The
Abuse of Older Women - The Hidden Crime
Violence against older women was identified as one
of the issues about which OWN would approach the Government of Canada,
urging it to follow through with the commitments it had made in
signing the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and in its own publication,
Setting the Stage for the Next Century: The Federal Plan for Gender
Equality.We have advocated four actions:
-
that the mandate of the National Clearing House on Violence against
Women be continued (discontinuance has been mooted);
-
that, in its social transfer funding arrangements with the provinces,
the Federal Government ensure that support to interval and transitional
houses and second stage housing not be reduced;
-
that there be put in place a national forum on building on the
work already being carried out by the Federal Government’s
own agencies and being undertaken in the provinces and in municipalities;
and
- that
the Federal Government initiate a media campaign to emphasize
that elder abuse of any kind, whether physical, financial, verbal,
or mental, is a reportable crime. (The Government’s Plan
for Gender Equality, p. 406, paras. 208-209, has excellent guidelines
for use in developing a media campaign.) It is of prime importance
that all Canadians be made aware of the nature and scope of this
crime and its remedies.
Post-Beijing Working Group, April 30, 1998
Revised March 1999
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