This press release, from the Catholic Diocese of Darwin, highlights how a group of Northern Territory professionals are in Timor-Leste to help expand a disability care centre.

Social protection supports vulnerable populations through both formal systems and informal community networks, helping to meet basic needs while reducing poverty, inequality, and vulnerability to shocks. This review, commissioned by the Partnerships for Social Protection (P4SP) program, synthesizes existing evidence in the Pacific and Timor-Leste to inform research, policy, and programming in the region.

Since adopting the 2016 Child and Family Welfare Policy, Timor-Leste has prioritized strengthening a skilled and accountable Social Welfare Workforce through multi-sectoral capacity development initiatives aimed at improving child protection services. An independent evaluation commissioned by the Ministry of Social Solidarity and Inclusion, with UNICEF support, assesses these efforts from 2016 to 2022 and provides recommendations to guide future workforce development.

The Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for child and youth protection case management in Timor-Leste provide guidance for government and child protection actors to deliver effective, inclusive, and appropriate case management services from pregnancy through adulthood. Developed in alignment with international standards and the Sustainable Development Goals, the SOPs aim to strengthen child protection systems and improve prevention and response mechanisms for protection concerns.

This article describes how a defrocked American priest in Timor-Leste has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after being found guilty of sexually abusing orphaned and disadvantaged young girls under his care.

It provides an update, current as of 2020, on the previous Situation Analysis from 2014. The analysis uses a sectoral approach to key areas including health, nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), education, child protection, etc, but also uses a life-cycle approach to examine the critical periods of early childhood and adolescence.

For almost three decades, missionary Richard Daschbach ran an orphanage providing refuge for some of East Timor’s most needy children. He has since admitted to sexually abusing countless young girls – yet locals still support him.

Richard Daschbach, a now-defrocked 84-year-old US priest has been charged with sexual abuse of 14 girls in the shelter he ran in Timor-Leste. This article tells the story of one of the young women who spoke out about the abuse she experienced.

The WHO South-East Asia Regional Office in collaboration with UNICEF organized a 3-day virtual meeting from 27 to 29 April, 2021.

UNICEF is seeking a consultant to provide technical support to the Timor-Leste Ministry of Social Solidarity and Inclusion through the Child Protection Officers, for emergency preparedness and response in the COVID 19 pandemic for children living in institutional care, primarily related to case management and registration process.