Human Rights of Older Persons

Calls upon all States to prohibit all forms of discrimination against older persons and to adopt and implement non-discriminatory policies, national strategies, action plans, legislation and regulations, including in response to violence, abuse and neglect, and to promote and ensure the full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for older persons in, inter alia, employment, social protection, housing, education and training, access to technologies and the provision of financial, social, health-care, long-term support and palliative care services, while systematically providing for consultation with and the participation of older persons themselves, and their representative organizations;

Calls upon all stakeholders, including States, the entities of the United Nations system, civil society, national human rights institutions and the private sector to combat ageism as a root cause of violence, abuse and neglect, as well as to eliminate violence, abuse and neglect in all their forms and to adopt a human rights-based approach in all programmes, campaigns and activities relating to ageing and older persons;

Calls upon all States to establish and/or enhance effective redress mechanisms and to ensure access to justice for, on an equal basis with others, all older persons who become victims and survivors of violence, abuse and neglect and for older persons subjected to discrimination based on age, gender, race or disability or on other grounds, including legal aid and support, as well as accessible and age-responsive legal proceedings;

Also calls upon all States to take measures to raise awareness in society, including among public officials, the private sector and older persons themselves, about the meaning and consequences of violence against and abuse and neglect of older persons and about existing legal provisions and judicial remedies;

Calls upon States to collect and analyse data disaggregated, as appropriate, by age, gender, disability, marital status, area of residence and other relevant criteria, in order to identify and render visible inequalities and discriminatory patterns, including structural aspects of discrimination, and to analyse the effectiveness of measures taken to promote equality, as well as to provide information on all forms of violence, abuse and neglect and their root causes, including ageism and discrimination, including multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination;

Invites the Independent Expert on the enjoyment of all human rights by older persons to continue to raise awareness of the challenges that older persons face in the realization of their human rights in her annual reports;

Requests the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to convene a meeting of human rights experts, fully accessible to persons with disabilities, with the participation of the Independent Expert and expert representatives of Member States, the treaty bodies and the special procedures, regional mechanisms, the United Nations system, academia, national human rights institutions and civil society, including with the meaningful and effective participation of older persons and their representative organizations, to discuss and draw up recommendations on the human rights obligations of States regarding violence against and abuse and neglect of older persons in all settings, to prepare a summary report, to be made available in accessible formats, including plain language and Easy Read, containing the conclusions and recommendations of the meeting, and to submit the report to the Human Rights Council by its fifty-seventh session.