https://eldermistreatment.usc.edu/weaad-home/

The event “Moving from Awareness to Action through a Human Rights based approach” was convened for World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2018. As Mr. Omar Castaneda Solares stated in the opening remarks, there are a tremendous population of elderly suffering from abuse, particularly financial abuse. This violates the human rights of older people. He also highlighted the complexity of this issue. For example, older women face compounded discrimination based on age and gender. Seeing this, he called for data aggregation on the situation of older person from the government and researches in this field to ensure dignity and empowerment for older people.

Apart from the public sector, civil society were also present at the meeting. NGOs across the world gave presentations about their projects tackling elder abuse. In Europe, Ms. Natasa Todorovic from Red Cross Serbia underlined their work at the local level with the citizens to raise awareness of elder abuse. In north America, Ms. Linda Fieldstone organized Generational Conflict Resolution Model, which aims at reducing family conflicts and improving the quality of life for older persons. At the state level, Mr. Jack Kupferman from Gray Panthers endeavored to protect the rights of people in nursing home. They found that government agency did not do an adequate job in penalizing the nursing homes which violate the right of the elderly. The concern is also shared in Asia. Mr. SooYoun Han from CARE rights outlined the seriousness of elder abuse on women under specific cultural background. To sum up, all speakers agreed that the goal of raising awareness of elder abuse received satisfactory attention. Thus, they urged more actions in cooperation with governments.

Meeting: Event entitled “Moving from Awareness to Action through a Human Rights based approach” (on the occasion of the 2018 World Elder Abuse Awareness Day) (co-organized by the Permanent Mission of Argentina, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the NGO Committee on Ageing)

Date/Location: Thursday 14th June 2018; 13:15 – 14:30; Conference Room 9, United Nations Headquarters, New York, NY.

Speakers:

Mr. Omar Castaneda Solares, Deputy Permanent Representative of Guatemala;

Ms. Janet Sigal, Chair of the NGO Committee on Ageing, New York;

Ms. Susan Somers, President of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA);

Ms. Natasa Todorovic, Red Cross of Serbia, and Ms. Milutin Vracevic, MD, MPH. Co-national representatives, INPEA;

Ms. Linda Fieldstone, Intergenerational Conflict Resolution Model;

Ms. Sue Bronson, Judge Michelle Morley, Co-Chairs, Eldercaring Coordination Initiative;

Mr. Jack Kupferman, President of Gray Panthers;

Ms. SooYoun Han, PhD, MSW Co-Founder, CARE Rights, Seoul.

Written by WIT Representative Vivian Wang