The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) is seking a legal framework to ensure welfare and protection of the rights and wellbeing of the elderly in the society.
Executive Secretary of the Commission, Tony Ojukwu, said
this in the Adamawa State capital, Yola, at the review meeting of a project
monitoring the rights of internally displaced people (IDPs) as being
co-implemented by the NHRC and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno states
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Addressing newsmen in Yola in the course of the four-day End
of Year Review/Training Meeting of the Project, the NHRC Executive Secretary
said the society owes it as a duty to protect the elderly, whether they are
IDPs or people living regular lives.
“We propose that there should be adequate legal framework
for the elderly,” he said, explaining that although in Africa, old people are
usually taken care of by family members, “we feel that time has come to give
them special place in our statutes.”
He said this has become imperative “owing to impoverishment
of families, effects of urbanisation, as well as reduction in the role and
relevance of elders in communities where they used to function like consultants
and were appreciated as such.”
According to him, such factors are affecting the care that
the elderly receive from their relations and the communities, hence the need to
make special provision for them.
“Having served their youthful years for the good of society,
society owes them intervention,” he said, adding, “We feel they could be helped
with what we call Lifelong learning and lifelong care.”
Officials of the NHRC and those of the UNHCR as well as
project monitors were in Yola for the End of Year Review/Training Meeting of
the NHRC/UNHRC IDP/Protection Monitoring Project to review the execution of the
project in 2019 and to make recommendations to improve the project in the
coming year.
The NHRC Executive Secretary Tony Ojukwu, explained that the project entailed ensuring that people displaced from their homes by Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa live in reasonable comfort either in IDPs camps or with relatives, adding that the project succeeded in the outgoing year at reducing incidence of human rights abuses of IDPs.
Source: The Nation