Old people are beaten, kicked, burned and stabbed...

WHO: In Europe, 10,000 elderly people are victims of violence every day
UN Radio  

Every year in the countries of the European region of the World Health Organization (WHO), four million elderly people are subjected to physical violence and abuse. Old people are beaten, kicked, burned and stabbed, locked in a room. Experts believe that at least two and a half thousand elderly people per year die at the hands of their family members.

In addition to four million victims of physical violence, another 29 million elderly Europeans are subjected to psychological violence (insults and threats), six million are victims of financial abuse (theft of money and fraud), and another million suffer from sexual violence.

These monstrous data were presented to the participants of the Third European Conference on Injury Prevention and Strengthening Safety, which opened on Thursday in Budapest. The authors of the study of the problem of abuse of older people describe the scale, causes and consequences of this shameful phenomenon, and give an overview of best practices in the field of its prevention.

WHO Regional Director for Europe Zsuzsanna Jakab said she was shocked by the report's findings. According to her, violence destroys the lives of elderly people, undermines their health and morale. Given the rapid pace of aging of the population of the Old World, governments should take measures as soon as possible to curb this growing social problem, stressed the head of the WHO European Bureau.

(The WHO European Region, marked in green on the map, also includes the countries of the former USSR – VM.)

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru17.06.2011