The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has requested the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to organise a public consultation on older people’ s rights as a contribution to a thorough analysis of the state of protection of older people’s rights in law and in practice. In preparation of the consultation that will take place on 15 April in Geneva, the OHCHR is gathering views from various stakeholders in older to inform the discussions from a substantive and pragmatic perspective. In order to reflect the views of older people in this debate AGE will submit a contribution from the European perspective. The request is in principle country specific, so AGE’s contribution will be based on information gathered by our members, highlighting the state-of-the-art across EU countries and summarizing regional trends. We therefore rely on the experience of AGE members to inform us on the challenges that older people face and to what extent these are addressed at the national level.
In particular, we wish to receive information on:
1. The main challenges related to promotion and protection of the human rights of older persons at the country level.
2. Constitutions or legislation explicitly forbidding discrimination on the basis of old age, and on the existence of specific bodies which protect against age discrimination or are mandated to protect and promote the rights of older persons.
3. Specific national legislation, national policies, strategies and plans of action adopted to ensure the equal enjoyment of rights by older persons, particularly in the areas of prevention and protection against violence and abuse, social protection, food and housing, employment, legal capacity, access to justice, health support, long-term and palliative care.
AGE members are kindly requested to provide input on the above issues sending this template to Nena Georgantzi by March 1st 2013, in order to be included in our answer to the OHCHR. Older people’s organizations and other interested stakeholders are also encouraged to submit their views directly to the OHCHR, which can act as shadow reports to the information provided by Member States and governmental agencies, sending an email to Christian Courtis, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (e-mail: registry@ohchr.org, cc: Nena Georgantzi, Legal & Research Officer.
