to 2003, the Ministry of Public Health had launched safe motherhood and
birth-spacing programmes, constructed and expanded nursery and kindergarten schools in
order to reduce maternal, infant and child morbidity and mortality rate. The total fertility
rate decreased from 7.1 to 4.7 births per woman of reproductive age. However, this is still a
high rate in the region. Women in rural and remote areas have a rate of 5.4 births compared
with 2.8 births for urban women. Men also involved in learning about family planning.
In this connection, the Lao Women’s Union has organized a series of workshops and
trainings on gender and reproductive health, and widely disseminated information on health
by developing and distributing brochures and pamphlets, training of trainers and health
volunteers at the village level. The government also included a number of measures and
indicators in the NGPES for the realisation of the MDGs related to maternal health.
Women and Economy: Lao women play a vital role in economic sector. This reflects in
the findings of a previous survey of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as women own
and operates self-employed enterprises 63% out of registered small enterprises in Lao PDR.
According to the 3rd Local Expenditure and Consumption Survey (LECS 3) by the National
Statistics Centre, 53% of household businesses are operated by women (62% in urban and
43% in rural areas).
The Lao Women’s Union has implemented many projects nationwide, whose main
activities focus on building capacity of women with a view to helping reduce the poverty.
These include vocational training, skill development, extension of micro credits, family
income generation activities, establishment of Counselling Offices for Women,
Conservation and Promotion of Culture Project; Primary Health Care for Women and
Children Project, HIV/AIDS Project and etc.
In addition, the Lao Women’s Union has joined the Land Titling Project of the Ministry of
Finance in order to launch a campaign to inform women of their rights to land ownership.
This enables women to have access, manage and own the land property, thus ensure their
economic status in the family as well as in the society. The LWU also established Gender
Resource Information and Development Centers (GRID), aimed at providing and
disseminating gender information to scholars, researchers, policy makers and the general
public.
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Honourable Chairperson,
Honourable Delegates,
Although gender equality is guaranteed by the Constitution, it has not been fully recognized
and become the responsibility of the society. This is a common situation faced by most
counties, including Laos. Therefore, it is very important for the legislative body,
particularly women parliamentarians to play a more active role in monitoring and
encouraging all stakeholders to translate policy guidelines on the promotion of gender
equality into practice in a more comprehensive and effective manner.
To this end, the Lao PDR will pay more attention to the implementation of the following
activities to promote the advancement of women:

Enhance the coordination and cooperation with the National Assembly, especially
with women parliamentarians to monitor the actual implementation of the existing
laws as well as to discuss and propose to the legislative body to issue legal documents
aiming at protecting the legitimate rights and benefits of women and children;

Encourage women to participate in the implementation of National Growth and
Poverty Eradication Strategies (NGPES) more actively;

Promote equal access to education for women and children;

Expand health services for all, especially for women in rural areas;

Create conditions for increasing number of women in assuming leading positions in
the legislative, judiciary and executive bodies at all levels; and

Build capacity of the national organizations in charge of protecting the rights and the
advancement of women.
Recognizing that the task of protecting the rights of women is challenging and difficult for
women in all countries, including women in ASEAN Member Countries, I hope that the
legislative body will further play an important role in encouraging and monitoring the
implement of the constitution and laws of respective countries, especially the promotion of
the advancement of women and gender equality in the society. I wish to inform the meeting
that in 2006, there will be the general election for the sixth legislature of the Lao National
Assembly and I hope that the number of women parliamentarians will increase.
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In conclusion, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Hon. Chairperson for giving
this opportunity to address this meeting and I wish the meeting a great success.
Thank you.
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