Covid made visible in Belgium, as in the rest of Europe, that ageism is embedded in our society as a structural exclusionary mechanism. It informed various policy measures with a disadvantageous impact on older persons. The long lockdown of residential care without considering their voices is an example. The disempowered position of older persons couldn’t long be denied. This was the seed of the initiation of a movement led by well-educated, white, mainly male older persons to advocate for elderly rights. The assumption here is that devoloping elderly rights should guarantee a better position for older adults and avoid age-based discrimination in the future. While it is tempting to believe in the potential universality of elderly rights to guarantee the rights of all older persons, history indicate otherwise. Recent history has shown us that having group-based rights, like women’s rights, is limited, does not reflect the complex reality of a diverse society, and therefore do not guarantee rights for all members of the group. Moreover, these rights are exclusionary for people in intersectional and accumulative vulnerable societal positions, like older migrants. This is why I wrote a chapter in the book “Ongehoord Ongezien” advocating for caution in engaging with concepts as human rights and advocating for critical building blocks to work towards inclusive elderly rights.
Elderly rights as a concept can seemingly imply universality. This is dominated by the idea that these rights would apply to all older people, just as has long been thought of in the case of women’s rights and human rights. The assumption is that these rights effectively guarantee the rights of all women and people and thus also older people. However, there is growing criticism of that approach because it does not appear to match the reality in which many women, people (and older adults) live. The mismatch between conceptualisation and implementation of women’s rights on the one hand and the failure to guarantee the rights of women of color on the other led to the emergence of the concept of ‘intersectionality’ 30 years ago (Crenshaw, 1989).
It is no different with universal human rights. In both examples, ignoring the normative nature in the conceptualisation of those rights is at the root. In doing so, one often starts from a one-sided framework that does not consider the complexity of the reality of many marginalized and racialised groups and adopts a dominant norm that is assumed to be universally applicable. Awareness of a reality that challenges this universality led to the introduction of lenses such as ‘intersectional universality’ or ‘intersectional discrimination’ to strive for inclusiveness in ensuring human rights for all. These two concepts are discussed in the chapter.
As the recent history of human rights has established its pseudo universality, it is key to adopt a critical and inclusive approach in the development process of elderly rights. An approach that better matches the complex reality of a society with an increasing diversity among its older population. To guarantee rights for all older people, it is necessary to be aware of exclusionary blind spots in the conceptualisation, shaping and application phases of this process. It is therefore important to be aware that there are degrees of exclusion that older people face. Moreover, various older persons, like racialized older migrants, face intersectional discrimination and the convergence of structural exclusionary mechanisms such as ageism and racism. This also means breaking free from the culturalistic narrative about older migrants and shifting attention to the accumulative and intersectional exclusionary power mechanisms and systems affecting these older people.
This text is a summary of a book chapter titled Inclusieve ouderenrechten in een diverse samenleving which is published in the book Ongehoord en ongezien: hoe Vlaanderen vergrijst. (2023) Eds. Vrancken, De Decker, Verté & Crevit. Gompel & Svacina
Both the summary and the book chapter are written by ENIEC member Dr. Saloua Berdai Chaouni.
You can buy the book from Gompel and Svacina
