A girl rides a bicycle past a billboard raising awareness about childsex abuses reading "Childsex Abuses Are Crimes" in the southern coastal city of Vũng Tàu. — AFP/VNA Photo

HÀ NỘI — National Assembly deputies on Monday voted to focus on laws and policies to prevent and fight child abuse. 

Speaking at the ongoing 14th National Assembly, Deputy Triệu Thị Thu Phương from the northern province of Bắc Kạn stressed the importance of the decision, saying children were special and needed the protection of their families and society.

“Recent incidents of child abuse have triggered warning bells about the need for a protection mechanism and creating a stronger shield to protect children,” she said.

“Although the National Assembly and the Government have always paid close attention to child protection, child abuse, especially sexual abuse and school violence, is still an urgent issue,” she said.

She cited statistics from the National Assembly of violence and abuse of children in 2017-18 and the first quarter of 2019. Nationwide there were nearly 3,500 cases, of which more than 60 per cent involved sexual abuse.

"These numbers are just the tip of the iceberg,” she said, adding that the actual figure was higher because children and their families often did not report cases for fear it would have a negative affect on them.

Environment

At the same meeting, Deputy Nguyễn Thanh Xuân from the Mekong Delta city of Cần Thơ proposed monitoring of policies and laws on environmental protection.

“This issue has always been closely monitored, but violations are still happening. Illegally discharged waste has caused serious environmental incidents, and many parties are guilty of consecutive violations,” Xuân said.

“Environmental violations have severely hit socio-economic development and people's health. The laws are regularly revised, but we still need to improve them,” Xuân added.

Lawmakers also discussed a draft programme for the 14th NA in 2020, under which the NA’s 9th session will examine the Government’s reports on socio-economic plans in 2019 and the first months of 2020 and the State budget balance in 2018. The NA Standing Committee will also submit to the 9th session its report on the settlement of voters’ petitions sent to the 8th session.    
At the 10th session, the NA will consider the Government’s reports on socio-economic and budgetary performance in 2020 and plans for 2021, the fight against corruption, wastefulness and crime, the enforcement of the Constitution, laws and the NA resolutions, and the settlement of complaints and denunciations by the Government, the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuracy.
Also under the draft programme, the NA will look into reports and conduct question-and-answer sessions on the implementation of its resolution on thematic supervision and hearings at the session.

They also discussed the allocation and use of reserve resources for medium-term public investment planning.

Law making

In the afternoon, the National Assembly discussed law and ordinance building in 2020 and adjustments to the 2019 programme.

Head of the NA’s Law Committee Nguyễn Khắc Định said the Government wanted to withdraw the amended Land Law from the 2019 programme and would resubmit it to the National Assembly at the appropriate time.

Deputy Trần Thi Hoa Ry from Bạc Liệu Province said it was necessary to seriously consider the responsibilities of agencies and individuals who had not completed the tasks of drafting the law.

Deputy Lê Xuân Thân from Khánh Hoà Province agreed, saying the Land Law couldn’t be dropped from the programme.

“A series of incidents poses the necessity to make changes to the Land Law – for instance the lives of many people have become worse after their land was taken back and they received inadequate compensation,” he said.

Regarding the drafting process, Deputy Nguyễn Mai Bộ from An Giang Province said that many shortcomings remained.

The quality of the examination and assessment of many legal projects was limited due to various reasons, among which were the closed mindsets of drafting groups and group interests, Bộ said. — VNS