Rising crime rates, gang violence and organized crime remain significant societal concerns.5 HRCM along with other stakeholders have been trying to understand the nature and trends of crimes, gang violence and organized crime over the years as they directly impact the right to security of person. The 2015 HRCM submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) outlining the human rights situation in the Maldives raised serious concerns about the increase in gang related violence and its consequences on the right to security and life of persons. A significant number of respondents in this survey also believe that incidents of crime and violence have increased greatly. The respondents were asked if they knew a victim of gang violence from an incident over the past 12 months and 21.7% of the respondents affirmed that they did. There was no significant difference between respondents who reported knowing a victim of crime between 2011 (20.8%) and 2019. However, it is noteworthy that the number of migrant workers who reported knowing a victim of crime has declined from 15.8% in 2011 to 4.1% in 2019. While the non-response rate remains high for this group, it is to be noted that most migrant workers interviewed were from resorts and an Industrial island. These are relatively safer places and a significantly low number of violent crimes are reported there. Table 10: Crime victim, by gender Male Most of the respondents identified victims of crimes as men (45.3%) while 17.3% indicated that the victims were women. 5 24 https://www.police.gov.mv/#casestat A male RF DK/NA 12.23% 51.80% 6.47% 29.50% Female 20.63% 40.81% 2.69% 35.87% Total 17.31% 45.33% 4.12% 33.24% The high non-response rate (37.4%) (as opposed to that of 18.0% in 2011) contributes to the observance of a decline in the number of people who said the victim was male (60.7% in 2011) and those who reported the victim as female (21.3% in 2011). Over a third of the respondents did not know the age of the victim. Yet, 31.6% of those who were able to give a definitive response stated the age of the victim to be between 19-34 years old. Almost half (49.6%) of the respondents who reported the victim was from this age group live in urban regions as opposed to 23.7% from the outer islands. Significant numbers of people believe that incidents of crime have increased greatly (40.7%). Table 11: Perception of change in crime rate, by gender Two thirds of the people (74.9%) who reported knowing a victim of a crime, were below the age of 39. A quarter of those who reported knowing a victim of a crime, recounted that it was a member of their community, while 14.0% said it was a neighbour, and 13.5% said it was a member of their household. The high non-response rate to this query (34.6%) despite saying they knew a victim in response to the previous question, makes it difficult to draw inferences in comparison to the 2011 findings where 43.5% of the victims were members of the community, 14.6% were reported as neighbours and 8.5% of the respondents said the victims were members of their households. A female Male Female Total Greatly increased 33.07% 44.74% 40.69% Somewhat increased 18.49% 19.78% 19.44% Neither increased nor decreased 15.89% 11.64% 13.08% Decreased 11.72% 7.85% 9.17% Greatly decreased 2.86% 2.52% 2.63% RF 1.56% 0.98% 1.18% DK/NA 16.41% 12.48% 13.81% The number of respondents who reported that the crime rate is on the rise has increased from 52.6% in 2011 to 60.0% in 2019. Similar to the findings of 2011, more women (45.0%) than men (33.0%) consider the crime rate to have greatly increased. More people living in urban areas (55.2%) report an increase of crime in comparison to the outer islands (31.7%), relating significantly to the fact that greater incidents of violence and gang related crimes have been reported from the Greater Malé area.6 6 https://www.osac.gov/Content/Report/b725fb42-776a-444d-800216688cc101ce