Older Women Matter: Addressing Violence Across the Life Course

Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, good morning and welcome to this high-level side event on "Older Women Matter: Addressing Violence Across the Life Course", held on the margins of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. I am Eva Reimann and I am very pleased to moderate today's discussion. At the outset, I would like to thank and welcome the organizers. Ms. Rima Al Salem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, its causes and consequences. The Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations, represented today by His Excellency Ambassador Giorgio Marrapodi. And the Group of Friends on Aging and Sustainable Development. We will have the pleasure of hearing from them during today's discussion. Let me also welcome our distinguished panel of experts. who will bring experience from the fields of human rights, humanitarian assistance, healthcare, and protection of older persons. Today's discussion comes at an important moment. Women are living longer and older women are a growing part of populations worldwide. Yet, in laws and policies and data, too often they still remain invisible. In her recent report, the Special Rapporteur brings these gaps into focus and examines how violence against older women can remain hidden or normalized. She also offers recommendations on what needs to be done from the perspective of international human rights law. Today, I hope we can also move from recognizing gaps to discussing what states and societies can do to address them, and also how older women themselves can be heard and included in the decisions that affect their lives. With that, It is my pleasure to introduce His Excellency Giorgio Marrapodi, the Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations. Excellency, could you share with us some of the key challenges that older women face today and also highlight the good practices and initiatives that Italy has adopted to strengthen their protection and well-being?

Thank you, thank you, Eva. Thank you to all of you. Thank you, Ms. El-Salem. Hey, I think that is the subject that we are addressing today is very important. It's an important issue, as you were mentioning. And the aging of population is something that is really related to all countries in the world. And I mean, Italy is one, is a country where from that point of view, I think is one of the oldest in the world. So we should address this issue with really with a special attention. And I am pleased that we have this opportunity here today. And happily I share with you and with all the friends who are present, some of the Italian experience Preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls remains a long-standing priority for Italy. Today's discussions offer an important opportunity to reflect on the specific circumstances faced by older women and on how our policies and response can better take these circumstances into account. Violence against older women can be particularly difficult to detect and report. Isolation, reduced autonomy, health conditions, and economic or emotional dependence on partners or family members, who are often also their caregivers, can increase the vulnerability of these women. These factors may also make it more difficult for older women to seek help, particularly when they fear losing their family environment or facing major disruption to their daily lives. The scale of the phenomenon requires targeted responses within broader policies to prevent and combat violence against women. The most tragic consequences of violence is homicide. And the Italy's National Strategic Plan highlights that the risk of homicide for women increases with age, with older and very elderly women facing particularly serious risks. These cases occur predominantly within a family or intimate context, often involving partners or relatives. The plan, the Italian National Strategic Plan, also draws attention to the particular narratives sometimes used to justify these killings, including references to the woman's suffering or to the perpetrator's perceptions of her psychological condition. Italy has strengthened its legal and policy framework. Law 181 of the 2nd of December 2025 introduced femicide as an autonomous criminal offense punishable by life imprisonment when the killing of a woman is committed among other circumstances as an act of hatred, discrimination, domination, control, or possession, or in connection with her refusal to enter into to enter into or continue a relationship or to restrict her individual freedoms. Our national strategic plan on violence against women and domestic violence 25-27, drawing on the Istanbul Convention, explicitly identifies older women as victims of multiple discrimination and recognize that violence against them is significantly underreported. The plan therefore includes targeted measures, both for prevention and for protection and support. Under prevention, it calls for actions specifically identifying vulnerable groups, including older women, and for targeted and accessible information and communication measures. Under protection and support, it provides for solutions ensuring equal access to services with specific attention to older women, and to their accommodation and protection facilities. It also notes the increasing number of requests for help from women aged 65 and over. Finally, and I conclude, we need better data. Strengthening the collection and analysis of data specifically concerns Specifically concerning older women, systematically disaggregated by age and by the relationship between victims and perpetrators, would make the phenomenon more visible and enable better targeted prevention and protection measures. We hope today's discussion will help strengthen our collective response to violence against older women, ensuring that their specific vulnerabilities are fully reflected in prevention, protection and support facilities. I thank the Special Rapporteur and all our speakers, and I look forward to a rich and constructive exchange. Thank you, Eva.

Thank you. Thank you very much for this very insightful remarks. Now, let me give the floor to Ms. Reem Al-Salem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences. Madame Special Rapporteur. Could you please tell us why you have decided to dedicate your report to this topic and also what were the main issues that you have identified?

Thank you, Eva. Good morning, excellencies and distinguished guests. Perhaps before answering your question, Eva, I would also like to thank the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations in New York, represented by His Excellency Ambassador Marapodi, for co-organizing and hosting this event. Also to the Group of Friends on Aging and Sustainable Development for co-sponsoring. To all our wonderful experts joining us, and also to you, Eva, for agreeing to moderate and for actually organizing this event from the logistical side. As many of you know, I'm going to be formally presenting my report on violence against older women tomorrow to the Third Committee of the General Assembly. So I'm a bit restricted in how deep I can go into recommendations and also answering your question. But what I can say is that I chose this topic for a very simple reason. If we are serious about addressing violence against women and girls, we cannot stop at any stage of a woman's life. We have spent decades strengthening our understanding of violence against women and girls from childhood through adolescence and adulthood, through pregnancy and motherhood, and in situations of peace, conflict, displacement, and crisis. But what happens when that woman grows old? Too often, she disappears from our policies, from our data, from our services, and ultimately, even from our imagination of who a victim of violence can be. So, this report is an attempt to close that gap and, in a sense, to complete the circle of the life course of women. It was also inspired by the growing impetus for a legally binding international instrument on the rights of older persons. And if such instrument is to emerge, which we hope, it must not treat older persons as a homogeneous category. It must therefore recognize that older women experience aging through the accumulated effect of discrimination based on sex, poverty, violence, disability, conflict, displacement, and unequal care responsibilities through their lives. So the starting point of this report is that old age does not erase women's rights. On the contrary, international law has already provided solid and substantial foundations, like the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which applies to women throughout their lives. Also, as many of you know, the CEDAW Committee has devoted a specific general recommendation, number 27, to older women and the protection of their human rights. You have also the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that protects older women's participation in public affair. And then of course, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, which protects the right to social security, adequate standard of living, and the highest attainable standard of health. Now, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights also recognizes everyone's right to security in old age, including in sickness, disability, and widowhood. and it is reinforced by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So there are also, of course, many important regional developments. His Excellency, the Ambassador, mentioned the Istanbul Convention. Of course, the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against Women also requires states to take account of women's particular vulnerability to violence because of age. In Africa, you have the protocol on the rights of women that specifically recognizes the rights of elderly women to be free from violence and to receive protection. So what I want to emphasize here is that the legal foundations exist, they are very solid, but of course, we can have the best legal frameworks but we must ensure that they are implemented. And we do have a profound implementation and visibility gap when it comes to older women. So the report found that older women remain, unfortunately, largely invisible in law and policies, in data and research, in services, and in the public discourse of society. And this invisibility matters because violence against older women cannot be described simply as elder abuse. It can be physical, psychological, sexual, economic, and it can happen digitally and offline in the physical world. It can involve coercive control, neglect, abandonment, financial exploitation, deprivation of property or inheritance, pension appropriation, sexual exploitation and violence in institutional or residential cares. And it can involve forms of violence that we are still very much reluctant to name because older women can be beaten, sexually assaulted or killed. They can be deprived of medication, food, mobility aids and health care. They can be stripped of property or savings by relatives and family members. They can be subjected to guardianship arrangements that effectively remove their legal capacity and be isolated from children or grandchildren as a form of coercive control. And to make things worse, they can also be excluded from justice because authorities assume that older women are confused, dependent, cognitively impaired, or simply too old for their testimony to matter. I also want to highlight that My report shows that violence of old age often has a history because many older women carry into later life the consequences of violence and discrimination experienced decades earlier. Child and forced marriage can produce lifelong health and economic consequences. Violence in intimate relationships can continue for decades. Pregnancy and childbirth-related injuries can worsen with age, and years of unpaid care can leave women without pensions, savings, or independent income. Not to mention the conflict-related sexual violence can leave survivors with profound, long-lasting, lifelong-lasting trauma, disability, poverty, and social And so this is why I describe violence against older women as a continuum across the life course, rather than an isolated phenomenon that begins at 60. And this is also where ageism and sexism intersect, because whereas an older man may be perceived as experienced, authoritative, or wise, an older woman is much more likely to be perceived as dependent, burdensome, asexual, unproductive or incapable of making decisions for herself. And these stereotypes have very long lasting consequences. So in the report, I also speak about certain groups of women that are particularly at risk from among the broader group of older women. And so therefore, you know, what What we have to come back to is the fundamental question, which must always be, are we giving older women meaningful choices, or are we making their circumstances so difficult that what appears to be a choice is in fact the product of abandonment, poverty, inadequate care, or coercion? And this is precisely also the issue that when women become older, they don't become less entitled to dignity, humanity, and equality because they became older. They are just as entitled to safety from violence and the right to be assisted, protected, and to fully participate. And if our human rights framework is to be truly universal, then it must protect women not only at the beginning of their lives, during their reproductive years, or when they are economically productive. It must accompany them throughout their life. And this is precisely the full circle I wanted this report to emphasize. So as the international community considers a possible convention on the rights of older persons, I hope we seize the opportunity to make that circle complete to ensure that older women are not an afterthought, but are fully recognized as rights holders with equal dignity, equal worth, autonomy, and protection from violence until the very end of their lives. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Now, let me move to our guests, who are the representatives of the non-governmental organizations. And let me first welcome Ms. Tanvi Patel, Gender Policy Advisor at HelpAge International. HelpAge International works through the global alliance of organizations committed to the well-being, dignity, and voice of older people, and is currently present in 98 countries. Ms. Patel. Could you speak about how ageism and sexism manifest in the lives of older women and what safeguarding measures states should put in place to prevent in particular economic abuse?

Thank you for this important question, Eva. Good morning, everyone. I'm really glad to be part of this important discussion. I will start with ageism and sexism, because they don't operate separately in our society. Older women sit at the intersection of violence against women and girls, driven by gender discrimination, and elder abuse, driven by ageism. As a result, they experience the same sorts of forms of violence as younger women do. Intimate partner violence, sexual physical violence, psychological abuse, and. Whilst also facing new forms of violence, each of these the broader range, including abandonment, economic abuse, inheritance related violence, and abuse and neglect, both institutional settings and in the home. For many of the women, these experiences are shaped by the intersection of age, but also by factors such as disability, race, poverty, displacement, widowhood, and other forms of exclusion. Importantly, the independent expert said, not be answered only for what happens in often the accumulation of gender. Unequal access to education, piece of work, financial services.

Excuse me, we cannot hear you very well. Could you just stop for a second and we'll see if we can fix it. Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe we could try to see if it's better the next speaker.

Does she have earphones? Okay. Yeah. So the audio is not of very good quality. Could you maybe turn off the camera and just try to speak and maybe this will help?

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

We still cannot hear you. I'm so sorry.

Apologies, everyone. This is the UN technician. It seems that Mrs. Patel was having issues with her connection, thus causing a problem with the audio.

Let's see. Let's see if she can come back. Could you try to say something again? Just for a moment. No? Ms. Patek? Can.

You hear me now?

Yes, now it's better. Okay, great.

No. She has to stop.

Do you have earphones? No.

No.

Okay, so maybe it would be better if now we move to the second speaker and we'll see what can be done and then we'll come back to you, if that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. If you could also check your internet connection maybe in the meantime, that would be great. Thank you. So we hope to come back. And now, then let me move to our next speaker, Dr. Sandra Berti, who is an international refugee law specialist with rich experience working across humanitarian context. She's the representative of Just Access, which is a non-governmental organization based in Germany, but operating worldwide, that exists to champion the right of every person to access to justice through education and outreach, advocacy, and strategic litigation. Dr. Berti, could you speak about the particular challenges faced by older women in conflict settings, including in Sudan, and what measures are needed to ensure that humanitarian assistance and protection mechanisms are accessible to them?

Thank you, Eva, and good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for inviting Just Access to take part in this very important discussion today. We're very glad to be here and to be able to take part. To start, Just Access is currently working on a project relating to the conflict in Sudan. And so a lot of the examples that I will be presenting on today are from where our submission came from, has to do with direct testimony of victims of human rights violations in the conflict of Sudan, but it's also supported by different reports done across in conflict to sort of try to encompass as much as possible the violations or the patterns of violations against older women in conflict. But it by no means is comprehensive or it's by no means reflective of all violations against older women across different conflict contexts, just as a background. To start, We all know that the conflict in Sudan has been brutal to civilians across the board, but today we will focus on the violations that we've seen relating to older women in particular. As has already been mentioned by the Special Rapporteur and previous speakers, older women experience the intersection of age and sex and the discrimination that is associated with both. Their social role and the structural discrimination that they live through is accumulated across their life cycle and touches or impacts their health and their resources and shapes the harms that they face. And this is of course intensified when it comes to conflict. In terms of what we mean when we say older women, JustAccess adopts the constructive definition of older, which basically puts forward that Age is beyond chronological. It's trauma, malnutrition, interrupted care act as aging factors, and they accelerate the aging of women and their need for protection. And their vulnerabilities basically follow based on these social and contextual situations. In Sudan, I will highlight a few patterns relating to harm that are specific to older women as we've seen them from the different testimonies. First of all, as was already mentioned, sexual violence does not only happen to younger women. The UN fact-finding mission has documented rape of women as old as 75 in Sudan and as old as 80 in different contexts. Other violations that have come up in our testimonies and have come up in other reported violations on Sudan include the forced servitude and mistreatment and degrading treatment of women, including where older women were taken as slaves by armed factions, used to cook for them, used to carry weapons, degraded, asked to dance for them, basically treated very clearly differently due to their age and their sex in terms of violations as opposed to younger women or men and boys. Caregiving is especially important because it reflects a social role that women are expected to fulfill throughout their life, including in older age. Conflict intensifies these responsibilities as relatives are killed or disappeared or displaced and services collapse. In our submission, we describe a case of an older woman whose son was her primary caregiver or supporter, was himself beaten and basically beaten and made incapacitated and was was attached to a dialysis machine after the armed groups had beaten him and tortured him. And overnight, she became the caretaker. She lost access to that support that he was providing her, and she lost the ability to basically flee the violence in Sudan because of it, or flee the violence from her specific area. So this example shows how such a role increases the risks of violence on older women and also puts them in a more vulnerable situation. Then we look at the deprivation of essential services. In the situation of the Sudan conflict, there's been deliberate starvation and deliberate denial of medical care and essential infrastructure. through either deliberate targeting by the warring factions or due to the general destruction and the lack of access for these services. And older women, as has already been mentioned, are affected. Older people and children are the most affected, based on the reporting, due to this lack of services or access to services. And the older women tending to live longer tend to then be disproportionately impacted by these measures. Trauma and bereavement, psychological harm as well, as women tend to become widowers and tend to remain alone after becoming widows, especially in conflict, psychological harm and trauma is increased and with the loss of support and the loss of family members due to the conflict, this is amplified and the harm is exacerbated. And then when we look at displaced context, or when, let's say, older women in conflict do reach displacement camps or refugee camps, then we have different sorts of barriers. like queuing or obtaining information in a manner that's accessible to them. And on return as well, as has been mentioned in previous similar meetings, access to, sorry, loss of access to inheritance rights. We've seen cases where women were displaced due to conflict, have returned, but then due to these discriminatory laws on inheritance, Once they've become widows, they find themselves in a situation where they can no longer access their property and their homes. Of course, for us at Just Access, this is all part of reaching justice and reparation for victims. The second part of the question, how can we address all these harms and what do we do? Much has already been said by the Special Rapporteur in terms of the way forward, of course, first and foremost, include older women in every step and every stage of the process. First of all, we need to count them, and we need to count them in a way that's actually effective, meaning when we do age and desegregated data collection, we don't just stop at 50 plus, we actually take in every five years because the needs of women change beyond 55 and 80 are very different in terms of protection. Speak to them, understand what it is that they would like to see in terms of their rights and in terms of accessibility and protection. Sorry. Educate relevant stakeholders as has been said that they become invisible and due to stereotypes, for example, medical Medical or healthcare workers may not know to ask questions around sexual violence when it comes to older women, may not know to provide relevant care when it comes to conflict-related sexual and older women, et cetera, and this goes beyond healthcare, of course. We have an example that we mentioned in our submission relating to the emergency response rooms in Sudan, and we think it's one of the good examples of support that responds to the needs of older women. And this is because these emergency response rooms are community-based response rooms, and they're made of the community who actually knows who lives within the community, who is older, who is unable to reach assistance, who needs support, et cetera. And our proposition is to try to model response services around ERRs, basically their approach and the communal approach that they take that responds to needs of older women and to needs of the population, but in a more responsive way. And then of course, the legal framework. defining the obligations clearly and ensuring appropriate reparations where harms are clearly outlined that are specific to older women and the obligations of the states. We also draw on the CRPD and other regional instruments, including the Inter-American and the African protocol and the Inter-American Convention and the human rights of older persons in support of sorry, on the American Convention of Older Persons in Support of International Human Rights, that's my typo, I'm sorry. But basically we drawn the idea that human rights do not and should not diminish with age. Needing support should not diminish those rights. Recognizing and addressing social and structural inequalities that act as barriers and provide support to make rights effective. and advocate for the ratification where needed and the implementation of the already existing regional frameworks, including the African Charter, Maputo Protocol, and the African Older Persons Protocol. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And now we'll move on to. Can you try to speak? Maybe now the connection is better.

Yeah, I think, should I try again, Etta?

Seems better. It should be better.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So as I. We still cannot hear you very well.

Maybe you can turn off the camera again and try to speak.

So now.

You need to speak to the microphone into microphone. It's fine.

Is it better?

No, unfortunately.

I'm not sure. It's clear in the testing, so I'm not sure what's happening.

Can we ask our IT person if anything can be done? No? Okay.

Apologies, ma'am. We did try to contact Mrs. Patel via the phone. She needs to stop blurring her background. It is affecting her audio. Thank you.

Okay. Unfortunately, now we cannot really hear you almost at all. So I think we'll move to our in-person speaker, Ms. Nicole Schied. Executive Director of Canadian Physicians for Life, which is a non-profit organization founded in 1975 that advocates for life-affirming healthcare based on the traditional Hippocratic Oath and focuses on student formation, bioethics, professional support for practitioners, and public advocacy. Dr. Schiele, given your experience, what does adequate medical and end-of-life care look like for older women? And how can we ensure that euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide do not become a response to gaps in palliative care or gaps in other forms of social support?

Thank you very much for that question. I wanted to-- Oh, sorry.

No, it's fine.

Okay, it's fine? Okay, thank you. I wanted to illustrate the challenges posed by that question with the case of one woman. Ontario's coroner calls her Mrs. B. She was in her 80s and had complications after bypass surgery. She was being cared for at home by her husband. He contacted a referral service on her behalf for euthanasia or a physician-assisted suicide. When the assessor came to her house, Mrs. B told the assessor she had changed her mind and that she wished to withdraw her request because of her personal and religious values. She wanted inpatient palliative care or hospice care. The next morning, Mrs. B presented at the hospital emergency department. Her husband was noted to be experiencing caregiver burnout. She was assessed to be in stable condition and discharged home with continued palliative care. Her palliative care doctor applied for a hospice bed. It was refused since she did not meet the hospice criteria for end of life. Her husband that same day asked for an urgent euthanasia assessment. A second assessor found her eligible for euthanasia, and a third assessor did a virtual assessment. She died by euthanasia that evening. Against this case, we can ask, what does adequate care look like? Adequate care begins at the time of a diagnosis of a serious illness. It treats pain. It attends to both the mind and the spirit as well as the body, and it supports the family. It helps people live well from the time of diagnosis through to the end. Canada's own framework for palliative care states the aim well, that all Canadians with life-limiting illness should live well until the end of life. In practice, this would mean that Mrs. B's palliative care would begin when her illness is diagnosed, not in her final days. Early palliative care improves quality of life for the person and their loved ones, reduces caregiver distress, provides more goal concordant care, reduces unnecessary aggressive interventions and hospitalizations, and reduces healthcare costs. We know early palliative care improves quality of life. Her pain would be treated. we would have an adequate number of pain specialists. In Canada, currently, we have one pain specialist per 35,000 patients with chronic pain. This is clearly inadequate. Her doctors would speak to her directly, discussing her goals of care and seeking her consent directly. In the case of Mrs. B, the first assessor wanted to visit the next day to explore why she had changed her mind. The second assessor declined that assessor's involvement and found a third assessor to approve her. In Canada, virtual assessments over the phone or Zoom for euthanasia are not an anomaly. They have been built into the practice standards. A health care professional would ask her about her mood and her grief. Canada's national guideline says depression in later life is common, often undiagnosed and often untreated. It also says older patients respond to treatment as well as younger ones. And we know among people newly widowed, more than one in three is depressed in the first month. Depression is highly associated with the desire to die. Adequate care notices sorrow and treats it. Help would come to her home, especially if she lives alone. Community supports would be diverse in scope and rich in relationships. and her income would be enough to live on. There would also be support for the person who cares for her. In Canada, more than one in three caregivers reports caregiver distress. In the case of Mrs. B, her husband was visibly burnt out. Where was his support and respite? She would be safe from abuse. The World Health Organization's definition of elder abuse includes not only harmful acts, but also a lack of appropriate action. In the case of Mrs. B, her husband sat in on all her assessments. Families are an important support system, but assessors have to be sensitive to family dynamics. Did she choose to die because he was at the end of his rope? And finally, no one should let her believe she is a burden. She is valued for who she is, not for what she does. Canada has adopted this standard on paper but falls short in delivery. Three gaps are worth highlighting. First, care comes late. Canada's Institute for Health Information reports that half of patients die within 22 days of being identified as having palliative care needs. This is far too late. Palliative care should be accessed well in advance of decline, when patients can benefit from all it can offer. Second, older women have less to fall back on. They are not, by Canada's official measure, widely poor, but their median income is about a quarter lower than older men's. They live alone almost twice as often. Loneliness and isolation are significant concerns for this population. Third, the gap appears in our figures on euthanasia. Since 2021, Canada has allowed euthanasia and assisted suicide for people who are not dying. In 2024, 732 people died this way. Their median age was nearly 76. 57% were women. Fewer than one in four had received palliative care, and over half said they felt like they were a burden. So how do we ensure that administering death does not become the substitute for adequate care? Change has to occur both within the legal framework, but also within civil society. Governments must empower civil society to act, encourage citizens to bring their creativity and initiative to bear on this challenge, encourage a diversity of approaches. It is important to allow euthanasia-free spaces to exist within the healthcare system. and to respect religion's role in providing care to those with serious illness through to the end of life. Legal changes also make a difference, and I offer four measures. The first is guarantee care first, not death. In Canada, the requirement is that the person be told about the means to relieve her suffering. It does not require that those means be available to her. An offer of care must be real. and where the care she asks for is refused, as happened with Mrs. B, other options should be made available before her request for death is processed. Two, assess her circumstances, not only her capacity. The coroner's committee, after examining Mrs. B's situation, asked assessors to consider caregiver burnout and the loss of home supports. It asked that hospice criteria take account of an exhausted caregiver. Circumstances can push vulnerable people into choosing death when they would prefer to live. And three, the clinician must never be the one to suggest it. New Zealand's law says a health practitioner must not initiate any discussion of assisted dying. The Australian state of Victoria has the same rule. In Canada, it is common and expected for physicians to raise euthanasia unsolicited. Healthcare guidelines encourage physicians to put it on the table for everyone over the age of 18, if they are potentially eligible. A Canadian MP shared in Parliament last week that her brother was offered euthanasia six times while he was in hospice. She said it felt relentless. Four, make sure the request is hers. The committee asks, the coroner's committee asked that requests be led by the person herself. and that assessors speak with her separately and directly. In Mrs. B's case, the requests were initiated by her husband, and no separate discussion took place with her. Mrs. B asked for a hospice bed and was refused. By evening, what had been arranged was a doctor-administered death. No state should find it easier to arrange a death than to arrange care. Before we offer an older woman a way to die, let us guarantee her the means to live, relief of pain, help at home, company, and a hospice bed when she asks for one. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I think we'll try the last time to connect with Tanvi. Could you not turn on your camera, even at the beginning, maybe this will help, and just try to speak.

Okay, I put myself on mute. that sound better?

And could you speak directly to the mic and turn the volume on? On your end.

Yes, all higher.

No, unfortunately. Can you say something? Let's see.

Yeah, can you hear me now?

Yes, but it feels like you're very far away.

Okay, I'll just try and check and see if that's, should I try.

And now try to say something.

Okay, hello.

Yeah, please continue. If we cannot hear you, I will tell you.

Okay, thanks, Eva. Sorry again, I'm not feeling up to it. It was working in testing. But I will start by saying ageism and sexism do not operate separately in older women's lives. Older women sit at the intersection of violence against women and girls, driven by gender discrimination, and elder abuse, driven by ageism. As a result, they continue to experience many of the same forms of violence as younger women, including intimate partner violence, sexual and physical violence, psychological abuse, and cohesive control. whilst also facing forms of violence, abuse and neglect that are associated with older age, including abandonment, economic abuse, inheritance related violence, restrictions on decision making, cohesive caregiving relationships, and abuse and neglect in the home, as well as in institutional settings. For many older women, these experiences are shaped by the intersection of gender with age. But this also sits alongside intersecting identities such as disability, race, poverty, displacement, widowhood, and other forms of exclusion. Importantly, as was stated, violence against older women cannot be understood only through what happens in later life. It is often the culmination of gender inequalities experienced across the life course. unequal access to education, decent work, financial services, and social protection accumulate over time, leaving many older women with fewer assets, less economic security, and less control over the resources and decisions that affect their lives. These inequalities, as we know, are shaped by gender norms and unequal power relations. Women are more likely to undertake unpaid care roles and spend time outside the formal labor market, resulting in lower earnings, fewer savings, and reduced pension entitlements. In older age, these inequalities can increase financial dependence on family members, caregivers, or partners, making it harder to challenge abuse, seek support, or exercise autonomy. They can also create conditions in which violence and abuse is normalized, overlooked, or tolerated. One of the clearest manifestations of the intersection of ageism and sexism is economic abuse. Economic abuse remains common, but is also one of the least recognized forms of violence experienced by older women. It can include the control of pensions and social protection payments. exclusion from financial decision-making, denial of inheritance rights, property grabbing, restrictions on access to assets and resources, as well as assumptions that an older woman is incapable of managing her own affairs. Economic abuse rarely occurs in isolation, though. It can often be accompanied by coercive control, psychological abuse, neglect, and restrictions on autonomy, particularly where the older woman relies on care, housing, or financial support. These consequences can be life changing. As one older woman HealthAid works with in Nepal explained, "My in-laws started to discriminate against me after the death of my husband. They took my husband's land and property and compelled me to leave my village." We're also seeing new forms of economic abuse emerge as services become increasingly digitalized. Limited digital literacy, lack of access to mobile phones, and relies on others to access financial services can create opportunities for exploitation. HelpAge's research in Tanzania documented cases where relatives withdrew social protection payments intended for older women without their knowledge because they controlled the access to the mobile phone and payment notifications, so the older women weren't made aware of when these were coming through. But in all honesty, economic abuse is not just about money. It's about power, dignity, autonomy, and control. When an older woman loses control over her income, property, or assets, she loses her choices, her independence, and her ability to make decisions about her own life. And as I mentioned, this increases risk to other forms of violence. So it's not just a protection issue. It is an issue of discrimination, rights, and economic justice. Too often, older women are falling between aging and violence against women frameworks. and remain largely absent from evidence, as was stated earlier, which drives policy and investment. Most violence against women surveys stop at 49. And as a result, the WHO estimates that older women are represented in just 10% of global data on violence against women. When older women are counted, they're often excluded from the policy services and resources intended to protect them. What is also striking is economic abuse is often treated as a private family matter when it in fact it's a human rights issue. The experiences demonstrate how ageism and sexism manifest in practice. Older women may be viewed as less capable of managing money, excluded from financial decisions, deprived of property and inheritance, or treated as dependents rather than right holders. The same stereotypes that devalue older women's contributions can make abuse easier to perpetuate and harder to recognize. So addressing economic abuse requires safeguarding systems that recognize the realities of older women's lives and place them at the center. Violence prevention and response measures must adopt age, gender, and life course perspectives, and older women must be explicitly included within the violence against women laws, policies, and services. as well as the safeguarding systems, rather than falling between the gaps of aging and gender-based violence. So, Ev, I think you asked me what can states do. So, I think I can highlight four priorities, although I'm sure there's lots more. First, they really need to work on safeguarding older women's economic security. Economic security is one of the strongest safeguards against abuse. States should strengthen gender-responsive and age-responsive social protection systems, including pensions. social insurance mechanisms for informal workers, disability benefits and care support fees. They should also protect and uphold women's rights to own, inherit, manage and control land, housing and property, as well as other productive assets, and address inheritance deprivation, property grabbing and other forms of dispossession that can leave older women economically insecure, particularly following widowhood. These rights must also be implemented in practice and supported by accessible legal and justice mechanisms involving multiple stakeholders. States also ensure that older women can safely access and control their own pensions, benefits and financial resources with safeguards against financial exploitation, benefit appropriation and other forms of economic abuse in place. Economic security is not just a social policy issue. It is a violence prevention measure. By reducing financial dependence on others, it can help prevent economic abuse, strengthen older women's autonomy, and make it easier for her to exercise choice, seek support, and escape abusive situations when violence does occur. Second, they must strengthen survivor-centered faith-based protection and access to justice. Economic justice must be explicitly recognized as a form of violence against women and girls. States should ensure that older women can access age-inclusive and survivor-centered support, including legal aid, financial advice, reporting mechanisms, and other protection services. They must be accessible through health, social care, justice, and protection systems, supported by effective referral pathways and community-based support. must also train service providers, as well as financial institutions, justice actors and social workers, to recognize and respond to specific forms of violence, abuse and economic exploitation, and how they manifest in later life. As was said at CSW17, when access to justice is denied, justice is denied. So we know that inclusive and targeted approaches can work. Our work in Moldova has found that many older women experiencing financial abuse had not previously recognized those experiences of violence. Through safe spaces, stronger referral pathways, and improved awareness of rights and services, Women were able to better identify abuse and seek support, with over 95% of those who supported reporting they felt safer from this issue. Thirdly, ensure that violence prevention and response systems and policies include older women. Too often, as we've all said, older women excluded because of violence against women policies, services and evidence are designed primarily around the experience of younger women. As a result, forms of violence that disproportionately affect older women can remain hidden and unaddressed. States should explicitly include the experiences with the violence against women's surveys and safeguarding systems. And finally, support a UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons. And as we said, look at this through an intersectional lens. Existing frameworks have not been sufficient to address the specific ways ageism intersects with sexism. to undermine older women's rights, economic security and freedom from violence. The convention, which takes an intersectional lens, specifically look at older women's experiences with strengthened protection mechanisms against discrimination and reinforce older women's rights. And finally, just importantly, older women must be explicitly recognized and included through an intersectional and life course approach through all of the safeguarding mechanisms. I'll leave it there. Thank you very much and sorry for the disruption.

Thank you very much. We still have time for questions from the audience to one or many of our speakers. So I can take the questions, yes.

Thank you very much. My name is Francis Zinedin, and I'm a member of the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse. I want to thank the Special Rapporteur for this very timely report, especially as she has mentioned that the intergovernmental working group to establish a convention for the protection of the rights of older persons is underway at the moment. And I also want to thank all the speakers and my dear friend Tanvi from HelpAge, and especially the work of HelpAge in all these years on behalf of older persons. So Tanvi, sorry about all the technical difficulties, but we did hear you in the end, and I want to thank you especially for that. I wanted to say that I participated in the 14 sessions of the open-ended Working Group, the General Assembly's open-ended Working Group. to establish a convention for the rights of older persons, which finally led to the decision by the Human Rights Council to start drafting. So I don't know how many people are from member states in this room, but I really urge you to seek the support of your governments to support this incredibly important event on a convention. I wanted to say also that I'm thrilled to see so many younger persons in this room. I know I'm the oldest here, and I really appreciate the younger generation who have shown interest in this issue. because that's one thing for certain, we will all age. And I wanted to suggest that many people here, and especially the young women here, that at the United Nations, whenever issues are discussed about sexual health and reproductive health rights, the issue stops at 49. years of age, because that's the end of the reproductive age of women. And very often, nobody pays any attention to the gynecological issues that older women face, whether it's menopause, what a word, you know, I would love that to be in a General Assembly resolution. And gynecological issues, hysterectomies, breast cancer, that all falls under health, sexual and reproductive rights. And I do urge you to bring that to the attention to all the meetings that you attend. I wanted to ask, I know that the recommendations are addressed to member states and other relevant stakeholders, which means everybody. However, however, I would really love to see a reference to UN intergovernmental bodies because, for instance, the Commission on the Status of Women, it does not often, and I stress often, although there was a focus area this year on older women, but issues concerning older women are not addressed on a regular basis. There again, you know, women don't exist after 49. This is diabolical. So I would really love to see some recommendations addressed to intergovernmental bodies, not just member states alone, not just the Commission on the Status of Women, but the Commission on Population and Development, the Statistical Commission, and then UN bodies. UNFPA focuses on sexual and health and reproductive rights up to the age of 49. There's very, very little reference to older women. And now that the fertility rates are lowering, one would think there should be some emphasis on older persons. I'm not even talking about older women, just older persons. So I would like to make a plea for that. So I just want to thank the Special Rapporteur for this event, which is very, very important, and I look forward to further work being done in this area. Thank you.

Valuable intervention on so many fronts. I completely agree with all the recommendations that you've made, and I hope states and intergovernmental bodies are also taking note of your recommendation. I must say, as a woman that just turned 50, I'm feeling the full consequences of the changes you mentioned, and also the complete lack of information and discussions and services and funds around that, accessing really the health and reproductive services that we need at this stage. I don't know if you know, and this is not as an excuse, but our reports were cut by a thousand words because of the funding crisis. And so it hasn't been possible really to address all the issues that I wanted to raise and include all the recommendations. But hopefully this is the start of a conversation and hopefully also the intergovernmental working group on the convention will also make space to address these concerns. So thank you.

Thank you very much to both. I think it was very helpful to all of us. Do we have more questions or comments? If not for now, then I would ask a question regarding economic violence against older women. So what are the manifestations of this economic violence and could you offer any recommendations on what the state and other stakeholders should do to address it? Because we think it's another very invisible form of violence.

I think Ms. Patel made several very important remarks around that issues. I do agree that the economic dimension to violence against older women is often underestimated and invisible, and also that Economic disadvantages that are accumulated through women's lives are also not sufficiently addressed. Whether we are talking about lower wages, unpaid care work, interrupted employment, the motherhood penalty, which I also spoke about in my report on violence against mothers, unequal access to property, as Ms. Patel mentioned, And the dependency that then is created often becomes a site of violence itself. And so a woman who has no independent income may have no realistic ability to leave an abusive household. I think that applies to women. across the life cycle. And a woman whose pension is controlled by someone else may be also economically imprisoned. And a woman who spent her life providing unpaid care work may reach old age without adequate social protection. So this is why also, as Ms. Patal mentioned, and I agree, and my report treats economic security not as only a welfare issue, but also as a protection against violence issue. I will leave the recommendations to tomorrow because I have not yet presented my report officially. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Do we have more questions or interventions?

If, would you like to make any?

I just think one of the biggest issues for women, especially as they get older, is the loneliness and grief. that comes their way. And it's a significant public policy concern. And I'm not sure government necessarily has the answers for it, but there has to be a cultural or a change where we value older women, we make space for them in our communities, and we make space for the relationships and try to encourage those relationships. So that whether it's intergenerational programs, or we make space in our communities and really try to bring them in and not leave them isolated and alone. And I think that's something that everyone has to recognize, not just governments.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I have one probably final question, but the question I would like to address to all of our speakers, and I would very much appreciate very brief answers to that one. And it's a question related to the, hopefully upcoming document, binding document on the rights of older persons. If you had one recommendation on specific provision regarding older women that must be included in such international instrument, what would that recommendation be? Maybe we can start with our in-person speaker and call, and then we move to our online speakers and the Special Rapporteur.

I think that's a very challenging question. Within the healthcare scope, I would say one of the recommendations that would be important is that women are recognized and spoken to with a chance to speak without being, like that, I guess, the doctors and the individuals around them are really aware of the kind of coercion and abuse that could happen. And for sure, any kind of interview should not happen over the telephone. How can you tell what's going on in the room if you phone a woman and say, do you agree to be euthanized? Like it, that's very problematic. So I think we have to really be sensitive to the coercion that can happen within the, the relationships that the woman is embedded in.

Thank you very much. Sandra, would you like to say something?

I mean, it's a very difficult question to answer, looking especially at the conflict, but if I were to step out of the conflict and look at something that's more sort of at the base of a lot of these structural and social discrimination, I would say, and very similar to what the previous speaker just mentioned, to have a very a very workable recommendation or a very practical recommendation on stereotypes, because I think at the basis of a lot of these structural and social violence or discrimination that accumulates And at the end, when you reach that, that age and you become invisible and you become dispensable, pretty much, I think a lot of it is really part of how, how the society and the community. Things and views and that impacts how people respond. It impacts policy. It impacts how programs are implemented and. and how we respond and act around older women in general, policy-wise. So I would say something very practical on stereotypes would be quite useful. Conflict aside.

And now Tanveer.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

So if I go back to something that we're looking at, it's asking older women themselves what they would like to be mentioned. We really need to look and understand and disaggregate data and get information from older women about their lives and their lived experiences and include that in whatever we're looking at in a convention. And HelpAge has done and is continuing to do consultations with older people in their diversity, with a focus on older women across the globe. And I'd encourage member states to be part of that and work with us and work with others at national level to continue to to advance the rights of older women by listening to them themselves.

Thank you very much. Mr. Shafak, would you like to add something?

I just have two words. Also on my side, I think that increasing education is a key to many issues and also to this one. And through this, increasing information and awareness, but increasing education, I think, is the key words. Thank.

For me, it's very simple, it's to recognize the intersection between sex and age and explicitly include the needs and discrimination older women face based on sex as well.

Thank you very much. If there are no further questions from the audience, I think we can conclude today's discussion. I would like to thank all our speakers for sharing their expertise and experiences. Our discussion today has highlighted how ageism and sexism, as we talked, can combine to leave older women particularly vulnerable to different forms of violence, exploitation, neglect. It has also shown, and it was very visible in all the interventions, the importance of making older women visible in laws, in policies, in data, in services, in all responses designed to protect them. I very much hope that it will contribute to a broader international conversation on state and also society's obligations towards older women. So none of them will feel like a burden, but rather will be appreciated in the experience, uniqueness, and inherent and equal human dignity. Thank you once again to our speakers, our co-sponsors, and all of you for joining us today. Thank you very much. Yes, yes. Yeah. I'm still so Yes. Okay. Thank you.