‘This style of poetry hasn’t come on its own, it’s because of the pressure of the elders that it has acquired the art.’ These lines written by Munawwar Rana hardly fit in today’s society. Forget about respecting the elders of the house, today people are not refraining from harassing them.
Imagine, the situation has become so dire that the United Nations General Assembly had to make people aware about the abuse of the elderly. In fact, in the year 2011, the United Nations General Assembly announced for the first time that World Elder Abuse Awareness Day will be celebrated every year on 15 June.
What happens on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day
Every year the United Nations comes up with a theme for this day and awareness campaigns are run around this theme at various places across the world. This year’s theme is to highlight the elderly in emergency situations. Apart from this, on this day people are also made aware of the rights of the elderly and the youth are told how to behave gently with the elderly in their homes.
elderly being harassed
In the year 2023, an NGO named Agewell Foundation claimed on the basis of a survey conducted on the elderly that two-thirds of the elderly in the country are victims of harassment by their family members. In this survey, the NGO had talked to about 5000 elderly people.
In this survey, 77% of the elderly who talked to the NGO said that they do not know what their human rights are. Many elderly people do not talk openly about the harassment they are facing because they feel that this will create tension in the family.
What HelpAge India’s survey says
In the year 2018, HelpAge India also conducted a survey on the abuse of the elderly. The things that came out in this survey will surprise you. According to this survey, 29 percent of the people believed that taking care of the elderly at home seems like a burden. Whereas, there were 15 percent people who considered this work a huge burden. This survey was conducted in tier one and tier two cities.
This survey also revealed that 25.7 percent people feel angry or irritable towards the elderly in their house. On the other hand, if we talk about giving time to the elderly, 42.5 percent people leave their elderly alone and go away. Whereas, 65 percent people leave their elderly with the care of a maid.
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