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Africa:
Meeting Notes Increasing Abuse of Rights of the Elderly By
Joseph K'amolo
June 24, 2003 Nairobi - A three-day workshop for the
aged in Africa, organised by HelpAge International (HelpAge), noted rising
violations of rights of older people, and recommended formulation of
country policies to effectively address their concerns. The meeting, held from June 10 to 12,
brought together a technical working group of HelpAge International member
and partner organisations working with older people in 10 African
countries. They were from Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho,
Swaziland, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The mandate of 15 participants, drawn
from HelpAge partners such as United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)
and ActionAid, among others, was to develop good practice guidelines for
rights-based work with older people. According to HelpAge International,
"the pervading attitude among many people is that older persons have
outlived their usefulness, are unproductive and over-dependent, and have
not rights to claim." A Tanzanian participant, Ms Juliana
Bernard, told the workshop that witchcraft allegations against older
people were widespread, and always led to their impoverishment,
victimisation and killing in Tanzania. Such incidences were more pronounced in
Mwanza and Shinyanga regions of northern Tanzania, where belief in
witchcraft is common. But she noted that the occurrence was not solely
restricted to Tanzania. Information from other African
countries suggest that allegations of witchcraft against the elderly is
prevalent. Contributing the absurd state of
affairs of the elderly is the fact that many of them in Africa are
illiterate and lack knowledge about their rights. The African regional representative of HelpAge, Mr. Tavengwa Nhongo, noted that even though there were indications of improvements in as far as the affairs of older people were concerned after concerted advocacy by HelpAge members, there was still need to sensitise the larger society to recognise the elderly. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
