The Deputy Protector of Citizens for Gender Equality, Jelena Stojanović, said today that the competent authorities should make additional efforts to enable elderly women in the countryside, who are poorly visible and socially excluded, to fully enjoy all guaranteed rights, especially in the fields of social protection and health care.
Stojanović pointed out the need to include a wide range of relevant actors at the national, provincial and local level in solving challenges important for the realization of the rights of particularly sensitive groups, as well as civil society organizations, in order to collect as much concrete data as possible about the position of elderly women in the countryside.
At the conference "Protection of rights of elderly women in the countryside through monitoring the implementation of the Revised European Social Charter", which was organized in Belgrade by the Protector of Citizens, Stojanović announced that next year, this independent institution for the protection of human rights will use customized questionnaires to obtain data from relevant local, provincial and national authorities and organizations that deal with the protection of rights of the elderly women in the countryside, in order to obtain a complete picture of the availability and quality of the provision of the help at home and home treatment services.
The Deputy Protector of Citizens for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Elderly, Slobodan Tomić, indicated that the Protector of Citizens, through citizens' complaints, but also in direct contact with the elderly women in the countryside, observed that there is significant room for improvement of their economic and social position, primarily in exercising their social and health care rights, as well as pension and disability insurance rights.
The ultimate goal is to protect the rights of this particularly sensitive group through reporting on the implementation of the Revised European Social Charter as an instrument that proclaims and encourages the full protection and enjoyment of the rights of the elderly, Tomić said.
The president of the "Strength of Friendship – Amity" association, Nadežda Satarić, pointed out that in addition to poverty, discrimination and violence, the main problems faced by elderly women in the countryside are the lack of special services and support services, as well as difficult access to health care facilities.
Satarić stated that the basic characteristics of the position of elderly women in the countryside are social exclusion, invisibility and a lower level of education and insufficient information about their rights, as well as that the degree of enjoyment of economic rights is very low, although they participate in the creation of economic goods.
Speaking about the normative framework for realizing the economic and social rights of elderly women in the countryside, the professor of the Faculty of Law in Niš, Nevena Petrušić, pointed out that Serbia has ratified a number of international treaties for the protection and promotion of rights of the elderly and that it has a good normative framework, but that the problem arises when it comes to its application.
The representative of the Red Cross of Serbia – HumanaS, Nataša Todorović, spoke about the capacities and the manner of organizing the work of civil society organizations that deal with the protection of rights of the elderly women in the countryside, while the researcher at the Institute for philosophy and social theory, Jelena Ćeriman, spoke about the application of a research approach to monitoring the realization of the economic and social rights of elderly women in the countryside.
The conference was organized as part of the activities to raise awareness about the rights of the second generation of elderly women in the countryside, which the Protector of Citizens is carrying out with the support of the Council of Europe, through the project "Strengthening the capacity of the Protector of Citizens in the protection and promotion of economic and social rights, in accordance with the ratified provisions of the Revised European Social Charter, with a special focus on improving the rights of elderly women in the countryside", in cooperation with the organization "Strength of Friendship – Amity".