Promoting the rights of ethnic minorities

Ho Chi Minh City is a multi-ethnic city. In recent years, implementing the views and policies of the Vietnamese Party and State on the rights of ethnic minorities, the city has achieved important accomplishments, contributing to the comprehensive protection and promotion of the rights of ethnic minorities in the area.

Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh: Thúc đẩy quyền của đồng bào dân tộc thiểu số

The Ho Chi Minh City Ethnic Affairs Committee awarded certificates of commendation to collectives and individuals who actively participated in caring for and implementing ethnic policies in 2023. (Source: sggp.org.vn)

Ensuring development rights

One of the rights that the City has been concerned with for many years is the right to training, developing, and planning for ethnic minority cadres in agencies and units within the city.

Party committees and government agencies at all levels consistently promote and encourage the recruitment of ethnic minority cadres, civil servants, and public employees in localities; they organize efforts to improve the quality of ethnic minority cadres, civil servants, and public employees within the political system, primarily focusing on leadership and management at all levels through regular training and professional development.

The appointment of officials, civil servants, and public employees from ethnic minority groups is carried out according to the principles of centralization, democracy, objectivity, and transparency, creating motivation for ethnic minority individuals with qualifications and abilities to strive for advancement.

On July 18, 2022, the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee issued Plan No. 136-KH/TU on training, fostering, assigning, utilizing, creating a pool of and promoting the team of ethnic minority cadres in the city for the period 2022-2030.

The proportion of ethnic minority cadres, civil servants, and public employees is gradually increasing. As of May 2023, the city had 2,249 ethnic minority personnel out of 96,095 city-level personnel, accounting for 2.34%; of which, 773 were Party members, 33 held leadership and management positions at the provincial level, 268 at the district level, and 1,948 at the commune level.

To enhance the capacity of ethnic minority workers to access the labor market, the City has issued many policies on vocational training and job creation, such as Decision No. 3639/QD-UBND dated July 16, 2012, of the City People's Committee on vocational training for rural workers in non- agricultural sectors in the city until 2020, Decision No. 2904/QD-UBND dated July 13, 2019, on approving the Project on vocational training and job creation for ethnic minorities in the city for the period 2020-2024... aiming to encourage ethnic minorities to confidently and proactively choose occupations that suit their abilities, cultural level, and religious beliefs.

Thanks to the impact of these policies, over 10,000 jobs have been created annually, including nearly 1,000 ethnic minority workers, contributing significantly to the city's poverty reduction efforts.

Currently, the city no longer has poor or near-poor ethnic minority households with incomes meeting the national poverty line for the 2016-2020 period. The percentage of ethnic minority households with internet access accounts for 88% of the total number of ethnic minority households.

Among the nine ethnic minority groups with populations exceeding 1,000 people currently residing in the city, the Tay ethnic group has the highest percentage of households using the Internet (100%), followed by the Thai ethnic group (98.4%), and the lowest in this group is the Cham ethnic group (82.8%).

Furthermore, the city pays special attention to cultural, religious, and spiritual activities to enrich the lives of ethnic minority communities. Currently, there are 14 community halls, 39 ancestral temples; 60 cultural and artistic groups, teams, and clubs of the Hoa ethnic group; 18 mosques and small mosques of the Cham people; and 2 Theravada Buddhist temples of the Khmer people... The City's Ethnology Association particularly focuses on cultural and educational activities for ethnic minority students.

The Association of Literature and Arts of Ethnic Minorities in the City has many diverse programs and publishes numerous publications on ethnic culture.

The work of preserving and promoting the traditional cultural values of ethnic minorities has achieved certain results; the cultural life of the people has developed and improved significantly; cultural institutions have been strengthened; cultural activities and exchanges are organized annually; typical traditional festivals of the people have been recognized as national intangible cultural heritage, such as the social customs and beliefs of the Chinese community in District 5 during the Lantern Festival, and life cycle festivals of the Cham and Khmer people such as wedding ceremonies, the Ok Om Bok festival, Ngo boat racing, Chol Chnam Thmay New Year... These festivals have received investment support for restoration and preservation, linked with tourism development.

The spoken and written languages of ethnic minorities are preserved through policies that encourage the teaching and learning of minority languages in areas with large ethnic minority populations. These policies include providing support to ethnic minority teachers by subsidizing their language teaching with a rate equal to 0.5 times their basic salary; and compiling three sets of teaching and learning materials for Chinese, Khmer, and Cham languages for officials, civil servants, and members of the Chinese, Khmer, and Cham communities in the city.

Representatives from District 5 provide livelihood support to disadvantaged Chinese families in the area (Source: sggp.org.vn)

Ensuring the right to healthcare and education.

Community health programs and healthcare for ethnic minorities have always been a priority for the health sector, especially in creating opportunities for disadvantaged people to receive health check-ups, healthcare, health education and counseling, and long-term treatment monitoring. This contributes to raising awareness and changing behaviors regarding healthcare and disease prevention in the community.

Many policies for ethnic minorities have been implemented effectively, such as providing nutritional support for preschool, kindergarten, and primary school children to improve the stature and health of ethnic minority youth during the 2016-2020 period, and establishing a mechanism for budgetary support to implement the School Milk Program to improve nutritional status and contribute to enhancing the stature of preschool and primary school children during the 2018-2020 period.

Providing free medical examination books for poor households; purchasing school health insurance for 100% of Khmer and Cham primary and secondary school students; purchasing accident insurance and health insurance for elderly and single Khmer and Cham people; providing an additional 30% subsidy for health insurance cards for near-poor households from the Health Insurance Fund surplus.

In addition, the city has implemented sustainable poverty reduction programs and policies for households that have recently escaped the poverty line, including policies to support health insurance costs for medical examinations and treatment, and the issuance and purchase of health insurance cards for people in poor and near-poor households during the 2021-2025 period.

Every year, departments and agencies, together with the People's Committee of Thu Duc City and districts, organize visits and tặng gifts to ethnic minority people under policy categories, poor households, near-poor households according to the city's standards, disadvantaged households, elderly people living alone, and struggling workers and students.

Party committees and authorities at all levels pay great attention to the work of universalizing education and raising the educational level of children from ethnic minority communities. The network of schools has been planned and developed evenly, creating conditions for children from ethnic minority communities, whether living in stable conditions or migrating, to attend school more easily. The rate of preschool education for 5-year-olds and the rate of 6-year-olds entering first grade have reached 100%.

The city has approved and issued many specific policies and guidelines suitable for the comprehensive stability and development of ethnic minority communities, such as: policies to support tuition fees for postgraduate students and doctoral candidates from ethnic minorities; credit loan policies for poor students; tuition fee exemption policies for Cham and Khmer ethnic minority students studying from kindergarten to high school; policies on supporting tuition fees for ethnic minority students from poor and near-poor households as defined by the city at vocational and higher education institutions...

In addition, the city has done a good job in promoting education, leveraging social resources to provide scholarships and tuition support for undergraduate and postgraduate studies among the Chinese community.

As a result, ethnic minority families are increasingly aware of the importance of investing in their children's education and culture; all ethnic minority children of school age attend school; many ethnic minority students overcome difficulties, strive for excellence, and achieve good academic results, with many holding two university degrees, master's degrees, or doctorates.

The achievements in ensuring and promoting the rights of ethnic minorities in all fields are the driving force and prerequisite for the Party Committee and the City government to successfully implement Resolution No. 31-NQ/TW of the Politburo on the direction and tasks for the development of Ho Chi Minh City until 2030, with a vision to 2045, and Resolution No. 98/2023/QH15 of the National Assembly on piloting special mechanisms and policies for the development of Ho Chi Minh City.

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