Realising the Rights of the Senior Citizens: An International Human Rights Law Perspective

Abstract

The senior citizens throughout the world face the maximum challenges, abuse and discrimination restricting the realization of their human rights and thus, categorizing them into the vulnerable groups. Ageing is a natural phenomenon yet the aged population are traditionally concerned as burden and problems because they are nonfunctional, non-productive and non-active. Amongst the vulnerable groups, the United Nations has time to time recognized and revised the human rights pertaining to women, children, migrant workers and persons with disabilities but negligible focus has been given on the rights of the senior citizens as a distinct category concerning their deserving rights, extraordinary care and protection under the ambit of human rights law. Even though the rights of the senior citizens have been neglected but over few years they have become a popular agenda of professional media, NGOs and certain States which have pushed United Nations to identify the special rights, care and protection of the senior citizens in the international scenario. However, they are not adequate; reforms and revisions are yet to follow. Due to decline in mortality rate and longer life expectancy there has been an unprecedented growth in the world’s senior citizen’s population thereby making their group a more prominent one wherein realization of their human rights becomes inevitable. This paper intends to focus on the plight of the senior citizens from their jeopardized rights so that they get the spotlight and priority both from the national and international scenario in their generic framework. This paper would mainly focus on the contributions of the senior citizens and their rights by the virtue of being a human. It will examine the key features of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older Persons and other instruments that compromises the care and protection and the rights of the senior citizens both in the international as well as national scenario. And finally, it will evaluate the gaps and discuss the optimistic contemporary attitude to describe old age as a productive category, rather than being a burden, with a new social meaning and positive attitude.