In 2021, the Office of Domestic Violence (OVD) of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation handled a total of 804 complaints from older people affected by acts of domestic violence.
The number of complaints, according to the survey, “represents 35% more than in 2020”, for which a total of 2,226 protection measures, reported the OVD.
The OVD indicated that of these cases “women represented 79% of the victims”, while two thirds of them correspond to people between 60 and 74 years of age and the rest to people older than that age group.
The data is contained in the OVD report titled “Older people affected by situations of violence. Year 2021“, which recorded that 80% of the complaints were made by the affected people themselves.
According to the report “half of older people suffered mistreatment by their children, a proportion that increased among those affected over 75 years of age” and “56% of the victims cohabited with the person denounced at the time of the presentation”.
He added that “six out of 10 people affected suffered daily or weekly violence” and “119 people were found to have some form of disability,” while the majority of “main aggressors”, almost two thirds, were men and “71% were between 22 and 59 years of age.
He specified that “they registered different types of violence: psychological (in 97% of cases), environmental (49%), physical (46%), symbolic (42%) and economic-patrimonial (38%), among others”, and a high percentage against people over 75 years in a “high or very high risk” situation.
Between the “protective measures” dicted by civil justice, the prohibitions of approach and contact prevailed (470 and 454 cases, respectively), alert devices (209) and 173 orders of exclusion from the home of the reported persons.
It was noted that this June 15 is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly.
The sources consulted recalled that the Inter-American Convention on the Protection of the Human Rights of Older Persons, ratified by Argentina (Law 27,630), obliges the State to guarantee the rights and freedoms of older persons through legislative, administrative, judicial and of any other nature, in order to provide adequate access to justice.
