Elder Abuse

While riding a city bus in Geneva, Switzerland, I was fascinated by a video clip with the Helpline for people experiencing domestic violence. What caught my attention was the message of an older woman saying, “Since my husband has retired, he controls everything I do. I’ve had enough.”

There are many types of violence, and older persons are often abused physically, psychologically, sexually, and financially. This includes neglect, violation of rights, denial of privacy, and denial to participate in making decision.

Keeping in mind that throughout the world, 1 million people reach the age of 60 years every month, there is real concern that mistreatment of elders will increase.

So, what can you do?

• Become aware of what mistreatment of older people means so you can recognize it.
• Download this report from the United Nations to learn how to recognize abuse and what to do about it..
• Know your rights and seek help if you, or someone around you is being abused.
• Find out what services are available in your community to help prevent further violence and mistreatment. Speak to your healthcare professional, church leader, social services, Helpline, elder abuse prevention center.
• Remember to practice the techniques and concepts of AgeEsteem. The more confident and happier you are as you age, the greater your sense of self-worth and your expectation of being treated with respect and dignity.

No one should have to experience violence, abuse or mistreatment, at any age.

Bonnie Fatio

World Refugee Day

Had I been born in another part of the world, I might be among the refugees of my age struggling to walk their way to freedom.

I am fortunate. I know where I will sleep tonight; that I can walk into the local neighborhood, wave to people I know, and to feel safe. No one has forced me from my home, violated me, or made it impossible to remain in my country without fear of injury or death. No, I am not one of the 68 million refugees or internally displaced people in the world today as a result of conflict or persecution. Many of them are my age, if not when they begin their journey they may be by the time they are able to return to their countries.

From 1998 to 2001 I was privileged to be part of a team of local leaders in Geneva, Switzerland brought together by Mrs. Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It opened my eyes to what it meant to seek refuge.

• Most refugees want only to return to their homes. They have been forced to leave and dream of the moment when they can return. You’ve only to witness news reports of the risks they have taken and the hundreds of miles they have walked to know that they had no choice if they were to survive.
• Many refugees have been born and raised in refugee camps waiting to enter into a safe country. The average length of displacement today is 17 years. Recently I mentored a woman who had spent her whole life in a refugee camp.
• Many of the people we think of as the heroes of science, exploration, humanity and education in our own countries came to our countries as refugees. Geneva, Switzerland where I live, developed into the world renowned city of Global Peace Talks and the United Nations organizations largely thanks to the arrival of refugees over the centuries.

Let’s stand together with refugees and also recognize that had we been born in another part of the world we might be among them, or left behind to die.

Bonnie Fatio

Happy International Day of Older Persons

The United Nations’ (UN) International Day of Older Persons is celebrated annually on October 1 to recognize the contributions of older persons and to examine issues that affect their lives.

This year, the 24th International Day of Older Persons carries the theme Leaving No One Behind: Promoting a Society for All. 

Over the next 50 years, the number of older persons in the world will grow from about 600 million to almost 2 billion. Today, one person in ten is aged 60 or over – by 2050, this will be one person in five, and by 2150, one in three.

International Day of Older Persons offers AgeEsteem a prime opportunity to recognise the contributions of older persons as they continue in the paid the labor force, volunteer in numerous areas, share knowledge and experience, care for family and community, invent new technology and blaze new trails.

I am proud to be an older person! What about you?

Bonnie Fatio

Mary E.  Kinhardt 73, CA, USA

Age esteem is something I’ve been thinking about a lot.  It is to value myself where I am in my life now, and the things I’m able to do.  It’s a bit of a challenge to see all the younger people and the things they can do, the places they go, the places they study and what their hopes are for the future. Mine are different now.  I recently moved to a retirement community because I wanted, in my mind at least, get to know what it means to be at this stage in life and being 73 in a retirement community. There are a lot of people in their late 70s, 80s, 90s.  When I get up each day I am challenged to think this is where I am, what can I do?

Obviously I’m here at the CSW (Commission on the Status of Women) at the United Nations in New York (where I interviewed her) because I think it is important to keep current with what the global women’s movement is doing.  I feel valued when I’m here for what I did for women over the years  and I really want to give the leadership over to the younger women and follow their guide.  This has been a time for me to learn how to live in a retirement community and also how to be a part of CSW at this stage in my life.

Health is a big concern.  I see what happens to the health of many people as they get older.  I guess I don’t want to go to the doctors that some of them go to or to the hospitals to get the procedures that some of them get.  I’m scared about what happens to people health-wise.  I’m trying to be optimistic and be thankful for the health I have now which is really pretty good.  So I’m just trying to trust God to help me at every stage.  He’s gotten me this far!   I do have medical insurance and doctors so I’m trying not to worry about that.

Mary E.’s Tips: My organization is The Grail.  We’ve had teenagers with us here and just seeing their vitality and imagining what they will get into as they go along makes me think this is really worth-while. This morning the YWCA presented the worship with women from Armenia, Belize and Japan.  It is heartening to see how they are moving forward.   Seeing them here now is thanks to what women (of which she is one) have done in the past.  That gives me energy.

I take care of my health and try to eat properly, get enough sleep and try not to get stressed out.  I try not to take on more things than I can do.  Use the privileges that you get when you are older like riding the NY subways and having people get up to give me their seats.  They don’t want this old lady landing in their laps!  I also avoid certain places that could get me into trouble.  Use practical common sense like trying to be conservative financially.

Life is basically good.  Sometimes you have to wait for the miracle to happen when things get tough, but try to remember that if you feel this way today you probably won’t feel this way tomorrow.  So live one day at a time.  Not to be worried about the future or to be stewing over what happened in the past but try to remember when things get tough, well they’re not going to stay this way.  Just go on.  Spirituality plays a role in my own consciousness.

Mary Kinhardt is an activist around women’s  affairs with a deep concern about the spiritual dimension of life.

Bonnie Fatio

Attending the Commission on the Status of Women with the World YWCA at the United Nations is an intergenerational experience, and an energizing one!

Women of all ages from the entire world share real life experiences in preventing, overcoming, and striving to eliminate violence against women and girls, discrimination, and racial injustice while promoting equal access to education, decent work, finances, health care, safety, political opportunities, decision making and dignity.

The intergenerational commitment to sharing these issues at each age and working together to promote women at every stage of living is essential to making this happen.

Look at your life at your age today in the environment in which you live. Imagine that

• You have no pure water. You walk for hours each day to carry the infected water that you do find.
• You are unable to attend school because your mother is ill and you must replace her to work in the home.
• You denied decent work opportunities or advancement in the workplace.
• You risk violence and rape on the path to school.
• You do not have access to health care. The nearest infirmary is three hours by foot.
• Your parents arrange for you to marry while you are still a child. You have no choice.

This may be difficult for you to imagine or it maybe the way life is where you live.  Either way it is important for discussions and solutions to be intergenerational.

Bonnie Fatio

Age Esteem is participating at the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations in New York with the World YWCA.

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), established in 1946, influences the lives of people of all ages, including children and men.  It is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) dedicated to gender equality and advancement of women. Each year it draws women from around the globe to the United Nations in New York to evaluate progress, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.

This is also important for you men!  It has been shown time and again that when women are empowered the family and the whole community also improve.

Age Esteem will present an Intergenerational Dialogue on February 28.

Bonnie Fatio

Age Esteem is a basic essential for succeeding in social, economic and religious issues.  We must first feel good about ourselves at the age we are today, every day, if we are to be effective in our relationships with other women, girls, men and boys of all ages.  To be able to contribute our best and to nourish others and help them grow, we must first feel confident about ourselves.

This was reconfirmed by multiple speakers during the Commission on the Status of Women which I attended at the United Nations in New York last month.  The Honorable Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was one of these speakers.  Mrs Robinson insisted on our right to dignity and equality, sharing the opening sentence of the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states:

« Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, »

She emphasized that it is important to combine dignity with human rights.

Dignity

• Represents our inner sense of worth.
• Is relative to the cultural, environmental, social and spiritual.
• Depends on relations with others.
• Is holistic, encompassing all other aspects of life.

To have AgeEsteem is to age with dignity.

Since I am attending the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations with the World YWCA it seems appropriate to share this message.

Happy International Women’s Day,

Bonnie

World YWCA Statement on International Women’s Day
March 8, 2010

Empowering Communities to end poverty and violence against women by 2015

“Some young women understand that violence against women is unacceptable, but many others are financially reliant on the men who abuse them.” This revealing comment was just one of many heard from women and young women participants of the World YWCA Regional Training Institutes held in 2009 on ‘Women Creating a Safe World’.

With women representing 70 percent of the world’s poor (UNIFEM 2008), poverty has a female face and renders them more vulnerable to violence. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime (UNIFEM 2008). Violence against women is a global human rights violation and women and girls are susceptible to abuse and violence at every stage of their lives; enhancing their risk of plunging further into poverty.

The impact of violence is devastating for not only women and girls, but also communities in general. It encompasses but is not limited to, physical, sexual and physiological violence, including battering, sexual abuse, dowry-related violence, marital rape, trafficking in women and forced prostitution, labour migration, female genital mutilation and other harmful traditional practises.

Women may bear the brunt of globalisation’s drawbacks and violence; however they are also the world’s greatest untapped resource for turning the tide on economic justice. Research has shown women are more likely to repay loans in full and on time than men. It is established evidence that giving a woman access to primary education will ensure her entire family receives better health care and nutrition. This indicates that providing equal access to education, credit, property and employment for women will ensure economic justice and sustainability for all.

While the World YWCA makes its own contributions through programmes on VAW, SRHR and HIV, development, literacy and gender inequality, the movement continues to call for accountability and commitment towards actions that invest in women and girls.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be achieved without ensuring commitments contained in the Convention of Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPFA) are also fulfilled. The BPFA can and should be used as a yardstick for evaluating the MDGs and the attainment of gender equality. Together with CEDAW and other international instruments, the goals represent a wider human rights obligation on which YWCAs can call governments to account.

Empowering communities to end poverty and violence against women by 2015 requires a global mobilisation like no other, and it calls upon all sectors to partner with governments to achieve these targets. Everybody has a duty to promote the economic empowerment of women that remove communities and countries from cycles of poverty and violence.

The World YWCA understands that a genuinely Christian perspective is against all forms of violence against women. We can no longer live in a world where women and girls remain in violent relationships to avoid a life of poverty.

We will continue to empower women and young women to end poverty and violence, thus creating a safe world for all.

The World YWCA is a global network of women and young women leading social and economic change in 125 countries. It advocates for peace, justice, human rights and care of the environment, and has been at the forefront of raising the status of women for over a century. The World YWCA develops women’s leadership to find local solutions to the global inequalities women face. Each year, it reaches more than 25 million women and girls through work in over 22,000 communities.

“Ageing is a development issue. Healthy older persons are a resource for their families, their communities and the economy.”   WHO Brasilia declaration on healthy aging, 1996.

Older people  increasingly play a critical role – through volunteer work, transmitting experience and knowledge, helping their families with caring responsibilities and increasing their participation in the paid labor force.

This is the 10th anniversary of Older People’s Day being celebrated by the United Nations and many countries of the world.  Let us salute the older people who are doing so much to make this world a better place.