Every third elderly person suffers misbehaviour, mistreatment in Delhi-NCR, claims NGO study

Every third elderly person suffers misbehaviour or mistreatment in Delhi and neighbouring cities, according to a new study an NGO has claimed.

Agewell Foundation in a statement on Wednesday said, it conducted a national-level survey for the fifth session of Open-ended Working Group on Ageing (OEWG) for the purpose of strengthening the protection of the human rights of older persons which will be held on July 31 and August 1 at the UN Headquarters in New York.

The OEWG is a UN working group that meets in New York. It was established by a resolution at the 2010 General Assembly.

"The survey sample respondents included 8,000 elderly people from Delhi-NCR and concluded that out of 2,743 affected elderly respondents, 985 persons ranked misbehaviour as the most common form of abuse of elders," the NGO said in the statement.

According to a study, this is the "most common" form of abuse of elders in the region.

"Population aging is a worldwide phenomenon, and India is no exception. Indian population has approximately tripled during the last 50 years, but the number of elderly Indians (above 60 years) has increased more than four-fold.

"The 2011 census has shown that the elderly population (60 years) of India accounted for 98.3 million, which was projected to cross the 100 million mark during the same year," it said.

Agewell Foundation is a not-for-profit NGO, working for the welfare and empowerment of older persons across the country since 1999.

Agewell has set up a two-tier network of over 7,500 primary and 80,000 secondary volunteers spread across 640 districts of India and interacts with over 25,000 older persons on daily basis through its volunteers' network, according to the NGO.

It has been granted Associate NGO status by Department of Public Information, United Nations (UN-DPI), it said.