Orville Taylor | Elderly abuse: No different from child abuse

Like one of those other days, we are celebrating Father’s Day. And as much as it is highlighted as one of the lesser holidays for fathers, bearing in mind the narratives, there is yet another significance of today.

We might wish to argue as to whether or not being a father or senior citizen is more important, but the only way to avoid being a senior citizen as a father is to die young. On June 15 we commemorate World Elder Abuse Awareness Day.

Trust me, the solution is pretty simple. If we accept the adage ‘once a man, twice a child’; then senior citizens need exactly the same kind of protection. In 2005 we saw a modification of the Maintenance Act, which reinforced a moral custom that children, biological or otherwise who might have been raised by an individual, have a legal responsibility to care for such parents.

Notwithstanding that, there are areas within the legislative framework which are seriously lacking. For example, much of the abuse of senior citizens takes place behind closed doors. In a country which does not have a strong culture of putting senior citizens in homes, most of the abuse that takes place is in the very domicile and often by either their progenies, grandchildren, or in other scenarios, individuals engaged inside the household.

Like so many other cases, the abuse of the elderly is often unreported. Globally, one of every six seniors has experienced abuse. You can bet that they are significantly higher. My suspicion is that the numbers for Jamaica might be lower, because we have a culture where the tri-generational household is the majority; not the caricatured single mother and children.

One sole case of abuse is too many. My consistent cry against violence, whether physical or otherwise, is that it is infinitely worse when perpetrated against someone who is weaker or more vulnerable. Thus, for that reason gender-based violence, repulses, not simply because the victim is most likely a woman. Rather, because she is more probably smaller, weaker and less able to defend herself. Therefore, if it is a teenager beating up an infant, adult women pummelling a girl, or in the current scenario, a female caregiver beating up a frail male patient, with dementia, it is one and the same.

True, most cases of violence in the society, in particular homicide, are young men killing young men, and invariably this 70 per cent of both victims and perpetrators are people who know each other and often grew up generally, in the same communities.

Notwithstanding that, horrific things do happen to the elderly. Remember, the majority of our senior citizens live with their relatives. On the whole, we love our grandparents. Many of us have fond memories of Grandpa, smoking his pipe, sipping a harsh drink of ‘turkey vulture’s anus’ and either giving us some sound or advice or ludicrous stories about ‘one time long time.’

However, it is grandma who is the focal point and we love her. Often disquieted by her affectionate reference to what sounds like her intimate parts, we dared not smirk when she asked, “Yu harty, mi tuntun?” of course, Grampa has no equivalent, but thankfully he spoke in a different ‘tone’.

There is no pandemic, because the minority of us do not abuse our elderly. But some do and other victims simply are in need of care and protection. Around 21 per cent of households are men living alone. This includes seniors, who cannot take care of themselves.

A post plantation male personality does not typically want to be nursed. Having a strange woman examining one’s physically secreted parts, might seem appealing to a young man, who is just putting the red letter ‘L’ on his trousers. However, a man, accustomed to doing things for himself suffers great ignominy, even if the caregiver is loving.

Unfortunately, within institutions for the aged, there are some administrators and workers, who unmount their brooms outside in the car park, and visit untold grief on the patients. A whistle-blower once was pointing out a culprit and when I asked “witch one?” he said, “see it deh!”.

Given the general scrutiny that these residential homes for the elderly get from the Jamaica Council for Senior Citizens, Ministry of Health and other governmental bodies, the abuse, while not completely preventable, is more easily detectable, because the agents have free access according to law.

On the other hand, right in their houses, abuse comes in several form. It goes without saying that the most extreme would be the physical beatings. Yet, the abuse can also be psychological where the victims are excoriated and terrible things said to them, completely robbing them of their dignity.

Still, there is also financial or economic abuse, where relatives take advantage of their diminishing capacity, whether mental or physical, to deprive them of their wealth or property. Indeed, some of the devil’s children, masquerading as humans, even steal these people’s pensions. All of this takes place in the one place on earth where they should feel safe; their home.

Given the adage above about being twice a child, we ought to have a legislative framework, that reflects it. To the best of my knowledge, there is no statute which binds an innocent bystander, to an obligation to report any infraction related to the aged.

Our Child Care and Protection Act places a punishable obligation on the shoulders of every adult, to report cases, where there is the belief that a child is being abused. This duty is so omnibus, that not even attorneys, who discover the nasty deed from their client’s own mouth, can claim client privileges.

Like the Maintenance Act, which forces offspring to mind their parents, we need laws to allow us to ‘fass’ in our neighbour’s business if we believe that ‘Gangang’ is being ill-treated.

True, it takes a village to raise a child; but it takes a nation to protect the generation who helped to build it.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.