The Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality (SoSEPE) held on November 23 at Hotel Arbiru, a meeting on the Validation of the CEDAW (Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) Specific Report, with the purpose of reviewing and correcting the document in order to send it later to this committee.

The Director of Gender Development Policy (DPDG), Armando da Costa, recalled that “two years ago, in 2009, the Government of Timor-Leste presented our initial report on the CEDAW, in New York, which deals with many areas including health and education. In turn, CEDAW made a recommendation, which involves several areas, including health and education, as the most important areas to be reported on the progress over the two years”.

He also added that the report should be presented every four years, but becausee there are some issues that must be reported every two years, a document was delivered on these two areas. These recommendations were submitted to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education, while on other areas the report to be submitted to the CEDAW in the next year is still under preparation.

Based on these recommendations, in February this year, the staff of the SoSPE, in coordination with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health, gathered information and data for the report submitted to CEDAW.

The representatives of UNDP, of UNMIT Gender, Rede Feto, Ministry of Education and other relevant institutions in the areas of health and education, marked their presence at the event.