CARE Vietnam (CVN) in coordination with stakeholders is implementing the Project titled Stand Up, Speak Out: Breaking the silence around gender based violence among ethnic minority communities in Northern Vietnam, which is a part CARE’s Remote Ethnic Minority Women’s Program. In CVN’s programming, Gender based violence (GBV) is considered as one of the three focus thematic areas. Within the REMW Program, GBV will be addressed through three dimensions: a) Protection (legal protection, literacy, reform), b) Prevention and Response (engaging with initiatives of others, promoting access to services), and c) expanding the scope of the national agenda to focus on GBV. ”Stand Up, Speak Out” project (SUSO) aims to promote all of the three dimensions for addressing GBV: Protection (legal protection, literacy, reform), through Prevention and Response (engaging with initiatives of others, promoting access to services) and through expanding the scope of the national agenda to focus on GBV.
Proposed actions will challenge the harmful gender norms that accept and normalize GBV in ethnic minority communities, by taking a multi-level, multi-sectoral approach. The project will tackle the taboo nature of GBV by increasing the awareness and understanding about GBV among ethnic minority community members, authorities and service providers. It will work with service providers to improve the support services available for ethnic minority survivors of GBV. At the policy level the project will strengthen implementation of the National Action Plan on GBV through the development of tools and processes that align with the National Action Plan’s priorities and by undertaking advocacy in partnership with an alliance of Vietnamese civil society organisations (CSOs). The project will use a rights based approach to tackle intersectional discrimination by targeting ethnic minority groups in remote and rural areas and being sensitive to GBV survivors with disabilities.