Publication

This study highlights the findings of an urban violence assessment administered between June and August 2009. Overall, it finds that patterns of contemporary urban violence are fundamentally connected to the historical development of Dili and the interaction between the city and its rural periphery. Notwithstanding violent outbursts in 1999, 2002, and 2006–07, the study finds comparatively low rates of violent victimization in the capital in 2009 and 2010. Although one in five Timorese reports of having experienced a robbery and two in ten reports of having experienced some form of domestic or sexual abuse, most respondents say they felt safer in 2009 than in the previous year.