Convention on the Rights of Older PersonsAnother significant step has been taken towards the goal of establishing the Convention. The Intergovernmental Working Group on the Rights of Older Persons (IGWG-HROP), which operates under the United Nations Human Rights Council, held its first session in Geneva from 13 to 17 July to produce the draft Convention.
During this session, representatives of Member States, UN experts and officials, national human rights organisations and civil society representatives from various countries expressed their views and discussed issues such as how the rights of older persons would be defined in a legally binding international Convention, what the priorities would be, what institutional framework would be established for implementation, and what sanctions might be imposed.
The sole civil society representative from Turkey attending the meeting was Selma Acuner, a senior and experienced human rights advocate. Selma Acuner presented her views and contributed to the discussions on behalf of the Patiska Platform, which she founded, and the SENEX Association, of which she is a volunteer.
We are sharing Selma Acuner’s statement, titled “Not Starting from Scratch: Gender Equality and Older Women”, which she submitted to the negotiations on the Convention on the Rights of Older Persons—currently being discussed under the title Legally Binding Instrument (LBI)—as well as her contribution to the discussion on monitoring and evaluation of the Convention.
Mr. Chairperson, Distinguished Delegates, Dear Participants,
I speak on behalf of the PATISKA Platform and Senex: Association for Aging Studies. We also support the joint GAROP statement.
Behind this Working Group’s debates stand real lives: my own and those of millions of older women, in all our diversity.
As we move from general statements to substantive discussion, we are not building from scratch.
CEDAW and its General Recommendations No. 25 and 27, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the agreed conclusions of the Commission on the Status of Women ( CSW) provide a substantial framework for women’s rights across the life course. The instrument should apply and further develop these standards in response to the lived realities of older persons, particularly older women.
Gender-based and intersecting discrimination leaves many women in older age without pensions or savings after lifetimes of unpaid care.
A grandmother raising five grandchildren shared all her food assistance and survived on dry bread. In the slums of Ankara, I sat with a grandmother raising five orphaned grandchildren alone. She gave them every crumb of her food assistance and kept only dry bread for herself — going hungry so they would not.” Older caregivers in skip-generation households remain invisible in law and policy.
The LBI must guarantee income and social security, support these caregivers and households, require age- and gender-responsive services and monitoring, and safeguard autonomy and participation in emergencies.
Many older women face violence and exploitation without adequate support. LBI must also explicitly address both poverty and violence as structural human rights violations.
Mr. Chairperson, older women are the majority of the world’s older population, yet among the least visible. Two commitments are essential.
“First, gender equality must be a foundational principle and obligation, requiring gender-responsive, substantive and transformative measures that prohibit gendered ageism and address multiple and intersectional discrimination, including discrimination based on disability and gender identity.”
Second, meaningful participation must be guaranteed for older persons, particularly older women, including NGOs without ECOSOC status, through accessible modalities addressing language and digital barriers.
Finally, The ultimate success of the legally binding instrument will depend on whether it prevents rights from being deferred on the grounds of domestic law, resource constraints or family responsibility; whether it establishes care and support as an enforceable right; and whether it provides older persons with effective remedies and the means to hold duty-bearers to account.
This convention is our chance to transform lived realities into rights, silence into voice and promises into accountability.
Thank you.
Mr. Chairperson,
Monitoring is about ensuring accountability, and accountability cannot exist without participation.
Those whose rights are being monitored must be equal partners in the room — not merely consulted, but part of the process itself, where their lived experience and evidence count. Only then can monitoring and accountability retain their legitimacy.
A monitoring mechanism should not ask only whether rights exist in law. It should ask whether older persons, including older women in all their diversity, can actually enjoy those rights in practice.
To this end, the LBI should require States to collect and publish data disaggregated by age, sex, disability and other grounds, together with indicators that capture intersectional discrimination and access to justice. It should also require independent national monitoring mechanisms, with the meaningful participation of older persons and relevant NGOs.
Mr. Chairperson,
As Ms. Shukla mentioned earlier on Tuesday, anti-rights and anti-gender movements are rising across many parts of the world. These movements threaten gender equality and the human rights of women and girls, and of LGBTI persons — and older persons are not immune. Monitoring under the LBI must therefore be capable of detecting and responding to regression and backsliding, not only recording progress.
Mr. Chairperson, we should draw on the experience of international and regional human rights mechanisms, including the CEDAW Committee and GREVIO. The LBI offers a historic opportunity to strengthen human rights monitoring further.
While treaty body members are nominated by States, consideration should be given to modalities that reinforce their actual and perceived independence beyond that process.
Committee members should act in their personal capacity and be elected through transparent procedures safeguarding independence, expertise and diversity.
National nominations should be open and participatory. Older persons and civil society, including organizations without ECOSOC status, must be able to contribute through accessible submissions, consultations and follow-up.
Finally, monitoring must lead to remedies — reporting alone is not accountability. The LBI should provide, from the outset, for effective remedies, individual communications, inquiries into grave or systematic violations, and effective follow-up, secured through an optional protocol to the LBI , so that older persons can hold duty-bearers to account when their rights are violated.
And States should not defer their obligations solely on grounds of domestic law, limited resources or family responsibility.
Finally, monitoring must lead to remedies — reporting alone is not accountability.
Finally, The LBI should provide, from the outset, for effective remedies, individual communications, inquiries into grave or systematic violations, and effective follow-up — ideally secured through an optional protocol to the LBI — so that older persons can hold duty-bearers to account when their rights are violated. And States should not defer their obligations solely on grounds of domestic law, limited resources or family responsibility.”
Thank you.