WUNRN
UN EXPERT GROUP MEETING ON THE HUMAN
RIGHTS OF OLDER PERSONS
Direct Link to 5-Page Expert Meeting
Concept Note:
The
meeting aimed at informing the debate from a substantive human rights
perspective by addressing urgent and relevant gaps in the respect, protection
and fulfillment of human rights of older persons.
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Report on Expert Group Meeting on the
Rights of Older Persons
Tina Minkowitz - Reporting for International Network of Women with Disabilities - INWWD
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities - CRPD
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRPD/Pages/ConventionRightsPersonsWithDisabilities.aspx
This meeting was part of the process of the “open ended working group on the rights of older persons” which has been meeting in New York with the hope of creating a new convention on the rights of older persons. At this point there doesn’t seem to be sufficient leadership from states, and this expert group meeting was convened to gather information and strategic thinking that would help move the process forward.
The meeting was structured with a public session for two days with expert presentations, and a private session of the experts and the secretariat the final day. Panels presented on 1) non-discrimination, 2) health, 3) violence and abuse, 4) social protection/ life with dignity, 5) long-term care and 6) older persons and the justice system. IDA was asked to present on health, and I also requested to present on legal capacity in the panel on the justice system. My presentations will be available along with others on the website; I promoted the CRPD standards and emphasized that disability was not a health issue and we had to avoid dealing with disability under the framework of health.
I approached this meeting with the intent to ensure that CRPD (UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities) standards are maintained and not watered down in all areas where they affect older persons, especially on legal capacity and living in the community. It emerged that there was a need to promote, in respect of older persons, a similar paradigm shift to the CRPD, to center older persons as protagonists in a positive rights-based framework rather than being treated as objects of “care”. This paradigm shift was most helpfully brought out in our informal discussions the third day, when I proposed to change some of the language in the discussion paper, and also questioned how the topics for this expert group meeting had been decided on, as I had not found them to be rights-based. Several participants found this helpful and it went a long way towards getting all of us on the same page about how to frame issues so as to be coherent with the CRPD.
Another thing that emerged from the third day’s meeting was a suggestion to focus substantively on multiple and intersecting discrimination as a way to understand where gaps in the framework might exist. Sometimes it is not the case that there is really a gap in the normative framework, but rather that older persons aren’t being included in implementation and monitoring, for reasons based on ageism and age discrimination. This is certainly the case with CRPD Articles 12 and 19, since older persons who are declared legally incapable or placed in institutions would certainly qualify as persons with disabilities and as such are fully covered by the CRPD. But as several participants said in the meeting, older persons who acquire disability late in life don’t often see themselves as part of the disability community, and they are not necessarily seen as such by policymakers, who don’t want to include older persons’ needs generally as part of CRPD implementation.
There is a clearly a negative perception of what disability is, that needs to be addressed between DPOs and older people’s organizations, and the disability community also needs to look at ageism and how the issues of older persons with disabilities are being addressed in our own work. A suggestion was made, and received wide approval, to encourage NGOs dealing with women’s issues, indigenous issues, persons with disabilities etc. to participate in this process to bring the perspective of older persons within their constituencies.
There was little participation from the Global South, a small minority of the experts and only a few NGO observers; it did not appear that any countries from the South attended the public part of the meeting. Latin American countries had been taking the lead in this process but it seems there is not much activity now. It was said that there is no possibility of a voluntary fund for participation from South countries as we had for the CRPD. A suggestion was made that electronic participation via Skype would be helpful to enable participation by older persons in the Global South, and the use of written submissions which would be posted electronically (as in the CRPD process) was also mentioned, but that is clearly not enough.
Going forward, there will be three documents coming out of this meeting. One is a revised version of a draft discussion paper that was circulated, which is being prepared by a consultant working for OHCHR. The second is a report of the meeting itself, to be prepared by the joint DESA/OHCHR secretariat. The third will be an annotated agenda, framing questions to be posed to member states for the upcoming 3rd open working group meeting in August. The questions will be developed by participants in the expert group and circulated for final approval, and DESA will present it to the Bureau which will decide whether or not to circulate to member states.
Conclusions and recommendations:
1. There is acknowledgement by the Secretariat and participants at this meeting that a new instrument has to be coherent with CRPD standards and not go below. Conversations on Articles 12 and 19 are opened up with significant people involved in the process and will help with awareness-raising as this goes forward. I think it will be a great help to our work on those issues, if organizations of older persons, who don’t necessarily identify as persons with disabilities, can become involved. We need to make sure that there is no double standard for older persons with disabilities or those with the highest support needs, compared with other older persons.
2. The discussion paper commissioned by OHCHR did not always articulate a proper rights-based perspective either with respect of issues covered in the CRPD or otherwise for older persons. Suggest that IDA Secretariat might productively engage with OHCHR officer in charge of this work for some consistent follow up in addition to my efforts.
3. IDA (International Disability Alliance) and its members should consider participating more actively in this process, attending the open-ended working group, submitting information and joining the NGO coalition pushing for a convention. I am planning to find out more about the NGO coalition, and will share this information. I am also planning to promote the involvement of older persons with disabilities through the email networks that we have (including the Legal Capacity Task Force/ Grupo de Trabajo-Capacidad Jurídica), and would be happy to have the support of IDA in this effort.
4. It is not clear yet whether anything will come of this process, but in my opinion there is good evidence of the need for a new treaty. As with disability, the main reason is discrimination and invisibility of older persons in the existing system. It’s not that norms don’t cover older persons, but there is no focal point for looking at older persons as rights holders.
5. IDA Secretariat might have some suggestions to offer to DESA on using Skype and other electronic means to facilitate participation.