The greatest challenge faced by recording mechanisms is under-reporting, due to challenging environments for casualty recorders, a lack of willingness and capacity of casualty recording practitioners to share and compare datasets, fear of retaliation against the victims and lack of trust in the public authorities.
In areas affected by high rates of armed violence, several factors influence under-reporting rates. Violent incidents often take place in hard-to-reach areas for data collectors, either due to the lack of infrastructure or because the situation in the area is life-threatening. People may also not report incidents because they live far away or they fear retaliation from the perpetrators. Under-reporting is also linked to a lack of trust in authorities and a failure by authorities to respond to the reported incidents. Sometimes it is simply a matter of a lack of capacity and willingness of data recorders to share and compare data. When incidents are not properly reported, assessing the real impact of violence is made much harder. It can lead to a misinformed analysis and result in ill-informed responses to the problem.
COUNTING THE COST: CASUALTY RECORDING PRACTICES AND REALITIES, p. 12
