DILI, 17 november 2022 (TATOLI)- National University of Timor-Leste (UNTL) and United Nations Women (UNW), and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) cooperate to establish counseling rooms and safe toilets to avoid sexual harassment in the campus environment.
The Chairman of the UNTL, João Martins said UNW and KOICA are in cooperation with UNTL to rehabilitate safety toilets for students, especially for female students to be accessed.
“Sometimes sexual harassment happened in the campus’s environment where most of the female students are the victims. It happens due to unsafely toilets infrastructure. This issue happens among the students, teachers, and even university staff as the reason of lack of knowledge on gender equality,’’ João Martins told Journalists at UNTL campus, caicoli, this wednesday.
Martins said that providing advocacy on gender equality is important to ensure the prevention of sexual harassment. All students, teachers, and other staff should understand zero tolerance for sexual harassment.
“We must ensure this campus must be safe and secure from any action on sexual harassment, from male students against female students and also teachers with students,’’ He explained.
UNW chief officer, Amy Nishtha Satyam revealed UNW takes a vital responsibility to help all Timorese women to feel safe and comfortable in the school’s environment.
“Today is a great opportunity for UNW to be a partner with UNTL to announce gender equality and sexual harassment advocacy. It is essential to help students, teachers, and other staff to avoid sexual harassment, which might happen in the school environment,” she said.
UNW provides technical assistance on this program and provides advocacy and capacity building on gender equality and sexual harassment prevention to ensure zero tolerance for sexual harassment on UNTL’s campus.
Secretary of State for Gender Equality, Maria Do Rosario Fatima Correia extended her appreciation to the development partner for the support provided to the UNTL.
The government of Timor-Leste through the Secretary of State Gender and Equality has designed a policy for the prevention of sexual harassment that aims to reduce the number of women and girls who become victims of sexual abuse and sexual harassment.
“We should provide more advocacies to enhance people’s knowledge on this issue. SoSGE appreciated so much this support to help students to change people’s behaviors,’’ She said
Mrs. Correia said this issue will be prevented by ensuring that the appropriate infrastructure such as toilets should be secure for women.
This program benefited over 500 UNTL staff composed of 244 women and 256 men with 3.500 students including people with disability benefiting from the safety toilet in education faculty. While Over 25.000 students and teachers also benefited from the confidential and safe counseling rooms.
The program is implemented with the fund provided by KOICA Agency, the financing comes from the “Together for Equality’’ Project worth 7.7 million USD. The period of implementation is four years in four municipalities composed of DILI, Covalima, Baucau, and RAEOA.
Journalist: José Belarmino De Sá
Editor: Nelia B.
