Global Campus, UNTL and USAID team-up to enhance knowledge production about woman access to transitional justice in Timor-Leste

The Global Campus of Human Rights with the Human Rights Centre of the National University of Timor-Leste (HRC-UNTL) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) are glad to announce a cooperation in the field of human rights education and research aimed at the Tetum translation, publication and promotion of the book "Women's Access to Transitional Justice in Timor-Leste: the Blind Letters".

Authored by Dr Noemi Pérez Vásquez and published in 2022 by Bloomsbury (London), the book offers a panoramic assessment of access to transitional justice from a gender perspective, and addresses Timorese women’s participation and recognition in several transitional justice mechanisms, also from a post-colonial theoretical perspective.

Through case studies of Timor-Leste, this important research work, the first of this kind, tackles the discriminatory practices embedded in some transitional justice mechanisms, and how they constrain women’s participation and later recognition when post-conflict benefits are distributed.

After a careful translation, the book will be published under creative commons as an open source volume, to be made freely available to the public in its printed and e-versions. The project will then engage in a broad dissemination through a series of presentations and workshops within academia and across local communities, both in Dili and in the country districts, with the participation of victims and survivors.

The project aims at contributing to the promotion of human and women’s rights for a more equitable and just Timor-Leste. Moreover, it wishes to encourage the emerging public discussion about gender-based human rights violations and abuses occurred in the context of the Timorese struggle for independence.

The activities will run until May 2024 and will be especially intended for the academic and educators’ community in Timor-Leste, the national institutions and local civil society organisations focusing on human rights, democracy, good governance, peace and dealing with the past. The action is part of the GC-UNTL cooperation agreement for the strengthening of education and research capacity at the Human Rights Centre in Dili, jointly established in 2019-22.

“Sadly, many of the women who were interviewed are passing away, and with them their narratives and a part of their past. Thanks to this project their stories and voices will become available for younger generations, and will remain alive forever.”
Noemi Pérez Vásquez

This project is part of the GC Capacity Development programme.

For more information contact adriano.remiddi@gchumanrights.org