We recently celebrated International Day of Older Persons, with the theme “The Resilience and Contribution of Older Women”.
It was a time to reflect on the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing of 2002, whose main objective was to respond to the opportunities and challenges of population ageing in the 21st century.
It also allowed us to commemorate 1991, the year the General Assembly, by resolution 46/91, adopted the United Nations Principles for Older Persons.
According to UN statistics, globally, there were 703 million persons aged 65 or over in 2019.
Over the next three decades, the UN says that the number of old persons worldwide is projected to more than double, reaching more than 1.5 billion persons in 2050.
All regions of the world will see an increase in the size of the older population between 2019 and 2050, among development groups, less developed countries excluding the least developed countries will be home to more than two-thirds of the world’s older population (1.1 billion) in 2050.
Fiji’s 2017 census tells that the proportion of population of 60 years and older accounts for about eight per cent of the total population, or 62,940, of which 30,012 are males and 32,928 females.
And according to projections, in 2025 the elderly would account for 13 per cent of Fiji’s total population.
By 2050, about one in every four people will be 60 years or older and about four per cent of Fiji’s population will be 80 years old.
As a nation, this means we should start translating our concerns about the future of our ageing population into constructive and real actions.
This means that senior citizens should be made our community’s concerns and priority.
In recognition of the impending growth of the elderly segment of the population, the Government developed the Fiji National Policy of Ageing, which had four goals aimed at “inculcating an inclusive and enabling environment for the elderly”.
But the past three years have heaped on the world a host of insurmountable problems.
There was profound upheaval in the world’s health, socioeconomic and environmental sectors, with pandemic and climate related impacts experienced across the globe.
Women, especially the elderly, were the worst affected and had to bear the burden of “cumulative disadvantage”.
UNIDOP 2022, therefore, recognises the vital contributions of our older women and believes that the “inclusion of their voices, perspectives and needs” is critical to creating policies responsive to “local, national, and global challenges and catastrophes”.
Love it or not, ageing is a sobering fact of life.
Each one of us was born into a family, where mum and dad subtly aged before our eyes as we grew up.
One day we ourselves will grow very old, develop wisdom hair, lose a few teeth here and there and have wrinkles that we have no control over.
No matter how well we’ve lived life or looked after our health, how much we’ve accumulated in the bank, or how many degrees we’ve attained, we will become an elderly person one day.
And because we will all grow old (if we don’t die prematurely) and would like to be treated with respect and dignity when we become “shaky” and “wobbly”, it is imperative that we show the elderly the same degree of appreciation and decency we’d like.
During the productive years of their lives, parents gave up so much for us.
Some parents mortgaged their property so that their kids can go to the best schools and universities.
Some took up two or more jobs to put food on the table.
Some sacrificed their time, social life and career to keep the home in order.
But as they grew old and their children had families of their own, some were pushed to the sideline and given the treatment they never dreamed they would encounter one day.
Nowadays, it is common and easy to send parents to grow old with their peers in aged care facilities.
But even the best and most expensive “homes” for the elderly, with an unsurpassed history of care that is dependable and professional, cannot replace the “tender love and affection” that structure the home into a place that is safe and secure.
In today’s fast-paced, individualistic and capitalistic world, the elderly can become bothersome and burdensome to their families Pushed out of the home, they become a burden to the state and every other taxpayer.
Why can’t we just take care of our folks like the way they took care of us when we were bouncing babies? In 2020, The Fiji Times ran a story highlighting a research conducted by the Fiji Women’s
Rights Movement which said an ageing woman’s experience of poverty was “significantly high”.
“Ageing women face multiple forms of discrimination and violence because of gender inequality throughout their life cycle,” the FWRM research noted.
This, the research said, was “exacerbated by interlinked ageing issues such as health problems”.
Additionally, the report noted that women in the study shared that physical, emotional, psychological and socioeconomic support declined with age.
This is why this year’s UNIDOP theme is timely.
“While older women continue to meaningfully contribute to their political, civil, economic, social and cultural lives; their contributions and experiences remain largely invisible and disregarded, limited by gendered disadvantages accumulated throughout the life course,” the UN says.
“The intersection between discrimination based on age and gender compounds new and existing inequalities, including negative stereotypes that combine ageism and sexism.”
The 2022 theme of UNIDOP serves as a hallmark and reminder of the significant role older women play in traversing global challenges and contributing to their solutions with resilience and fortitude.
“Recognising the vital contributions of older women and promoting the inclusion of their voices, perspectives and needs are critical to creating meaningful policies to enhance a holistic response to local, national, and global challenges and catastrophes,” the UN adds.
UNIDOP 2022 is also a call to action and opportunity, to embrace the voices of older women and showcase their resilience and contributions in society, while promoting policy dialogues to enhance the protection of older persons’ human rights and recognise their contributions to sustainable development.
During the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day in June this year, Minister for Women, Children and Poverty Alleviation Rosy Akbar said Fijian families should recommit and refocus on the care, respect and dignity of senior citizens.
Wherever we come from and whatever beliefs we lean towards, we must remember that every senior citizen in every community is a human being who needs to be treated with respect.
They should be treated like how we would like to be treated if we were in their shoes.
They also have the same human rights that we have, although we may be far apart by age. Like us, their health needs are important too.
They go through the same emotions we go through.
They feel loneliness, pain, happiness and heartbreak, just like the way we do.
Unlike many of us, our elderly are not self-centred and do not ask for much.
Most of them simply want to be heard, cherished, and loved.
They never ever want to burden us, but like to feel they are worth being cuddled and kissed just in the same way they kissed and cuddled us in our younger days.
Until we meet on this same page same time next week, stay blessed, stay healthy and stay safe.
