November 26, 2013

Duong Thi Tan, Huynh Thuc Vy with David Skowronski (Australia Embassy)

Vietnamese Women for Human Rights
November 25, 2013

Until the 21st century – the era of knowledge and liberty and democracy, Vietnam remains a country with a thick dossier on human rights abuses.

Human rights are considered an important milestone to measure the level of civilization and is a prerequisite to create spiritual well being and humanist values for humans. The world today has been promoting human rights in all areas of social activities. Yet presently the people of Vietnam have not yet had the opportunity to enjoy the beneficiary ‘s rights in its beautiful humanist sense of the word. Evidently many human rights defenders in Vietnam continue to be suppressed in various forms, especially the women.

In this context, we humbly believe the formation and development of civil society and institutions to protect human rights is essential and urgent. These organizations are not only important for the benefit of each individual person, but also practical for the building of

social promotion platform. So, we – who care about human rights in general and women’s rights in particular – together believe that the founding of the Vietnamese Women for Human Rights (http://vnwhr.net/) is essential for an independent, fair and non-profit establishment to represent all the women whose Human Rights have been and will be violated. We therefore establish a civilian organization of women called Vietnamese Women for Human Rights to:

• Connect disadvantageous women and individuals together, those who are vulnerable to the violation of human rights.

• Speak out and take practical action to protect women whose dignity and fundamental human rights have been infringed upon.

• Share and disseminate knowledge in order to improve the understanding of Vietnamese women on human rights and the role of women in a society that respects human rights.

The guiding principles of the Vietnamese Women for Human Rights is nothing more important than to raise the awareness of every individual in society about human dignity and the basic human rights of their own as well as the others, thereby contributing to the promotion of a society that respects human rights.

Vietnamese Women for Human Rights is a civil society organization, apolitical, committed to contribute its role in the endeavor to create a Vietnamese society that respects human rights, and is an integral part of the movement to protect women’s rights around the world.

November 25, 2013

Source: The Organizing Committee