Lifeskills is an instructional approach to behavioural change that combines social and thinking skills, developed by social scientists over the last three decades. This approach has been widely promoted by UNICEF and other agencies as an alternative to the knowledge-based educational programmes used in the early years of the AIDS epidemic.

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“Rice is essential but tiresome, you should get some noodles’: The political-economy of married women’s HIV risk in Ha Noi, Viet Nam

This paper seeks to explain the rise of men’s extramarital sex in Hanoi, Viet Nam and in so doing elucidate the manner in which married women are at risk of contracting HIV from their husbands.1 Rather than explaining the increase in men’s extramarital sex by locating men’s sexual desires in their bodies, a current trend in many behavioral studies of HIV risk in Vietnam, this paper denaturalizes male infidelity by examining contemporary male sexuality as a product of social, political and economic organization at a specific moment in time.2 The common assertion that Vietnamese men are and always have liked “exotic and strange things” (i.e. different women), forecloses understanding the unequal gendered processes and social structures through which sexual desires are “elicited, organized and interpreted as social activity.”

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The Threat of HIV/AIDS on Viet Nam's Youth

To combat youth AIDS more effectively, members of the party, the national assembly, and the government are proposing recommendations which include: expanded HIV/AIDS education and awareness in schools and youth clubs; community networks of peer AIDS teachers, greater mass media coverage of teen's vulnerability to HIV, and a substantial increase in condom distribution and safer sex instruction for young people. Some officials have stated also that they support the controversial concept of clean needle exchange for injecting drug users. In light of Vietnamese society's traditional avoidance of the public mention of sexual issues and the desire to punish social evils, these policy proposals are significant. Based on new data, including interviews with top officials, the report concludes that 1997 could be the pivotal year for Viet Nam to implement more effective actions.

Understanding HIV and AIDS-related Stigma and Discrimination in Vietnam

Findings show that women living with HIV and AIDS tend to be more highly stigmatized than men due to a combination of the commonly-held assumption that HIV is acquired through immoral means, and social expectations that women should uphold the moral integrity of family and society while men can be more self-indulgent. While women tend to be “blamed” for acquiring HIV and AIDS, men are often forgiven by family and society.

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Vietnam situation

Assessing the Vietnam situation: HIV/AIDS communication in context

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