UPR Sexual Rights Database

National Report:
Para 35) The Government of Timor-Leste has adopted many measures to combat violence against women and children. The Government of Timor-Leste through the Secretary of State for Equality and Inclusion has produced a national action plan for gender-based violence 2017-2020, with four important pillars, namely: the prevention of gender-based violence, providing services to victims, access to justice for victims, and coordination, monitoring and assessment of initiatives that have been developed. In 2020 the Government launched a Spotlight Initiative program with the aim of combatting gender-based violence such as violence against women and girls.
Para 77) The Government acknowledges that gender-based violence continues to occur, especially against women, however the Government continues to endeavour to reduce gender-based violence in Timor-Leste.
Para 78) The Government has launched a National Action Plan on Gender Based Violence 2017-2021 as a State commitment to resolve problems to reduce and eradicate gender-based violence that affects women, men and children in the community through coordination and the inclusive participation of all entities.
Para 79) The State has a policy of continuing to promote and protect women and girls so they can enjoy their rights and continues to reduce discrimination in public and private institutions including human trafficking, sexual exploitation, early marriage and forced marriage practices and provides equal opportunities to women to be leaders at the political level.
Para 80) The Government works with non-government organizations and has established safe and protected places for victims and survivors, offering temporary accommodation, including attending to victims and survivors of sexual abuse, domestic violence, the sexual abuse of children, or trafficking. Now there are safe rooms at the national hospital, referral hospitals and health centres in four municipalities and safe room services are provided by PRADET.
Para 81) Also shelters have been established, as part of a collaboration between the Government and civil society organisations. In 2018, there were safe shelters in all of the 13 municipalities that also guarantee the safety of victims of gender-based violence and shelters also provide training on livelihood skills with the aim of reintegrating victims into the community who have the capacity to make a living.
Para 82) To prevent sexual harassment from occurring in the workplace, the Public Service Commission has created a mechanism for reporting sexual harassment, and the Rosa CHATBOT facilitates reporting of gender-based violence in specific cases relating to sexual harassment that is committed by Public Servants in the workplace or in a public place. The Rosa CHATBOT protects the identity of those who make a complaint.

UN Compilation:
Para 9) The Committee against Torture commended Timor-Leste for its initiatives to amend its policies and procedures in order to afford greater protection of human rights and to apply the Convention against Torture, in particular the adoption of the second National Action Plan on Gender-based Violence (2017–2021);
Para 27) The Special Rapporteur noted that, in terms of access to justice and compliance with human rights standards, there were shortcomings in both the formal justice system and the customary justice system. In the customary justice system, hearings were commonly conducted in public, which was clearly unsuitable for crimes relating to emotionally vulnerable victims of domestic violence and child abuse. Some customary justice practices might entail physical punishments, in contravention of international human rights law.
Para 49) The United Nations country team also noted that gender-based violence was recognized as one of the most pervasive and widespread human rights concerns in TimorLeste, with three in five (59 per cent) ever-partnered women (aged 15–49 years) having experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime. Of these, 86 per cent had not sought assistance from formal agencies, services or other authorities. Women and girls with disabilities, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex persons, were at an even higher risk of violence, often perpetrated by family members.
Para 50) The Committee against Torture expressed concern about the reluctance of Timor-Leste to criminalize marital rape and incest as distinct crimes, and expressed regret at the lack of information provided on the number of complaints, investigations, prosecutions, convictions and sentences imposed in cases of gender-based violence against women.

Stakeholder Summary:
Para 11) PDHJ highlighted that the formal judicial process did not provide for an accessible, fast and coherent result that ensured victims of domestic violence safety and livelihood. This caused those victims to turn to traditional justice mechanisms and remedies that might not integrate a human rights perspective.

National Report:
Para 88) Health care provided by staff through primary health services in rural areas, from the Sub-Village level, Village and Administrative Post level, is based on the plan from the Ministry of Health, and they have the capacity to provide health care at the health post level with curative programs and primary health care services that deal with prevention and promotion. Health care staff every week conduct mobile clinics for communities in rural areas with the use of motorcycles, as well as multi-purpose vehicles in areas that do not have a health clinic at the village or sub-village level to provide primary health care, which comprises basic curative services, vaccination programs, maternal and child health care, nutrition programs, tuberculosis programs, as well as health promotion and education.
Para 94) The MoH through the hospitals has a PINTL program (Partnership to Improve Nutrition in Timor-Leste) that supports actions aimed at reducing the incidence of malnutrition in pregnant mothers and promotes the breastfeeding of children and the provision of nutritious food to children under the age of five. These programs are aimed at improving nutrition for mothers and children by improving the practice of breastfeeding for babies and providing food to babies and children under the age of five through the promotion of health education and preparation of local foods, the distribution of micronutrients to children (Vitamin A, Albendazole, Powdered Micronutrients), the distribution of micronutrients supplements to adolescents, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers, and the treatment for extreme cases of malnutrition in mothers.
Para 95) The Ministry of Health has played an important role in implementing reproductive education programs in Timor-Leste, with reproductive health programs to improve family planning, child spacing and limiting the number of children born as part of family planning, mechanisms for health care during pregnancy and childbirth, including education about healthy sexual relations between spouses before and after childbirth.
Para 96) The MoH enjoys cooperation with entities such as civil society organizations, the church and also international agencies that have a mission to provide support services to family planning programs. Until now, the MoH continues to receive assistance from partners and also through bilateral cooperation for health care and family planning in rural areas and remote areas in Timor-Leste.
Para 97) The MoH has an action plan to improve Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care 2016-2019, with the aim of continuing to save mothers and children who are affected by serious birth complications, during birth and post-birth, to reduce maternal and newborn mortality.

UN Compilation:
Para 42) The United Nations country team also noted that physical barriers to access to medication and contraceptives remained significant, especially in remote areas, but that cultural and religious constraints also limited access to modern methods of family planning, especially for people who did not have children or were unmarried. Contraceptives were provided free of charge in public health facilities, but were mostly reserved for women who already had children.
Para 43) It stressed that young women seemed to have little agency in the decision to engage in sexual relationships. The relatively high rate of teenage pregnancies (7 per cent), and issues such as maternal mortality due to unsafe abortion, baby abandonment and infanticide, tended to confirm such findings. As knowledge on reproductive health was particularly low among women, the Government’s sexual reproductive health and rights education programmes were expected to contribute to a reduction in the prevalence of those issues. However, cultural sensitivity on the subject remained a barrier to implementation. For example, abortion was not allowed in the case of rape or incest.

Stakeholder Summary:
Para 8) PDHJ recognized the efforts made by the Government, through the Ministry of Health in cooperation with development partner, NGOs and community groups, to disseminate information to the communities on special duty to improve public health, through prevention care in nutrition area, immunization, reproductive health, …

"National Report: Para 12) To guarantee effective and adequate protection for the implementation of the law against domestic violence, the State, through the Ministry of Social Solidarity has managed to implement programs such as the establishment of a protection network for victims of domestic violence and gender based violence in 13 municipalities, has increased the capacity of the national network of support centers to provide direct assistance to shelters through training on operational procedures, has reintegrated victims in the community after they have left shelters, has provided psycho-social support to victims and public awareness raising and the implementation of operational procedures for the referral networks, management of cases on a database which is based on monitoring activities
Stakeholder Summary:
Stakeholder Summary:
Para 29) Cultural Survival (CS) noted that despite the Law against Domestic Violence and the National Action Plan on Domestic Violence, the Government had failed to implement necessary service and protection for indigenous women and girls. AI expressed similar concern that the Law against Domestic Violence did not adequately meet the standards of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women"