An Assessment of Improving Access to Health Services and Social Services by the Joint Program on Essential Services Package for Women and Girls Subject to Violence in Vietnam (A Case-Study in Ben Tre Province of Vietnam)

Tóm tắt

In Viet Nam, approximately 63% of ever married women faced at least one forms of physical, sexual and emotional violence in their life and 31.6% experienced current domestic violence (in last 12 months) by their husbands. Abide by the international commitments; the Government of Viet Nam has taken great efforts in combating gender-based violence. Despite the strong political commitment, there are still many shortcomings and limitations in the current implementation and coordination mechanism for Gender Based Violence prevention and combat. The roll-out of the globally developed essential services guidelines package (ESP) in 2017 by United nations agencies in Viet Nam, presented an opportunity to build further awareness, common understanding and political will among government stakeholders and service providers to improve quality and expand services with new tools and capacities to meet the standards of the ESP principles for women and girls subject to violence. The ESP pilot activities have been implemented in Ben Tre province that aims to provide greater access to a set of good quality essential multisectoral services for all gender-based violence survivors. These essential services based on global guidelines are provided through the health, social services, police and justice sectors. This paper presents the finding of the endline assessment of the two-year pilot project (2018-2019) implemented in Ben Tre province to measure achievements of improving access to health services and social services only to identify gaps and limitations that have to further improve to meet ESP standards. Findings of the assessment clearly show that the awareness on the available services and its use in the community has increased and the ESP program has started showing its impact on improving awareness, use and quality of services. In comparison to the baseline, the availability and access of health and essential social services at end-line showed a clear proportional improvement across all the components.