Not like other girls: meet the Asian women who have enlisted as United Nations peacekeepers

In 2000, not a single woman from the Asia-Pacific countries served in UN peacekeeping forces. Today, women from across the region pursue careers thousands of kilometres from home and family

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In 2000, not a single Asian woman served in the UN peacekeeping forces. That has changed dramatically, with women like Captain Vu Nhat Huong (pictured) from across the region pursuing careers thousands of kilometres from home and family. Photo: courtesy of Captain Vu Nhat Huong

Raquel Carvalho

Published: 7:45am, 16 Sep 2023Updated: 4:31pm, 23 Sep 2023

When Vu Nhat Huong, a 31-year-old army captain from Vietnam, told her parents she was going to be deployed on a foreign mission as a United Nations peacekeeper, her mother burst into tears. “You are a very strong woman,” she said, “but why do you want to do something so different from other women?”

Although such questions were not easy for her to hear, let alone answer, Huong went on to serve as a UN communications officer in the Central African Republic, one of the world’s poorest countries and one which has struggled with decades of instability and violence.

From her outpost in the capital, Bangui, she counted off 379 days on a paper calendar that she spent away from her loved ones, before returning to Vietnam last December.

Captain Vu Nhat Huong (left) interviewing a female Tusinian officer in preparation for the United Nations Peacekeeping Day in the Central African Republic. Photo: Courtesy of Captain Vu Nhat Huong

Living in the Central African Republic felt like being in “an old film”, she says. The volatile security situation, together with extreme heat – temperatures can rise as high as 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) – a lack of water and electricity and an alien culture made it all the more challenging.

Often homesick, she would go days without being able to speak to her family because of the poor internet connections.

Towards the end of her deployment, Huong says, her body became so numb and limp that she could hear people talking around her but could not utter a word herself. It turned out she had contracted malaria and she spent three days in hospital.

Captain Vu Nhat Huong, back from deployment in the Central African Republic and currently based in Hanoi, would relish another foreign mission as a UN peacekeeper – once she is married. Photo: Courtesy of Captain Vu Nhat Huong

Looking back, she says it was all worth it. Currently based in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, Huong has already set her sights on another foreign mission: she would like to apply to the engineering contingent. Ideally, though, she wants to get married first.