HA NOI - The 800,000 signatures gathered in Viet Nam to support the United Nations campaign, Say No to Violence against Women, is much higher than the global total.

The figure was announced in Ha Noi yesterday during delivery of the biennial global report on women.

Viet Nam Women?s Union Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Thanh Hoa said although the collection of the signatures in support of the campaign in the capital was started amid record rain and heavy floods, it had proved a major success.

But while the number spoke volumes for how the country supported the campaign, "gender inequality still existed in Viet Nam."

Vietnamese women often work three or four hours more each day than the men but are paid 20 per cent less.

The launch of the report was organised by the Viet Nam Women?s Union; the Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs and the United Nations Development Fund for Women, whose deputy executive director, Joanne Sandler, said Viet Nam's effort would help meet the global target of one million signatures.

These are to go to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon next Tuesday.

The report shows that violence affects 10 to 60 per cent of the women and the deputy executive director told the launch that the ending of the abuse was a missing indicator set for the Millennium Development Goals.

United Nations Resident Co-ordinator John Hendra said Viet Nam's strong campaign to promote gender equality was echoed in the outstanding effort to collect the signatures.

But the Global Gender Gap Report published last week showed that Viet Nam had dropped 26 places from 42 of 128 countries in 2007 to 68 of 130 countries this year because the participation of its women in both economics and politics had declined.

"Viet Nam can't rest on its laurels," he warned.

Viet Nam Parliamentarian Women?s Group representative Nguyen Minh Ha said the way to protect women was neither easy nor smooth.

The parliamentarian said that although her group included all 127 female National Assembly members "more than 28 per cent of the total deputies" and ranked third in Asia-Pacific numbers, women had to do still more to both strengthen themselves and help other women.

The parliamentary group would work even harder to ensure this happened and that all women enjoyed the highest of political rights, she said.