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Violence and Abuse against Older Persons

This article addresses the issue of violence and abuse against older persons, including topics such as property grabbing, forced marriages, accusations of witchcraft, and discrimination. It highlights the prevalence of these harmful practices and calls for interdisciplinary research and intergenerational action to address the problem.

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Violence and Abuse against Older Persons

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  1. Violence and Abuse against Older Persons Silvia Perel-Levin ILC GA, INPEA Chair, NGO Committee on Ageing-Geneva New York, OEWG on Ageing, 31 July 2014

  2. WHO/INPEA 2002

  3. Community and Societal Abuse • Abandonment, property grabbing, forced marriages, accusations of witchcraft, ejection from their homes • Older women face tenure insecurity when inheritance laws do not protect them • Witch-burning as method of controlling older women and preventing them from inheriting property.

  4. Harmful Traditional practices • Special Rapporteurs on violence against women, described some harmful practices against older women following country visits. • HelpAgeInternational reported about witchcraft accusations, used as excuse to justify violence. • The Witchcraft & Human Rights Information Network reported accusations in 41 countries.

  5. Working Group on discrimination against women in law and practice (A/HRC/26/39) • Women’s poverty and quality of life in older age: culmination of women’s life course • Situation in retirement: test for the quality of women’s economic and social life. • Discriminatory laws and practice: forced early retirement, Gender pension gap, dependency CEDAWGeneral Rec. 27 on older women States parties have an obligation to draft legislation recognizing and prohibiting violence….

  6. Sexual Violence in Eastern DRC Harvard Humanitarian Initiative /Oxfam 2010

  7. Experience of physical and/or sexual violence The European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) EU-wide Survey on Violence against women, 2014 Citing source: FRA gender-based VAW survey dataset 2012

  8. Lifetime Prevalence of intimate partner violence by age group among ever-partnered women - WHO WHO, 2013

  9. The extent of elder abuse • Estimated prevalence • Old, conservative rates: 4 to 6% • Latin America and the Caribbean 6 to 37% • China and South Korea 6% to 44%. • India(a HelpAge study in 20 cities) 31% • Over 50% during 4 years in multiple forms • 24% almost daily

  10. The extent of the problem, India 1.67% in Rajasthan to 77% in Madhya Pradesh (HelpAge India, 2012)

  11. Ecological model Where do we start? Societal Community Relationship Individual Societal Community Relationship Individual Interdisciplinary research and intergenerational action at all levels

  12. Risk factors Relationship Societal Community Individual Societal Community Relationship Individual • Dementia / Depression • Experienced abuse/ • Aggression/ • Dependence / disability • Gender / Age • Isolation/ • Substance dependence

  13. Risk factors Societal Community Relationship Individual Societal Community Relationship Individual • Financial Dependence • Emotional dependence • Living arrangements • Long-term abuse/violence • Intergenerational transmission?

  14. Risk factors Societal Community Relationship Individual Societal Community Relationship Individual Social isolation Concentration of poverty Widowhood Witchcraft accusations Lack of support networks Erosion of intergenerational relations

  15. Risk factors Societal Community Relationship Individual Societal Community Relationship Individual Ageism, wide discrimination Sexism/ racism Socio-economic factors/concentration of poverty Inheritance systems/ Widowhood Migration of the young Weak police/criminal Justice

  16. Concluding remarks Scientific rigour humanistic model? Towards a UN study on violence and abuse against older persons

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