First established under a presidential decree in 2003, followed by reconstitution of the Commission under its own statute in 2006, HRCM is now a constitutional oversight body established with the broad mandate to promote respect for human rights in the Maldives. Over this period of sixteen years, public awareness of HRCM has increased progressively from 40.8% in 2005, t0 72.8% in 2011 and to 84.8% in 2019. There is a significant increase in migrant worker respondents who were aware of HRCM with 41.2% in 2019 in relation to only 9.0% in 2011. Findings of this survey reaffirm the 2011 outcome that more women are aware of HRCM, with 87.0% of the respondents reporting awareness of HRCM analogous to that of 84.9% in 2011. The increase in the percentage of men aware of HRCM from 63.7% in 2011 to 80.7% in 2019 is noteworthy and thus is one of the factors contributing to the overall increase in awareness of HRCM. A decline from 39.7% in 2005 to 26.7% in 2011 was observed in the number of respondents who thought HRCM was doing an excellent or a good job. However, there was no significant difference in 2019 (27.0%) in the number of respondents who answered this question when compared to 2011. There is also a decline in the number of people who believe that HRCM is doing a satisfactory job from 19.9% in 2011 to 13.4 in 2019. Moreover, 31.1% of respondents were dissatisfied and thus of the opinion that HRCM was not doing a good job. Further inquiry is conceivably necessary to assess the phenomenon of 29.2% of the respondents not being able to arrive at a conclusion about their evaluation of the performance of HRCM. A direct correlation cannot be inferred between the increase in awareness of HRCM with the decline of its approval rating as probable contributing factors were not evaluated. The 2019 findings yet again manifest a narrowing gap between men and women who feel positively about the performance of HRCM, supporting the findings of 2011. It is to be noted that when compared to women (28.0%), more men (37.0%) were disappointed with HRCM’s performance. There seems to be no significant difference between respondents from urban (25.2%) and outer islands (27.0%) who stated they were happy about the performance of HRCM. Yet, respondents from both urban and outer islands reported being unhappy with the performance of HRCM 18 with 30.0% and 31.8% affirming dissatisfaction respectively. Table 4: HRCM Performance, by gender Male Female Total 3.63% 3.51% 3.54% Good 21.75% 23.36% 22.73% Satisfactory 13.60% 13.13% 13.43% Not good 21.15% 18.02% 18.99% Dissatisfactory 15.71% 10.23% 12.12% Excellent RF 0.90% 0.60% 0.71% DK/NA 23.26% 31.15% 28.48% AWARENESS ABOUT THE ROLE OF HRCM Despite a considerable increase in awareness about HRCM, there is a significant decline in the understanding of the role of HRCM. Over a quarter (27%) of respondents were not able to define the role of HRCM. In 2011, 70.0% of the respondents reported that they believe the role of HRCM is protecting human rights, compared to that of 42.8% in 2019. Understanding of HRCM’s monitoring role has suffered a significant decline to merely 4.1% from 18.0% in 2011.The investigative role of HRCM was stated as a function of HRCM by just 12.9% of the respondents. This is a concerning outcome as the trend manifests a decline in perception of the investigation role of HRCM from 2011 (31.0%). When respondents were inquired about what function of HRCM needed to be further strengthened, the strongest support was for creating awareness about human rights (89.2%). This was closely followed by 89.0% of respondents who opined that HRCM must strengthen protection of the rights of vulnerable groups namely children, women, persons with disabilities and the elderly. Subsequently, 87.4% stated that the Commission should strengthen its function of advising the government on human rights issues, followed by 86.1% calling for strengthening the function of investigating complaints about human rights abuses. Also, 85.8% stated that the Commission should be strengthening its work on monitoring the government’s compliance to human rights obligations.