One of the v shapesviolence and mistreatment more invisible and with fewer resources of detection are the ones that suffer the group of older people. In fact, according to the latest report from the World Health Organization, from 2022, it is estimated that one in six people over the age of 60 (15%) have suffered some type of abuse in their environment. This figure, however, is just the tip of the iceberg, since the entities remember that only 1 in 24 cases are reported.
In this ruthless x-ray of helplessness, the economic abuse, the negligence and the abandonment are listed as the most frequent situations of abuse, as denounced by the entities of the sector on the occasion of the World Day of Awareness of the Abuse and Mistreatment of the Elderly, which is celebrated this Thursday, June 15.
“Permanent violation of rights”
Precisely91 public groups and private Catalans linked to the Moviment per Aturar el Maltractament a les Persones Grans held today a conference to denounce “the permanent violation of rights” and “the need for changes in the legal and social framework”.
The challenge of building a society based on care and innovative experiences such as the Alt Empordà care model -in which social and health care are understood in an integrated way- are issues that will be addressed in the programme.
In addition, the organization of the conferences also demands reverse the digital divide that generates helplessness and discrimination in the collective, as well as improvements in the legal framework in order to expedite judicial procedures (currently, the processes to request support measures can last a year, when “the situation of vulnerability and fragility is extreme”), provide effective and agile protection, and that there are prosecutors and specialized courts.
High rates of abuse
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For the Moviment per Aturar el Maltractament a les Persones Grans, the improvement of the rresources and services received by abused older people. Among them, specific training to detect, evaluate and intervene in cases of violence and the reinforcement of telephone attention and specific accommodation for the group.
Without falling into alarmism, the entities recall that the rates of abuse in institutions -such as nursing homes and chronic care centers- are high. According to the 2022 WHO report, two out of three workers of these centers report having inflicted some kind of abuse in the last year. The organization believes that this problem will increase in many countries due to the rapid aging of the population. The group of people over 60 years of age will double in the coming years: it will go from 900 million in 2015 to 2,000 million in 2050.