Minustah's Specialized Police Team to Combat Sexual Violence in Haiti
NUPI Working Paper 867 (2016)
36 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2016 Last revised: 26 Aug 2016
Date Written: July 8, 2016
Abstract
The Norwegian-led specialized police team (SPT) has been deployed to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) since late 2010, with the objective of building the capacity of the Haitian National Police (HNP) to conduct investigations into sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). The SPT is a tightly coordinated team of police experts who work with host state police and officials in defining, developing and implementing a specific project, and draw on an independent project budget. This model of deploying police personnel in UN peacekeeping operations appears to offer a more effective means of building police capacity and supporting reform and restructuring of host state law enforcement agencies than traditional peacekeeping approaches -- which have relied predominantly on individual police officers (IPOs) from many countries with diverse approaches to policing, who are deployed for relatively short periods, are loosely coordinated, and generally lack independent project funds. The paper examines the experience of the SPT, some of the obstacles it encountered as the first SPT, and identifies how such teams n the future might be better supported at the mission and UN headquarter levels.
Keywords: peacekeeping, police, United Nations, Haiti, MINUSTAH
JEL Classification: F5
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation