Keeping the Peace Is Not Enough: Human Security and Gender-Based Violence During the Transitional Period of Timor-Leste (Report‪)‬

Introduction The transitional period in Timor-Leste led by the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) from 1999-2002 has been widely criticized by scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers for its poor performance in nation- and peace-building (Beauvis 2001; Chopra 2002; Hohe 2003; Martin and Mayer-Rieckh 2005). A vast amount of this literature specifically addresses the set-up of the transitional justice institutions and questioned the UNTAET's ability to provide security for the Timorese population (Beauvis 2001; Nixon and Hohe 2003; Graydon 2005; Siapno 2006). This literature has indeed drawn attention to the paradoxical nature of the UN peacekeeping mandate and its narrow employment of security. More notably, despite the United Nations' strong rhetoric linking security with human rights--defined as human security--gender-based violence does not fall within its purview of peace-keeping as a number of episodes during Timor-Leste's transitional period have demonstrated (Pires and Scott 1998; Swaine 2003; Bye 2005; Joshi 2005; Hall 2009).