WUNRN
INTERNATIONAL DAY OF OLDER PERSONS -
OCTOBER 1 - OLDER WOMEN
UN Independent Expert on the
Enjoyment of All Human Rights by Older Persons
GENEVA (1st October 2014) – The new United
Nations Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older
persons, Rosa Kornfeld-Matte, calls on all States to ensure that the concerns
of older persons are reflected in the post-2015 development agenda in a
cross-cutting manner.
On occasion of the UN
International Day of Older Persons, Ms. Kornfeld-Matte urges Governments around
the world to promote full inclusion of older persons in society by combatting
ageism, age discrimination, and stigmatization.
Getting old is part of life and we will all pay the price
for our inaction.
Today there are around 700 million persons aged 60 years and
over and it is estimated that this figure will double by 2025 and will reach
nearly two billion by 2050 - the vast majority of them in the developing world.
By 2050, older persons will constitute 20 per cent of the global population. A
demographic revolution is underway and we cannot afford to leave behind
millions of older persons. Age, as well as gender and where people live, affect
the enjoyment of human rights by older persons, who are often stigmatized as
‘non-productive’ or ‘irrelevant’.
I call on all States to combat ageism, age discrimination
and stigmatization, which are among the obstacles older persons face in the
enjoyment of their rights, in order to achieve and sustain the inclusion of
older persons in society.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
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Subject: Older Women - Poverty, Low Social Benefits, Health, Rights
- UN
WUNRN
OLDER WOMEN - POVERTY, LOW SOCIAL
BENEFITS, HEALTH ISSUES, RIGHTS - UN
________________________________________________________
Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights - Full Article: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/Olderpersonsamongthepoorestintheworld.aspx
OLDER
PERSONS ARE AMONG THE POOREST IN THE WORLD
For those
in midlife and beyond, ageing is often linked with poverty and income
insecurity. Estimations point to as many as 80 per cent of older people not
covered by social security, suggesting that a disturbing number of around 607
million people aged 60 or older lack income security.
Given
that women are less likely than men to have contributed to formal pension
schemes, a majority of these millions of individuals are older women........
_______________________________________________
OLDER WOMEN & POVERTY - SOCIAL
SECURITY, PENSIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS
UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON EXTREME
POVERTY
Direct Link to Full 22-Page UN SR
Report:
II Poverty and Old Age
C. Poverty Among Older
Women
19.
Older women are disproportionately disadvantaged: They are marginalized due
to their age and tend to be poorer than men. Because of gendered discrimination
patterns throughout their life, women are often in a situation where they have
accumulated lesser wealth than men. Cultural practices of early marriage and
women's longer life expectancy than men worldwide, lead to a situation where
women
are more likely to be widows than men, and being widowed puts older
women at higher risk of being poor. In many countries, women have limited
access
to land and other assets.......
20.
Most older women are excluded from formal social security and health insurance
schemes as these are linked to paid, formal-sector employment. In developing
countries, the great majority of women work all their lives in the informal
sector
or
in unpaid activities. In developed countries too, older women are more likely
than men to be poor at old age......Women are less likely to receive a large
contributory
pension since they are more likely to have stopped work at some
point over their lifetime to take on the burden of child rearing and are also
more
likely to have received lesser wages for their work than men.
21.
Older women are not only more likely to be poorer than men, but they are also
likely
to be burdened with caregiving responsibilities for other family members,
especially their grandchildren. In some countries, accusations of witchcraft
against poor older women are common, revcealing worrying discriminative
patterns.
V. Expanding Social
Security in Old Age in the Context of a Human Rights Framework
I. Ensuring Gender Equality
95. Non-contributory pensions are the most efficient means of ensuring the
right
to social security for older women and compensating them for their years
of unpaid or inadequately paid work. However, to ensure equal access by
women to a social pension, special measures must be implemented to
overcome possible barriers to older women caused by structural discrimination,
such
as lack of access to adequate documentation and identification,
difficulties to approach administrations, or lack of gender sensitive social
services......
_________________________________________________________
For Full 16-Page 2013 Report, Click
to Website Link and then to UN Language Translation of Choice:
UN REPORT ON CONSULTATION ON THE
PROMOTION & PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF OLDER PERSONS
Globally,
women accounted for the majority of older persons; for every 100 women aged 60
or over, there were just 84 men. Women tended to be more prone to poverty,
discrimination and abuse. Almost half of older women lived alone, whereas only
a minority of older men did. These differences had important the implications
for policy, programming and the promotion and protection of human rights.
7. In their submissions, contributors also underscored the feminization of ageing and the need to pay attention to intersections of older age with other factors, such as sexual orientation, linguistic or ethnic minority origin, migration, disability, living in rural areas, internal displacement, and incarceration. Issues were also raised about lack of accommodation of the needs of older persons to ensure access to justice and to information (including difficulties arising from mandatory digitalization), and the lack of measures to promote political participation.
8. A
number of the challenges were specific to certain regions, including witchcraft
accusations against older women, restrictions to inheritance affecting older
women, the impact of modifications to the family structure that have undermined
the traditional protection of the extended family, and the lack of recognition
of the care role of older persons for children as a result of migration, wars and
the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Submissions from developed countries pointed to
challenges relating to the sustainability of pension and health systems with a
decreasing number of contributors and a higher number of beneficiaries.