Today, on the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, the Unit for the Victims confirms its responsibility to promote all necessary actions regarding prevention, protection and non-repetition guarantees to protect the victim population older than 60 years.
That is why, in order to avoid rights violation and to enhance their effective enjoyment, the entity uses a differential approach that deals with aging and old age, this is transversal to all the Unit’s actions, which helps understanding that victims are different according to their age. To date, there are 1,446,633 events that have happened to victims who are currently over 60 years included in the Single Victims Registry (RUV in its Spanish acronym).
As of May 31st, 2021, the four victimizing events with the highest rate are forced displacement (64%), followed by homicide (20%), threats (4%) and others (11%).
If we analyze the percentage distribution of older victims by gender, it is found that 50.44% are men and 49.53% are women.
It should be noted that 1,067,580 older people are included in the RUV and that 11.7% of Colombia’s victim population is over 60 years.
Making a consolidate between the years 2000 and 2002, the evidence shows that the largest number of events focused on this population happened during this period. The departments and municipalities with the highest rate are Antioquia: Medellin and Turbo; Bolivar: El Carmen de Bolivar; Magdalena; Valle del Cauca: Buenaventura; Cauca; these represent 45.34% of the national total.
The Unit Improvements
Age generates an additional score in the Humanitarian Assistance Model, determining greater vulnerability and, therefore, prioritizing the allocation and delivery of the Humanitarian Assistance resource because of the victimizing act of forced displacement (women over 57 years and men over 62).
Thus, regarding Humanitarian Assistance for forced displacement victims’ households, from 2012 to May 31st, 2021, 1,727,484 money transfers have been delivered on average per year to more than 128,000 households where the authorized recipient is an older person; this corresponds an investment of $791,996,369,299 COP.
As for Humanitarian Aid for older people who are victims of events other than forced displacement, 40,352 transfers of Humanitarian Aid have been made due to these kind of damages with an investment close to $50 thousand million COP ($49,731,696,632 COP).
Regarding individual reparation, as of May 31st, 2021, 290,766 victims older than 60 have been compensated by administrative means and 2,445 victims of the same age group have been compensated by court order.
Similarly, it is worth mentioning that through April 26th, 2021’s 00582 Resolution, the age of the priority route was reduced from 74 to 68 years, in accordance with the progress in the administrative compensation payment for this population group.
These are just some of the main developments the entity highlights to protect older conflict victims, those older than 60 included in RUV who suffered a victimizing event in the conflict’s context, for whom the Unit for the Victims continues working day by day.
(End/PVR/AVA/RAM)
