Abused, abandoned, neglected: A law protects senior citizens in India, but not many k

With the erosion of socio, economic and value system among the citizen, it has become necessary for the Government to rescue elders by enactment of ‘Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.

Know more about it.

Abused, abandoned, neglected: A law protects senior citizens in India, but not many know of it


"Abuse can be verbal, physical and emotional. It can be neglect, disrespect and abandonment."

"Our financial dependence on our son and daughter-in-law has turned us into their servants."- Ramanna*, 68, Bengaluru.

"My own Nephews beat me so brutally that I couldn’t move out of bed for 7 days."- Gautam Das*, 62, Kolkata.

"I don’t receive a word of love or affection." - Dayavati*, 72, Hyderabad.
"At my son’s place, I am given just two chapattis in a day." - Mansi Devi*, 60, Delhi.

These stirring accounts, published in a report by HelpAge India, an organisation that works for the welfare of senior citizens, is reflective of a larger and deeper problem that senior citizens in the country face today - elder abuse.

There are over 100 million senior citizens - individuals over the age of 60 - in India. A 2014 survey conducted by HelpAge India found that 50% of the elderly surveyed, including 48% men and 52% women, reported suffering abuse.

The main abusers, it found, were daughters-in-law, followed by sons and daughters. The reasons for abuse were mostly emotional and economic dependence of the victims on the abusers.

Just recently, the Delhi High Court passed an order stating that adults who live in their parents' house and abuse them can be evicted from the property.

"Abuse can be verbal, physical and emotional. It can be neglect, disrespect and abandonment," says Rekha Murthy, Karnataka Head of HelpAge India.
The organisation receives scores of calls from senior citizens on its helpline, but most of those who report abuse are reluctant to file a complaint.

"Many people don't report it because of fear of retaliation. Plus they don't want to complain about their children or project the family in a bad light. They think it is a natural part of growing old," she adds.

Law

But what is even more concerning is that not many are aware of a law that protects senior citizens from abuse and abandonment - the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007.

The Act was enacted "to provide for more effective provisions for the maintenance and welfare of parents and senior citizens, guaranteed and recognized under the Constitution and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto."

The Act states that parents and grandparents who are unable to maintain themselves from their own earning can seek maintenance from their children.

Read more at: http://www.thenewsminute.com/articl...-senior-citizens-india-not-many-know-it-59099

There are various organization in this sphere.
We have been actively involved with an organization in India:
http://www.dignityfoundation.com/
This law is well known to many in this organization as they help elders.
Unfortunately it is difficult to enforce. The social stigma is such that elders do not want to press charges. The police is very reluctant as the parents refuse to cooperate.

This is most cruel condition for the aged people in many communities and Countries. If you visit the holi Vrindavan you can see thousands of widows of various age groups mainly from Bengal clad in white sitting in rows in the lanes bsgging. Most inhuman treatment meted out to women by us.Recently BBC carried a documentary on these unfortunate ladies.
Mother Thearsa gave dignity to thousands of such aged and sick to die with dignity.
Brahmanyan
Bangalore.

Brahmanyan said:

This is most cruel condition for the aged people in many communities and Countries. If you visit the holi Vrindavan you can see thousands of widows of various age groups mainly from Bengal clad in white sitting in rows in the lanes bsgging. Most inhuman treatment meted out to women by us.Recently BBC carried a documentary on these unfortunate ladies.
Mother Thearsa gave dignity to thousands of such aged and sick to die with dignity.
Brahmanyan
Bangalore.

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Do these widows have close family members that have abandoned them? Or they are destitute with no real relations?
Older people may have a sense of entitlement that their children owe their existence to them. That could alienate some but to be left alone to beg is cruel.

tks said:

Do these widows have close family members that have abandoned them? Or they are destitute with no real relations?
Older people may have a sense of entitlement that their children owe their existence to them. That could alienate some but to be left alone to beg is cruel.

Click to expand...

It is the family that makes them destitute and kicks then out of their home. Some of the widows are very young.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859622

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/widows-of-vrindavan/article6432205.ece

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/05/damon.india.widows/index.html

In drawing attention to the plight of the widows of Vrindavan, the BJP’s Member of Parliament from Mathura, Hema Malini, got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Many of the Vrindavan widows are without any means of sustenance, and forced to beg to supplement their meagre earnings from singing bhajans. But the solution thought up by the actor-turned-politician was for the widows to go to temples in their home-States, and not take the train to Mathura. On a visit to Mathura, she had this to say: “If they are not from here, then there is no need for them to come here from other States. There are many famous temples in Bengal and Bihar where they can stay.” The way she saw the situation, Vrindavan had a problem with the widows, a problem that would go away if only destitute widows from other places stayed away. But in the first place, the destitute widows ended up in Vrindavan because they had no other place to go. Many of them were abandoned by their families, and they would be worse off in any other town or village. It is not religion but poverty that forced them to Vrindavan. Their problems would not vanish if they left Vrindavan or stayed at home.

The poor conditions of the Vrindavan widows recently came to the attention of the Supreme Court, which called for adequate food and improved hygienic conditions in the shelters housing them. The widows of Vrindavan need urgent help, but the last thing they want is their elected representative to push for their eviction rather than providing them some relief and dignity.

What has the BJP government done for them? They were treated as political football during the election and then discarded.

I am sure some members will be offended because I am an NRI. They may agree with the message as it is factual but will disagree with the messenger. That is their way of hiding from facts.

Brahmanyan said:

This is most cruel condition for the aged people in many communities and Countries. If you visit the holi Vrindavan you can see thousands of widows of various age groups mainly from Bengal clad in white sitting in rows in the lanes bsgging. Most inhuman treatment meted out to women by us.Recently BBC carried a documentary on these unfortunate ladies.
Mother Thearsa gave dignity to thousands of such aged and sick to die with dignity.
Brahmanyan


Bangalore.

Click to expand...

Here is a link to that BBC show.
Oh-Oh you sir are ........, how do you dare to praise a Christian, foreigner, women. (tongue-in-cheek).:drama:

prasad1 said:

It is the family that makes them destitute and kicks then out of their home. Some of the widows are very young.

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What has the BJP government done for them? They were treated as political football during the election and then discarded.

I am sure some members will be offended because I am an NRI. They may agree with the message as it is factual but will disagree with the messenger. That is their way of hiding from facts.

Click to expand...

Sri Prasad,

Thanks for the links and clarification.

I think the representatives that ran on this issue should be held accountable to address the problem. It is a complex problem and handouts is not the answer. What people want is a dignity of living all over the world. If there is a way to make these widows more independent by teaching them a trade that will be the best that can happen.

Now my comments regarding the bolded part. My apologies for this digression and we can get back to the main message

============ digression ======================

There are few members whose posts exhibit a narrow minded view of the world that divide people into groups. It arises from the thinking that they have not succeeded in their lives and that somehow NRIs have it all or something. So they find ways to talk ill of NRI posts. Clear thinking people can only sympathize with such thinking and ignore such posts.

Globalization is not a concept anymore. This site itself is hosted in America using many of the software innovations of the west which has been realized by people from all over the world including Indias/ NRIs. This site runs by ad revenue (thanks to our ingenious forum owner who created this opportunity) and that revenue comes from the west as well.

If I were running the forum, I would ban any members who disparage others with their hate messages even tangentially because the forum benefits by having people participate from all over the world. Such a participation happens when critiques are based on content of a message and not on the messenger and their status (NRI for example)

Many of these narrow minded views come from a 'frog in the well' mentality' and most such people are not very knowledgeable about the abundance mind set taught in our scriptures. My suggestion is to ignore such posters and move on.


================================end of digression =========

tks said:

Sri Prasad,

Thanks for the links and clarification.

I think the representatives that ran on this issue should be held accountable to address the problem. It is a complex problem and handouts is not the answer. What people want is a dignity of living all over the world. If there is a way to make these widows more independent by teaching them a trade that will be the best that can happen.

Now my comments regarding the bolded part. My apologies for this digression and we can get back to the main message

============ digression ======================

There are few members whose posts exhibit a narrow minded view of the world that divide people into groups. It arises from the thinking that they have not succeeded in their lives and that somehow NRIs have it all or something. So they find ways to talk ill of NRI posts. Clear thinking people can only sympathize with such thinking and ignore such posts.

Globalization is not a concept anymore. This site itself is hosted in America using many of the software innovations of the west which has been realized by people from all over the world including Indias/ NRIs. This site runs by ad revenue (thanks to our ingenious forum owner who created this opportunity) and that revenue comes from the west as well.

If I were running the forum, I would ban any members who disparage others with their hate messages even tangentially because the forum benefits by having people participate from all over the world. Such a participation happens when critiques are based on content of a message and not on the messenger and their status (NRI for example)

Many of these narrow minded views come from a 'frog in the well' mentality' and most such people are not very knowledgeable about the abundance mind set taught in our scriptures. My suggestion is to ignore such posters and move on.


================================end of digression =========

Click to expand...

.
Thanks.


All problems in India (or any other place) is much more complicated than it appears. It is easy to highlight a problem, but very difficult to solve it. We as general public neither have the skill or resources to solve these issues.

There are concerted efforts by some organizations, I do not know how efficient and effective their efforts are. My niece works with some of them, but I do not have any statistics to share.

http://barusahib.org/our-programs/home-for-widows-destitute/


https://www.impactguru.com/daan-utsav-maitri

Deepa Mehta’s 2005 film Water gave a sensitive portrayal of the widows with the story set in Varanasi of 1938.

It’s not that that the city has not done anything at all. There are several ashrams that have tried to help but with minimal governmental support or intervention, supporting the widows has been an uphill task. In the year 2012, a publication broke a story of inhuman disposal of the bodies of widows living in government shelters in Varanasi.Successive state governments have consistently ignored the plight of these widows that do not represent a vote bank for politicians and it has taken the Supreme Court to intervene and instruct the state government to step up support of medical aid and material support for the widows. Charitable organisations and civil societies have been struggling to raise financial support for the widows.

The government offers a paltry Rs. 50 per month for medical help, which is grossly inadequate.For a developing country like India, raising resources to set up a fund to support such widows in cities like Varanasi and Vrindavan should not be a major challenge. The problem lies with the fact that we have an uncaring society and an uncaring government, and nobody wants to take up the initiative or responsibility to step in. The local administration is over-stressed handling various other issues, with very little resources at its command, and it’s left to the initiative of NGOs and other private institutions to do whatever they can.

Institutions like Sulabh International have stepped in with some good work and are trying to cope up with the challenge but that is not enough. The state government cannot abdicate its responsibility and must give due priority to this segment of society that has suffered for centuries.

It’s time for the entire society to stand up and lend a hand.So while the city of Varanasi, much ignored by the nation so far, comes under the spot light, will Narendra Modi rise up to the occasion and address the issue? It still is his constituency, isn’t it?

http://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/cities/destitute-widows-of-varanasi

“In India widows are treated as untouchables,” says Bindeshwar Pathak, the founder of Sulabh International, a Delhi-based nonprofit. Sulabh helps around a thousand widows in Vrindavan and Varanasi, giving them a monthly allowance of $31, as well as health care assistance. Sulabh is also working on a draft bill, which it hopes to table in Parliament next year. The draft suggests a monthly pension for abandoned and destitute widows and to make their eviction from either their parental or husband’s house a punishable crime. “They have to give up every thing … and live a life of isolation,” says Pathak. “That it is happening even today is a huge shame.”
There is the 2007 Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act that makes it an offense for children to abandon their parents, but many of India’s 40 million widows are not aware of their rights under it, and the act provides for only relatively mild penalties (three months jail or a fine not exceeding $100).
“Women fear exercising their rights because they do not want to be branded a bad woman, a bad mother,” says Singh. “We would love to ensure that each of these women live a dignified life, but the magnitude of the problem is depressing.”
For many, there is nothing to do but contemplate the injustice of what has happened to them, with religion of little or no comfort. “I came to Vrindavan looking for my god,” Dasi says, her voice quavering with emotion. “Instead I have become a beggar.”

http://world.time.com/2013/10/07/if-youre-an-indian-widow-your-children-could-kick-you-out-and-take-everything/