A photo by Giang Dong Son wins the first prize of the photo contest. Photo by the Australian Embassy in Vietnam
The photos were shortlisted from over 1,000 submissions to a photo contest on Rural Women and Sustainable Development held by UN Women with the support of the Australian and Canadian Embassies to recognise and promote the contribution of rural Vietnamese women to the sustainable development of Vietnam.
The photographs submitted highlight the contestants’ recognition of the significant contributions made by rural women to the prosperity of their communities across many areas, including technology, sustainable agriculture, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, entrepreneurship, leadership and decision making, and the promotion of substantive equality between women and men in rural Vietnam.
"We believe that photography is a powerful tool to raise awareness and to trigger positive development in society. Looking at all of the entries, we see positive changes regarding the empowerment of rural Vietnamese women,” she said.
According to a report from Vietnam’s General Statistics Office in 2015, women constitute a significant percentage of the agricultural workforce in Vietnam. In some rural areas, up to 63.4% of working women are in agriculture compared to 57.5% of working men. Rural women make substantial contributions to Vietnam’s economic growth. However, rural women and girls remain among those most likely to experience poverty and lack access to resources such as land, agricultural extension, finance, education and healthcare. Furthermore, access to social protection services remains limited for rural women and girls, and they are the group most likely to be affected by climate change and natural disasters. As a direct result of gender inequality, rural women and girls fare worse than their rural male counterparts on almost every measure of development.
The photo 'Net xua', taken by Le Thi Kim Lien, wins the third prize of the photo contest. Photo by the Australian Embassy in Vietnam
Addressing the crowd at the opening of the exhibition, Ms. Kellie Raab, First Secretary of the Australian Embassy in Vietnam, said: “These photographs help to connect us to the hardworking rural women who are the backbone of Vietnam’s economy. They also highlight some of the critical challenges these women face.”
The exhibition will run until November 10.
