Doing Everything We Can: Women Survivors During Lockdown

The COVID-19 pandemic has been posing extra challenges for many people. With lockdown in place, we reached out to Mana Juliana Pereira, a woman survivor of gender-based violence (GBV) in Maubara, Liquica Municipality, to ask how she is dealing with the situation. This story is documented by Fokupers as a part of the Reforsa Hamutuk project supported by the European Union to promote social inclusion and economic development for women survivors and victims of violence in Timor-Leste. By collecting survivor stories, Fokupers, ACbit, and Hivos aim to better understand the COVID-19 related needs of women survivors, and adjust the project implementation to address the needs. The following is Mana Juliana’s story:

We have been staying home since February 2021. We cannot go anywhere. If we left the house, we would be brought to a quarantine place for fourteen days. Before the state of emergency, all produce could be brought to Dili. Now, businesses are limited within the city of Liquica, and it is limited to the people within the city. COVID-19 restriction prevented me to go (from Maubara) to the city of Liquica. I felt stressed. I could not sell any of my produce so I did not have enough money to buy food for my children and my family.

There was no information about when the whole situation would end. All borders were guarded. Because I felt like I could not take it anymore, I and some friends started thinking and coming up with plans so we could earn some income again. We, six women, then contacted the owner of an Anggunan car, a car that is usually used to transport people to do their businesses. We arranged so that our produce can be brought and dropped at the market, but only until the city of Liquica. Until now, we still cannot sell it in Dili. We had to wake up very early as the produce needs to be transported by 4.00 A.M. The produce brought to Liquica was based on customer requests, such as squash, bananas, papaya flowers and fruits, water spinach, and other fruits and vegetables.

We still sell produce within Maubara, but sometimes there is no demand from customers in Maubara. When it happens, we need to wake up by 2.00 A.M., walk far to get some produce sold.

I still feel stressed because the money we earn is still not enough. We may get $10 to $15 a day, but we need to pay $10 to the Anggunan car and feed our families. The price of rice, frying oil, instant noodles, and other food supplies are also expensive. A 25 kg bag of rice cost is now $18.

Regardless, I am still grateful. I get to learn and continue doing my activities despite having to be very careful. I still get to save a small amount of money from time to time. I and my friends, agreed to pool our money and started a farmer’s group called KAIKABE. There are 12 of us, 10 women and 2 men, in the group. With the money, we transformed a patch of land into a garden. We work hard to grow squash, potatoes, peanuts, beans, eggplants, and dragon fruits.

I am just hoping that all the produce we grow will grow well and bring enough income for us. I am also hoping that the cure for COVID-19 will be available soon so that we can do our business better.