HRC41 - NB8 statement - Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women
41st session of the Human Rights Council
NORDIC – BALTIC STATEMENT
Delivered by Lithuania
Annual full-day discussion on the human rights of women
Panel 2: The rights of older women and their economic empowerment
28 June 2019
Madam High Commissioner, Madam Vice-President, Distinguished Panellists,
I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the Nordic and Baltic countries [Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Sweden and my own country, Lithuania].
We thank the organisers of this panel discussion as it provides us opportunity to dedicate our attention to the rights of older women and to highlight the issue, which despite its importance, is very often forgotten.
Population ageing is a global trend that will affect all regions in the world, both developed and developing countries. Facing this demographic shift, we need to be able to adequately adapt and ensure the protection of older persons’ human rights.
We already see that older persons, despite broad consensus on their high vulnerability, are very often overlooked in the national and international legislation and policymaking, which leads to limited and fragmented response to the older persons’ human rights situation. Older women’s rights are even more disregarded.
Intrinsic gender inequalities and discrimination against women lead to a situation where women’s rights are disproportionally affected by ageing. Women in old age are more vulnerable not only to violence and abuse, but to economic hardship and more likely to live in poverty. [KL1] also to economic hardship and more likely to live in poverty. Discrimination, as well as pay gap persist into older age and strike with a cumulative impact, due to which older women tend to have lower income and social benefits, such as lack of affordable health care. Moreover, research shows [KL2]that older women are spending twice as much time as older men on unpaid work, while providing care for their children, spouses/partners or elderly parents and relatives. In some countries, older women spend more than four hours a day on unpaid work – more than double the time older men spend on the same activities. Yet, this unpaid work usually remains unrecognized and older women remain marginalised and disadvantaged. Despite the fact that women’s economic empowerment has been increasingly receiving the needed attention from the international community, especially since the adoption of SDGs, the older women’s rights in practice are invisible to policymakers, both at national and global levels.
We would be interested to hear the views of the panellists: what could be done to increase the visibility of issues that older women face?
I thank you.