In March and April 2005, a little over two months after the tsunami struck, the Human Rights Center of the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the East-West Center, dispatched teams of researchers to five countries—India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, and Thailand—affected by the disaster to interview hundreds of survivors and key informants. The specific objectives of the survey were: 1. to assess the nature and extent of pre-existing human rights problems and their impact on vulnerable groups prior to the tsunami; 2. to investigate violations of human rights in the post-tsunami period; 3. to examine the response of governments and aid agencies to reports of human rights abuses; and 4. to identify human rights violations that likely may develop or persist during the reconstruction phase.
