HANOI - A seminar on sharing experience in strategies and measures against sexual violence in the Asia- Pacific region was held on Tuesday by the Spain's Peace and Development (PyD), and the United Nations' program on sexual violence, attracted a crowd of domestic and international experts in education and gender equality.

James Lang, UN Program Coordinator of "Partners for Prevention: Working to Prevent Violence Against Women", addressed at the conference that sexual violence is a global issue which is happening in every society and in different forms, including violence and sexual compulsion in the family, women trafficking, sexual abuse to women at schools and in offices.

Yolanda Martinez, PyD Asia Regional Coordinator, said the loss by sexual violence is not yet fully calculated in terms of health and property. In the developed and developing countries, it costs billions of U.S. dollars a year in each country. Further more, sexual violence causes huge damage to economic and human development.

Foreign experts said that Vietnam is more active in settling sexual violence and building policy frame to solve the issues. However, it should pay more attention to prevent and fight against sexual violence. Close co-ordination should be established among branches, at all levels, in communities and families.

Social awareness about gender equality in Vietnam has been changed positively; the thinking to value men above women has been gradually erased; and more care of the families and society are given to both boys and girls, deputy head of the department of students and pupils' affairs, under the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training Ha Thi Dung said.

According to the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO), the literacy rate of female above 10 years old increased from 86.46 percent in 2000 to 90.5 percent in 2008, higher than that in many other regional countries.

The government's policies on gender equality in education should be further popularized, while the state's management mechanism should be consolidated to implement the national strategy on gender equality, Dung said.