ABSTRACT

Over recent decades, the importance of sexual health for global public health has achieved increasing recognition internationally. This chapter focuses on sexual health in Vietnam. The social and economic conditions offered by the new market economy were seen as conducive to sexual escapades as increasing mobility, expanding leisure opportunities, new means of communication, and rising incomes enhanced the opportunities for erotic liaisons. It starts with a critical examination of the sexual ideologies that prevail in the public sphere in Vietnam. The National Assembly recently decided that sex workers shall no longer be sent to rehabilitation camps for re-education and disease treatment, and a new Labour Law issued by the National Assembly and coming into effect in July 2013 forbids workplace sexual harassment. It can, of course, be debated whether such a politics-free viewpoint on sexuality exists.