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Report on Third Follow up to the Brasilia Declaration of 2007 calling for a UN Convention or a Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Older Person
By Susanne Paul, Global Action on Aging
October 5 and 6, 2009
Santiago, Chile
NGO Pre-meeting
NGOs throughout Latin America and the Caribbean came together in a two day weekend session preceding the Official Government meetings held on October 5 and 6, 2009. Jim Collins from the NY-based NGO Committee on Ageing sat in on the sessions as an observer. Here a wide variety of aging groups, numbering perhaps 250 persons, took up the call for an instrument to support the human rights on older persons. This effort revealed the substantial headway that advocates for a human rights instrument aimed at older persons is making in the Region, far in advance of other parts of the world. The Chilean Aging NGO host group, SENAMA, also revealed its comprehensive understanding of the issues that are developing throughout Chile.
Official Meeting
On October 5 when the Official Session opened in the handsome ECLAC headquarters in Santiago, Regional NGOs came in large numbers as observers. Many wore signature blue jackets emblazoned with SENAMA, indicating their organization’s engagement in aging issues throughout Chile. No one could doubt that NGOs were involved and committed to this important meeting. Compared to the attendance at the initial meeting in Rio de Janeiro in September 2008, I could easily see how governments and older persons’ interest and participation had exploded in a year. Argentina had hosted a meeting in Buenos Aires earlier in 2009 where participants had also pushed the agenda far ahead. I found these Chilean sessions and the subsequent debates excellent. They reflected the tremendous work of aging advocates in Governments and among NGOs in the region. Chilean organizers provided translation from Spanish to English that helped me follow the proceedings.
Jim Collins and I sat in a prominent place with other speakers and commentators from the Region. Here is a list of the speakers with some background information. GAA will link to their presentations, now available in both Spanish and English, as they become available from the organizers or presenters.
A number of dignitaries welcomed the nearly 300 persons to the meeting: Dirk Jaspers-Faijer, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center for Demography CELADE and Population Division CEPAL; Alberto Van Klaveran, the Under-Secretary for Chilean Foreign Affairs; Edgardo Riveros Marin, the Under-Secretary Minister from the President’s Office, along with representatives from the Pan-American Health Organization, UNFPA, and the Ibero-American Inter-governmental Network for Technical Cooperation; and Paula Forttes Valdiva, Director of the National Service for Older Persons (SENAMA)
Introductory Panel
• Why we need a Third Meeting to work on the Rights of Older Persons by Paula Forttes Valdivia, SENAMA Director.
• UN Mechanisms for the Protection of the Human Rights of Older
Persons, UN Commission against Torture, by Prof. Claudio Grossman.
• Rights and Fundamental Liberties of Older Persons by Javier Vasquez, Pan American Health Organization.
• Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Older Persons by Dirk Jaspers-Faijer, Director of the Latin American and Caribbean Center for Demography CELADE and Population Division CEPAL.
• Comments on the Content of a Human Rights Convention by Mónica Roqué,
the National Director of Aging Policy in the Secretariat for Children, Youth and Families Secretariat, Social Welfare Ministry of Argentina, Perly Cipriano, Under Secretary for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in the Human Rights Secretariat, and Aljandro Orozco, Director of the National Institute of Older Persons (Mexico) and the Regional Coordinator of Civil Society organizations in the Region.
• Panel on the Evolution of the Rights of older persons in the international context by Santiago Canton, Secretary General of the Intern-American Commission on the Rights of Older Persons, Organization of American States.
• Sandra Heunchuan, Expert on Aging, CELADE, CEPAL.
• Panel on Strategies for a Convention on the Rights of Older Person and a Special
Rapporteur, Maria Soleded Cisterna, Director of the Legal program on Disabilities at the University Diego Portales, Chile.
• Eugenio Ravenet, SG, Inter-American Organization on Youth.
• Rodrigo Quintana, Legal Counselor for the State Department in Chile.
• Panel on the perspective of inter-governmental or international organizations in Relation to a Convention or a Rapporteur on the Rights of Older
Persons, Hugo Cifuentes, Ibero-American Organization on Social Security.
• Jesus Diaz Pereira, Ibero-American Network for Technical Assistance.
• Carmen Artigas, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Demography (CELADE), Population Division, CEPAL.
• Cristina Gomez, Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean from the UN Fund for Population Activities
(UNFPA).
On the second day, Jim Collins and I took part in a four person presentation that developed some larger themes of the Conference—Jim talked about (1) the emerging NGO Coalition of International NGOs and (2) I spoke about the world-wide NGO aging movement and gave special attention to the NY NGO Committee in Ageing’s Subcommittee to Promote a Human Rights Convention. We described our intent to educate our constituencies about the history of human rights activism as well as offer basic education around what a convention can accomplish, to describe the processes leading to adoption and to involve world citizens in the debate. Jim and I agreed to share materials with the audience via our websites
(http://www.globalaging.org/ and http://www.ngocoa-ny.org/) and promised our new friends to report on their vanguard activities in securing a Regional Convention. Our co-panelist, Lucio Diaz, Coordinator of Regional Civil Society organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, described the organizing efforts among Regional NGOs and their suggested draft for a Convention; another speaker, Armando Medina, represented the Chilean National Council of Older Persons.
During our last afternoon together, the Government representatives gathered to consider a joint statement. They agreed to meet again in Mexico in about six months and then in the Caribbean in a year. While the organizers had planned to adopt a statement at the conclusion, the governments decided that time was too short for full consideration of a statement. While it is true that nearly every Latin and Caribbean nation shares a commitment to older persons and their rights, people in a few countries live in the midst of the violent after-effects of war, drug trafficking as well as face extreme regional poverty, external meddling and unstable governments. They must figure out ways to assure civil democratic order and economic livelihoods for all citizens as well as attending to the rights of older persons. These questions are quite difficult.
The meeting concluded as a dance troupe of about 30 seniors sang, danced and flirted with each other in traditional routines that energized everyone, dancers and audience alike.
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