54.4% of Dominicans are unaware of their rights

The Ombudsman released the results of the National Human Rights Survey (ENDH 2022) on Sunday, revealing that 54.4% of the Dominican population is unaware of their fundamental rights as outlined in the Republic’s Constitution. The study, conducted with a sample of 800 people in person and by phone, also discovered that only 3.25% said they knew all the rights, 29.96 said they knew several, 8.36 only knew at least one human right, and the rest (4%) chose not to respond.

The Dominican Constitution guarantees the rights to life, liberty, health, equality, food, education, free expression, housing, decent treatment, and non-discrimination. An important finding in this study is that the group that is aware of all human rights is between the ages of 40 and over. In contrast, 66.9% of those polled between the ages of 18 and 24 are unaware of any human rights. Furthermore, educational level is an indicator of rights knowledge; the higher the educational level, the greater the knowledge of human rights. The survey found no differences in knowledge about rights between men and women based on the gender indicated by respondents.

The most important human right, according to the respondents, is the right to life, with 55.81%, followed by the rights to freedom (8.49%), health (7.87%), and equality (5.37%); others, such as the rights to food, education, dignified treatment and non-discrimination, free expression, and information, were at 4, 3.50, 3.50, and 2.62%, respectively. Other prerogatives, such as the right to housing, personal integrity, work, decent wages, social security, justice, sports, and so on, did not exceed 2%.