The rights of elderly people, including protection against domestic abuse, are finally to be enshrined in law. The Older Persons Bill has been passed by the Social Development Portfolio Committee and is to be debated in parliament on Thursday.

The bill had the support of all parties to assure its adoption. 
It is eight years since the first draft appeared. Since 1998 there have been extensive consultations with organisations serving older people and several versions of the bill have been drafted.

More recently, provincial workshops on the 2003 version of the bill were called by the SA Human Rights Commission. It also set up a working group on the bill.

Last year the commission was instrumental in calling a national convention of organisations serving the elderly.

But the main credit for the present version of the bill must be given to the portfolio committee which held two days of public hearings last August, and since then has been scrutinising the structure and content of the bill, painstakingly working through every clause, trying to address public concerns, seeking explanations and asking for additions and improvements.

Credit must also go to the team from the Department of Social Development which put a lot of time and thought into the process and accommodated many of the committee's suggestions.

From the slim bill of four chapters and 23 clauses tabled in Parliament in 2003, it now has six chapters and 36 clauses.

Although no fanfare has accompanied the passage of the bill, it is a historic event for the elderly in South Africa, particularly the poor and disadvantaged.

Why is this so? Firstly, the bill has a radical new approach to the elderly. Instead of looking at them as recipients of grants or objects for welfare, it focuses primarily on the rights of older people.

These rights have been widely ignored and even overlooked in the constitution. The rights of the elderly will now be laid down in law and all government departments and organisations serving the elderly, will be obliged to observe and respect such rights.


"Growing old should be a period when a person's contribution to society is acknowledged and valued," says the memorandum on the objects of the bill.

One of the new chapters is entitled Community-based Care and Support Services. It distinguishes between community services which promote the independence and empowerment of older persons and home-based services which provide care to the frail and house-bound. 

The bill seeks to regulate these services and to ensure that caregivers receive prescribed training and are registered.

Concern about how these services would be monitored and fears that regulation might discourage or strangle existing services, particularly in poor communities, led to a clause being inserted in the bill requiring the minister to submit draft regulations to parliament before final publication.

The other new chapter is entitled Residential Facilities. Here the contentious clause concerns compulsory admissions. Lengthy discussions took place to ensure safeguards against the "dumping" of the elderly into homes. 

Only those whose mental condition renders them incapable of giving consent, can be admitted against their will, and various relatives are authorised to give consent once a medical practitioner has decided urgent admission is necessary. All such compulsory admissions must be reported to the director-general who might review such decisions.

Concern about the abuse of older persons is addressed in the chapter entitled Protection for Older Persons. Here the committee had a number of concerns:

First was the need to distinguish between abuse and crimes committed by strangers. The bill now defines abuse as: "any conduct or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust which causes harm or distress to an older person".

Second, there was concern that older people were overlooked when the Domestic Violence Act could have been been used to protect them.

The bill now contains the provision that it must not be construed to alter any provision of the Domestic Violence Act or exempt anyone from complying with it.

Third, there was concern that the bill only provided for the removal of the victim from an abusive situation. So a clause has been added to provide for the removal of the abuser by the police.