Lao PDR Government’s Policies in Promoting Women Roles Through Lao Women’s Union

Abstract

The objectives of this research were (1) to study the policies of the government of Laos PDR in promoting the roles of women through the Lao Women's Union before and after the announcement of the “New Thinking Policy” (jintanakarn mai); and (2) to investigate the roles of the Lao Women's Union in supporting the roles of women in accordance with the government policy before and after the announcement of the New Thinking Policy. This descriptive research adopted the historical approach. The research findings revealed that the policies of Lao PDR government in promoting the roles of women through the Lao Women's Union could be categorized into 2 phases:  (1) Before the announcement of the New Thinking Policy, there were significant internal and external factors contributing to changing the government policy in promoting the roles of Lao women through the establishment of the Lao women’s organizations, i.e. "Lao Women's Association" and "Lao Women's Union".  (2) After the announcement of the New Thinking Policy in 1986, the promotion of the roles of women of the Lao Women's Union became more prominent and more diversified.  This movement clearly created the guidelines for promoting women's roles by combining the policies of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and the Conference of the Group of International Women at various time intervals in order to enable the promotion of the roles of women and the roles of males/females in Laos society to be appropriate for modern time and the current global situation.