Paulina Quintao – The Marie Stopes International Timor-Leste (MSI-TL) Clinic Coordinator Maria Fernanda Serra said mothers who have unsafe abortions risk their lives and could die if they're not treated by health staff.

She said abortion did happen in the country, but until now there was no concrete data on how many mothers had unsafe abortions because the community considered it a sensitive problem.

"Based on the law it's illegal, but the reality is that it happens as a lot of mothers have unsafe abortions and sometimes we're surprised when a mother abandons a baby in this or that place," said Coordinator Serra in Vila Verde, Dili.

Coordinator Serra said abortions happened because the mothers fell pregnant against their wishes and as a last resort they decided to have an abortion.

"We had a case in Oe-Cusse where a young lady fell pregnant but she was not ready so she had abortion outside and there was a lot of blood and the baby was taken to a health facility and the mother died because it was too late to take her to Dili," she said.

In another case from two years ago, a secondary student fell pregnant before she was ready, so she went to a witchdoctor who used traditional medicine but there was heavy bleeding and she was taken to the health centre but couldn't be saved.

Apart from unsafe abortions causing death, she said they could also cause ovary infections and infertility. She added that others asked at the MSI Clinic about getting an abortion but MSI refused, saying MSI-TL works based on the laws ratified.

President of the Parliamentary Women's Group Josefa Alvares Soares said Timor-Leste had a law to strongly condemn women who had unsafe abortions but implementation was still weak because health staff did not bring cases forward.

She said article 141 in the Penal Code stated those who spread information to others about having abortions or those who used different methods to give themselves an abortion would be sentenced to three years because it's a violation of the rights of children.

"It's not implemented well, if health workers detect people who chose to have an abortion and they don't report the mothers, it indicates that we don't seriously implement the law so people destroy their children," MP Soares said.

She said there were two kinds of abortions, a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) meant it happened suddenly, caused by malaria, a fall or stress and the other way was by choice.

She said after an abortion it impacted a person's health and people ran to health facilities, so the hospital should not be silent and should process mothers who end their baby's life by choice.