Who knows the Geneva Conventions?
The ICRC has participated in the Gallup “Voice of the People” opinion research survey, which was conducted between June and August 2004. The survey focuses on global issues such as politics, governance and environment. Gallup interviewed more than 50,000 people in approximately 60 countries around the world. Following the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, it was important for the ICRC to gather quantitative credible information on the way people perceive the Geneva Conventions, their effectiveness and the issue of torture. The key findings are: more than half of the world’s citizens have heard of them. This is most prevalent in Europe and the Americas (60 per cent) than in Asia and the Pacific (43 per cent) and in Africa (35 per cent). However a fairly high awareness of the Geneva Conventions does not necessarily lead to a greater belief in their efficiency: among those who have heard of the Geneva Conventions, only one-third (38 per cent) think that they adequately protect people in
