26 Vietnamese police officials started receiving training today on international policing and UN peacekeeping roles and responsibilities on 12 July 2022. Photo: UN Women/Luu Thu Huong

26 Vietnamese police officials will be receiving training on international policing and United Nations peacekeeping roles and responsibilities, particularly how to protect women and girls from sexual violence from July 12 to 14.

UN Women, jointly with the United Nations Police Division’s Standing Police Capacity and Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security is organizing the three-day workshop in Nha Trang city of Khanh Hoa province.

Since 2014, Vietnam has deployed 512 military personnel – 107 of them women -- to UN peacekeeping missions, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. The Government is planning to deploy more women to such missions.

26 police officials, the delegates of the workshop, include 21 women coming from Binh Dinh, Binh Duong, Hai Phong, Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Quang Ninh, Hanoi police departments, People's Police Academy, People’s Security Academy, and relevant departments within Ministry of Public Security – who would be potential police personnel to consider the pre-deployment recruitment and training, and/or to contribute to the designing, planning or delivering those important activities.

In the workshop, the officials will learn about the principles of international policing and how UN peacekeepers should prevent and respond to sexual violence arising from conflicts, and how to train the police in host countries to promote gender equality and to prevent and investigate sexual and gender-based violence.

The workshop is being led by two experts from the UN’s Standing Police Capacity, based in Brindisi, Italy including Jaime Cuenca, a Team Leader, and Inga Urlapova, Investigations Adviser.

Norul Mohamed Rashid, UN Women Policy Advisor on Governance, Peace & Security for Asia and the Pacific, said at the workshop: “In conflict and post-conflict situations where sexual and gender-based violence is likely to be rampant and possibly used as a tactic to achieve strategic or political objectives, women police officers play a crucial role in operations, monitoring and reporting of violations, addressing impunity, and promoting accountability leading to the enhanced rule of law, recovery, and reconciliation. This is because female survivors and community members are more likely to approach women police officers in times of crisis.”

Senior Colonel Le Duc Tuyen, Deputy Director of the Department of Foreign Relations, in his opening remarks, had highly appreciated the Workshop as it is the first of its kind that MPS organized on UN Peace Operation and International Policing, and the importance of policewomen's participation in peace operation, and of the subject of gender equality and preventing sexual violence against women and girls in conflict settings, with direct UN experts who have years of experience in the fields to directly facilitate the workshop.

Nguyen Thu Ha from the Criminal Police Department who is one participant in the workshop expressed her excitement that this is an invaluable chance for her to access the basic concepts of peace operation and international policing. Thereby, she had a better understanding of the role of women when participating in peace operation activities especially the UN's policies on gender equality, respecting women's rights, and becoming more aware of the UN police's duties to protect women and children in conflict areas.

Soldiers of Level-2 Field Hospital Rotation 3 provide medical check-ups and medicine for people in South Sudan - Illustrative image. Photo courtesy of the hospital

Worldwide, only 3% of UN military peacekeepers are women, an imbalance UN Women is trying to correct by running training courses for female officers.

UN Women’s support for the workshop is part of its project Empowering Women for Sustainable Peace: Preventing Violence and Promoting Social Cohesion in ASEAN, which is funded by the Governments of Canada, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom. ASEAN is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Vietnam is a member.

The establishment of the Vietnam Peacekeeping Centre and the send-off for the first two Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) officers to work as liaison officers at the UN Mission in South Sudan on May 27, 2014, marked the nation's official participation in UN peacekeeping operations, according to VNA.

On November 13, 2020, the Vietnam's National Assembly passed Resolution No. 130/2020/QH14 on joining the UN peacekeeping force, which clearly stipulates principles, forms, fields and forces, competence, force deployment process, guaranteed funding, regimes, policies and state management for the engagement in the UN peacekeeping force.

Especially, after years of careful preparations, on November 17, 2021, Vietnam officially made debut Sapper Unit No. 1. This is the first time Vietnam has sent a sapper team to participate in the UN peacekeeping operations and also the deployment of the largest number ever, with 184 soldiers, including 21 women.

The first 28 members arrived in Abyei on May 5 and the remaining 156 arrived in Abyei on June 15 (local time).

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