ABSTRACT
This chapter critically examines the mandate of protection in the Women, Peace and Security agenda: that is, protecting women from and preventing sexual and gender-based violence, in conflict and in post-conflict reconstruction. It argues that the implementation of protection makes some forms of violence visible while obscuring others, arguably delimiting and producing a 'hierarchy of harm' that ultimately undermines all efforts at prevention. The chapter examines discourse and policy development on domestic violence and peacekeeper sexual exploitation and abuse, respectively, in Timor-Leste. It also argues that the "benefits of connecting work on sexual violence across contexts". The chapter provides a critical examination on what protection means in practice, asking which women are to be protected and from which men's violence. It argued that this again necessarily hinges on relations of power beyond gender, including race, class and spatial location. The chapter considers sexual and gender-based violence as a broad category to reflect the language of programme developments in Timor-Leste.
