WASHINGTON, DC, United States (CMC) — The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has reiterated its call to the countries in the Americas, including the Caribbean, for the universal ratification of the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons.

The call comes as the IACHR recently published its report “Human Rights of Older Persons and National Protection Systems in the Caribbean”, which is the first to specifically address the human rights of older persons in the region and gives an account of the mechanisms provided by the states to guarantee them.

IACHR said that the report is based on the new paradigm on old age enshrined in the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of Human Rights of Older Persons (CPM), which understands that ageing constitutes another stage in the life cycle of people, valuable and worthy by itself.

It said the new paradigm of active and independent old age means eradicating discrimination based on age, “ageism”. Ageism unfairly restricts the rights of older people, makes their problems invisible and, above all, exposes them to various forms of violence.

For its drafting, the IACHR Rapporteurship on the Rights of Older Persons followed up on progress and challenges regarding the human rights of older persons at the international and inter-American levels.

The information contained in the report was provided by states, civil society organisations and specialists in the field. Among other aspects, the report analysed the recognition of the rights of individuals in the inter-American system, the CPM and the international standards related to human rights that it recognises, national protection systems and the rights of older persons recognised in the CPM and the panorama of national mechanisms, to finally present conclusions and recommendations.

The document gives an account of a series of norms, policies and programmes of the countries to make effective the rights of the elderly. Likewise, it contains positive trends such as that all the states of the Americas have some kind of regulatory instrument aimed at prioritizing the human rights of this group and social security programmes that include non-contributory pensions, prioritised forms of care in access to health or implementation of different types of interventions to integrate older people in an intergenerational way.

In 2015, the Organization of American States (OAS) approved the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons in order to promote, protect, and ensure the recognition and full enjoyment and exercise, under conditions of equality, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of the elderly, in order to contribute to their full inclusion, integration, and participation in society.

The convention, among other rights, establishes the right to care for the elderly, the need to incorporate and give priority to the issue of ageing in public policies, the importance of facilitating the formulation and compliance with laws and programs for the prevention of abuse, abandonment, neglect, mistreatment, and violence against the elderly, and the need to have national mechanisms that protect their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The convention is the first regional instrument that specifically protects the rights of older people. The convention has been in force since January 11, 2017, and provides for an integrated follow-up mechanism composed of a Conference of States Parties and a Committee of Experts, which will be established once the tenth instrument of accession or ratification has been received.

Between 2013 and 2015, the IACHR participated in efforts to create the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons. In this sense, the commission collaborated from the legal study of a draft of the convention. In 2013, it presented this report to the OAS Permanent Council, in which it reflected considerations on the protection of the elderly, so that the Working Group on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons could count on inter-American standards. and the IACHR perspective, as inputs for the elaboration of the convention.