Dili, September 27, 2024 (Media Democracia) – UNFPA in collaboration with the Association of Journalists of Timor-Leste (AJTL) conducted training for journalists on covering health issues related to gender-based violence, on Thursday.
In the opening of this training, the Deputy Representative of UNFPA in Timor-Leste, Domingas Bernardo, said that the purpose of this training was to fulfill the agreement made in 2023 with AJTL.
“AJTL and UNFPA last year made an agreement to collaborate with the aim of the agreement being to increase the knowledge of journalists who have been working at AJTL in the health sector related to UNFPA’s work,” said Domingas Bernando.
She added that UNFPA’s work also relates to sexual health, family planning and infectious diseases, as well as providing training to young people about healthy relationships.
“The work that UNFPA does as I said earlier is about sexual health, reproductive health in mothers and familiar health or HIV/AIDS, diseases that are transmitted through sexual intercourse, and secondly the work that UNFPA does for adolescents, therefore, we also have to provide training to adolescents about healthy relationships.” She said.
She continued, UNFPA also collaborates with the Ministry of Youth, Sports, Arts and Culture, including the Ministry of Education to create gender equality training programs and women’s empowerment.
As Secretary General of the Timor-Leste Journalists Association, Teodosia dos Reis expressed her gratitude to the journalists who were willing to participate in the training in order to increase their capacity in covering issues of Gender-Based Violence, healthy relationships between youth and adolescents.
“Once again I would like to thank you all for your willingness to participate in the training to increase journalist capacity in the fields of maternal and child health, family planning, healthy relationships between adolescents and gender-based violence, because so far we know that our coverage in this field is still very lacking.” Said the Secretary General of AJTL
She emphasized that UNFPA is committed to improving the capacity of journalists in covering the issue of Gender Based Violence related to maternal mortality data in Timor-Leste.
“So UNFPA realizes the need to increase the capacity of journalists to cover the field related to issues related to maternal mortality data that are currently issued by the Deputy to us that actually pregnant women who die do not have to die because they do not get information so that it becomes a problem that can pose a risk to them,” She said.
She emphasized that journalists need to know about reporting on Gender-Based Violence so that they can provide information to the public, especially women, so that they have the courage to make decisions when having sexual relations.
“We need to get a lot of information on how to increase people’s capacity to decide for themselves what their bodies need, because so far we see many young women not making their own decisions, but because of situations like the conditions in our country, Timor Leste mostly uses a patriarchal system.” She added.
It was further explained that through a harsh patriarchal system, sometimes women do not have power so they are categorized as subordinates in society so that more people contribute to acts of violence against women. In addition, this training was attended by journalists with a total of 20 participants consisting of 17 women and 3 men.
Reported by : Estefania
Photo : Estefania