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If everything goes as it does in life, everyone will grow old. In fact, experts estimate that by 2050, between 20 and 25% of the population of the Americas and the Caribbean will be over 65 years old. These predictions pose a number of challenges for the countries of this region as our societies will undergo dizzying changes.
This October 1st, International Day of Older Persons, it is appropriate to reflect on what adjustments we need to make to live a dignified old age. There are many ways to answer this question. I would like to propose that we reflect on human rights and its ideals, which have for some time been proposing a paradigm shift regarding old age and the obligations of States so that this period of life can be lived with dignity.
Old age is a natural moment of life. However, not every age is the same. Some people reach old age with adequate housing, a pension, health insurance, a loving family, and a supportive and supportive community. Other people age in poverty, loneliness and helplessness. Isolated from their communities or interned against their will in geriatric centers where the state has little or no presence. This goal has to do with negative stereotypes that are spread in our societies about old age. This moment in life is generally associated with an undesirable stage, social stress, loss of autonomy and the ability to make decisions, which is also much more pronounced if the older person is a woman, of African descent, LGBTQ+, migrant, is those who are deprived of their freedom or who live with a disability. The impoverishment of older women is characterized much more by the helplessness that unpaid family care work entails in the face of the gendered division of labor in the household.
For many years, this stigmatizing view permeated all areas of life, including the law and state obligations to protect older people, who were not legal subjects but merely objects of protection. Their needs were neither taken into account nor their autonomy sought.
These negative patterns have been questioned by international human rights organizations for some time. And the Organization of American States is developing initiatives to change the situation of older people. Within the OAS, the Inter-American Convention for the Protection of the Human Rights of Elderly Persons was adopted. This norm of international law is a revolutionary treaty unique in the world that adapts civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights to the needs and situation of older people. Of the 33 states of the Americas and the Caribbean that make up the OAS, only 11 have decided to incorporate it into their national law through ratification: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Suriname and Uruguay.
In May 2023, we published the first report on “Situation of human rights of older persons and national protection systems” by the Rapporteur on the Rights of Elderly Persons of the Inter-American Commission. The IACHR’s analyzes and recommendations in this report revolve around two issues related to older people that are prevalent in the Americas and the Caribbean: discrimination against older people and the need to create national systems to protect their human rights.
Ageism (“ageism”) in its most perverse form generates violence against older people, which is why it must be eliminated by adopting the new paradigm of old age based on their understanding as subjects of rights who enjoy and exercise their human rights.
It is necessary that we learn and assume that aging is inherent in humans and ensure that the efforts of national protection systems are organic, adopt a rights-based approach and include the participation of older people and respect their will in such a way that they are guaranteed. Their care, livelihood, freedom of expression and information, political participation, autonomy, independence and their needs-based integration into the community.
Finally, on International Day of Older Persons, we at the IACHR call on the States of the Americas and the Caribbean to become part of this Treaty, thereby demonstrating their genuine commitment to the human rights of older people.
Margaret May Macaulay She is President of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and rapporteur on the rights of older persons.