How to better protect the rights of female guest workers came top ofthe agenda at a workshop in the central city of Da Nang on October 24.

The event was to share information about the brokerage ofgender-sensitive jobs and how regional countries work together in thiseffort.

Topics like labour immigration trends, gender equalityand challenges to Asian migrant workers, policies on head-huntingservices and employment, and ways to ensure the enforcement ofagreements on female migrant worker protection also caught theirinterest.

Nearly 500,000 Vietnamese people are working in40 countries and territories worldwide. Since 2006, 70,000 – 80,000 havesought jobs abroad every year, some 30-35 percent of them are women.

In 2007, the Law on Vietnamese going abroad to work under labourcontracts came into force, creating an important legal framework.

Over the past time, Vietnam has worked with employer countries tobetter protect workers’ rights while actively implementing the ASEANDeclaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of MigrantWorkers and drafting relevant documents with regional countries.

Since 2009, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs(MoLISA) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and theEmpowerment of Women (UN Women) deployed a project on empowering femaleVietnamese workers under labour contracts.

The VietnamAssociation of Manpower Supply (VAMAS) also published a range oftraining materials for employment brokerage firms and guidebooks forguest workers while closely watching over their code of conduct.

The event was a joint collaboration among the MoLISA, UN Women, the VAMAS and the International Labour Organisation.-VNA