Children from the Mông ethnic minority group in Mộc Châu District, the northern province of Sơn La. — VNA/VNS Photo Nguyễn Cường

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs and Hà Nội People’s Committee on Monday launched the national action month for children 2020.

The yearly event features activities for children and also marked the beginning of summer holidays, thus calling on localities, families and the community to ensure safety.

Addressing the launching ceremony at Hà Nội’s Dịch Vọng Secondary School, Labour Minister Đào Ngọc Dung said that the national action month for children this year was taken place in a special context, as the National Assembly had just observed the implementation of policies on child abuse prevention and control.

Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc last week also issued Directive No.23/CT-TTg on strengthened measures to ensure child rights and child protection.

The directive clearly identifies the responsibilities of sectors, schools, families and children themselves in child protection.

Minister Dung said that in Việt Nam, many organisations and agencies were involved in child protection but they did not co-operate with each other properly and effectively.

“When it comes to child protection and child abuse prevention and control, it is neither the work nor efforts of some particular ministries and agencies,” Dung said, emphasising that the issue required joint efforts and co-operation of political, social organisations, families, schools and everyone.

“We are working together for our children. Let’s start with improving the legal framework on child protection and child abuse prevention and control, and translate the laws into reality effectively,” Dung said.

“Now is also the time for us to innovate the way we co-operate to address children issues, particularly more attention should be paid to social workers and social organisations,” he added.

“Communication also needs to be changed fundamentally so that children could be aware of and able to protect themselves from negative impacts from outside,” he said.

Dung also said that he expected more actions for children would be carried out.

According to the National Assembly’s supreme supervision programme on child abuse, between January 1, 2015 and June, 30, 2019, as many as 8,442 child abuse cases were detected nationwide, involving 8,709 child victims.

Of the victims, 6,432 children were sexually abused, 857 were assaulted, 106 children were trafficked and 1,314 children were victims of other forms of violence.

The National Assembly’s supervision team warned that child abuse continued to rise in Việt Nam in the last few years. — VNS