DILI, 23 november, 2021 (TATOLI)- The United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) together with other stockholders shared the ideas, based on Spotlight initiative Program on assessment for the violence against women and girls.
The European Union Ambassador in Timor-Leste, Andrews Jacob considered violence against women and girls is one of the most widespread human rights violations in the world, adding that It is one of the major obstacles to the realization of rights of women and girls and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
“Equality between men and women is at the core of values of the European Union and enshrined in its legal and political framework. In particular, the EU is committed to supporting partner countries, like Timor-Leste, to establish a more enabling environment for the fulfillment of women’s rights and to achieve real and tangible improvements on gender equality,” Ambassador Andrew Jacobs commented at the Novo Turismo Hotel, this Tuesday.
Spotlight program Specialist Event, Kathryn Roberson said the main purpose of this program is to share experiences faced by the women and girl who is also directly affected by domestic violence during the pandemic situation.
“The Spotlight initiative program is attended by stockholders to identify the women and girls who are most vulnerable for domestic violence,” Spotlight program Specialist Event, Kathryn Roberson told reporters at Novo Turismo, on 23 November, this tuesday.
The UN Residence Representative in Timor-Leste, Roy Trivedy said that the United Nations is proud to be part of this program to hear more about the experiences of violence domestic against women and girls in Timor-Leste.
“Timor-Leste has been facing the covid-19 for 2 years and it has also been affected people daily income (the economy of the family), while the schools were all suspended. This situation has mostly affected the mentality of the parents that led to committing domestic violence in the family,” Mr. Roy told to reporters in Novo Turismo.
Mr. Trivedy said, after hearing the output of researchers from the stockholders, UN is committed to working with development partners; United Nation Development Program (UNDP), United Nation Women (UNW), United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), Labor International Organization (ILO), and United Nation Children Fund (UNICEF) to provide training for the community to raise their knowledge to bring down the domestic violence in the family and community level.
The training is focused on Community Violence Based training, Finance management training, and Youth training, which will be implemented by several stockholders, to assist the community economy recovery.
AT the same place, The Representative from Non-Government Organization BELUN, Maria Fatima Sara, said BELUN has collected 430 cases of all domestic cases in 4 municipalities Ermera, Bononaro, Viquque, and Maliana.
According to the survey from BELUM, domestic violence has the greatest impact on children and their future. BELUN has identified that the consequence of the domestic violence has led to broken families and divorces while children were left abandoned even some of them were drooped out from schools.
Ms. Sara declared that many violent experienced women and girls prefer to solve their problem culturally rather than inform their problem to the local authority, saying because they consider the process is taking too long and nobody will take care of their children and livestock in the village.
According to Sara, another form that led to domestic violence was the family income.
“The women and girl are mostly physically and mentality suffered, because their family had no permanent income to support their daily needs, with all of these difficulties bring the fight within the family,” she said.
For its part, The president of Confederation Syndicate of Timor-Leste (CSTL), Antonio Da Costa Martins outlined the CSTL focus on the violence against the workers saying there are 16.000 thousand workers who are the victims of violence against workers in their workplace while 10 female workers experienced sexually abused in their workplace.
“Concerning this issue, CSTL request for strong Labor Code for the prevention of domestic violence and another form of violence against workers,” he said.
It is known that since 2019, 357,336 people have been benefited from this spotlight program or 26% of the total population in Timor-Leste got the direct benefit while More than 700,000 are benefited through social media.
Journalist: José Belarmino De Sá
Editor: Nelia Borges Rosario
