In 2012, the government of Vietnam began the process of drafting new provisions in the law on marriage and the family. The government identified eight separate issues that needed to be addressed, including surrogacy, heterosexual cohabitation and same-sex cohabitation. A legal prohibition of heterosexual cohabitation had been ended in 2000. Specifically on same-sex couples, the Minister of Justice stressed that the legal system had no rules to handle disputes over property or custody of children when cohabiting same-sex couples separated. What startled observers was the Justice Ministry saying, in writing, that the recognition of same-sex marriage was inevitable according to human rights principles. Support came from the Ministry of Health. The Deputy Minister said ‘gay people have the same rights as everyone else to love, be loved and marry’. Public consultations followed (Leach 2012b; Potts 2013e).
In 1998 the National Assembly had passed a law banning same-sex marriage, and imposed fines on individuals holding marriage events. In 2013 the government announced that fines would no longer be imposed. Two well-organised NGOs, iSee in Hanoi and ICS in Ho Chi Minh City, worked hard to support the government proposals. Both are officially registered Vietnamese organisations, with foreign funding and paid staff. They seem the most sophisticated LGBT advocacy organisations in the East Asia region. They sponsored the establishment of PFLAG groups in the country (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), modelled on the organisations in the West.
In December, 2012, the Ministry of Justice, supported by the UN Development Program, brought two academics, from the Netherlands and the US respectively, to discuss issues of relationship recognition and marriage in the West.
In July, 2013, the government’s proposal was made public. The Civil Code would be amended to grant legal recognition to heterosexual cohabitation on matters relating to property and children. Couples could enter into a contractual agreement on rights, but the courts could ignore those provisions if they were deemed unfair. In the absence of reasonable contractual provisions, the rules applicable to married couples on property and children would apply to cohabiting heterosexual couples. An additional short section makes the same rules apply to same-sex cohabiting couples. No system of registration is involved. Passage in the National Assembly is not guaranteed. At the time of writing, the various amendments to the Civil Code were expected to be debated in May 2014 (Sanders 2014).