It's time to end mistreatment of our elderly persons

An elderly couple. [iStockphoto]

This year's theme for International Day of Older Persons is 'Fulfilling the promises of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for older persons: Across Generations.' With this theme in mind, it is evident that to this date, the rights of old people have been downplayed.

For a long time, a number of them have suffered in the hands of relatives, neighbours and caregivers. They have been considered a burden.

With the changing times, it seems that for most families, home and work schedules have become harder to adjust to. As a result, most elderly people have been abandoned by their own children who live in cities. Visiting requires that one takes home shopping and money; but some people can barely afford the hard life in the cities.

Loneliness begins to pop its ugly head since most of them have lost their age mates, spouses and neighbours to death. Those are the people that would offer help to say the least. Today's society seems not to respect the elderly. Learning from one tear-jerking incident in Kisii County, where some of old people were burnt to death over suspicions that they were witches, makes one wonder what ails our society.

Old age comes with a tonne of health issues. Majority of the elderly suffer from mental issues like dementia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic illnesses like cancer, among others. This requires them to be well taken care of. However, society has normalised neglect of old parents by some children pay back for how badly they were treated as children. Others tend to hire caregivers, most of whom have no background in care giving. This job is not for the faint-hearted. Most caregivers easily get frustrated and end up releasing their anger on the elderly. They mistreat these geriatrics, making their sunset days short and painful.

In many instances, real life stories of how poorly the old are treated have been shared, but nothing really done to make them comfortable. At old age it is understandable that bodies become generally weak and so, soiling oneself should not be frowned upon. However, you will discover that most of the elderly are punished for messing their clothes.

On the flip side, there are older people who are still very strong but are discriminated against due to their age. They are denied their rights to work and participate in communal activities. Some of them need to work in order to take care of their grandchildren. Denying them this right brews financial problems.

In some situations, the elderly need jobs to try and regain what they lost. Some may have poorly invested during their youth, some lost their properties during the 2007/2008 post-election violence hence became IDPs, some of their lands were grabbed by relatives leaving them with no one to fight for what is rightfully theirs and others who need and qualify for stipend for the elderly are attacked and robbed.

With these challenges mushrooming every day, it is necessary to create more conducive homes for the homeless or the abandoned senior citizens through concerted efforts like fundraisers. We also need campaigns against mistreatment of old people. This way, it will be easier for them to live decently in spite of their various struggles. As a result, these golden agers will see to it that no curse ensues us.

Ms Tanui is a journalist