UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls Reem Alsalem on Thursday called for stronger protections for older women, warning that ageism and sex discrimination continue to leave violence, exploitation and neglect largely invisible in laws, policies and support systems.
Her report A/81/133, entitled “Violence against older women”, highlighted persistent gaps in legal protection, data collection and access to justice for older women.
The warning comes as the number of older women is rapidly increasing worldwide. UN demographic data shows that 664 million women were aged 60 or older in 2025, up from 337 million in 2000, with the figure projected to reach 1.13 billion by 2050. Women also account for 62 percent of people aged 80 and above, making the intersection between ageing and gender increasingly significant for social-protection and justice systems.
Alsalem’s report treats violence against older women as a distinct form of intersecting discrimination rather than simply an extension of violence experienced earlier in life. It identifies physical, psychological, sexual and economic abuse, as well as coercive control, neglect, abandonment and technology-facilitated violence. Older women may also face exploitation of pensions or property, denial of healthcare and assistive devices, digital exclusion and barriers to reporting abuse. Widows, migrant and stateless women, women with disabilities, rural women and those living in institutions face heightened risks.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that roughly one in six people aged 60 and above experienced abuse in community settings in 2020, while research on violence against women has often excluded older age groups or failed to disaggregate findings sufficiently by age. Alsalem said this lack of data contributes to older women being overlooked in prevention programmes and justice responses.
International law already provides some protection. In 2010, the CEDAW Committee adopted General Recommendation No. 27 specifically addressing older women, recognizing that discrimination accumulated over a lifetime can intensify in old age and calling on states to protect their dignity, autonomy, health, property rights and access to justice.
In April 2025, the UN Human Rights Council adopted Resolution 58/13 without a vote, creating an intergovernmental working group to begin drafting a legally binding international instrument on the rights of older persons. OHCHR has said existing international protections remain inadequate because many human-rights instruments do not expressly prohibit age-based discrimination and older persons remain underrepresented in international monitoring mechanisms.
Unlike women, children and persons with disabilities, older persons do not yet have a dedicated universal human-rights convention. Concerns over that gap date back decades, including the 2002 Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and subsequent UN processes addressing discrimination, poverty, healthcare and social exclusion among older persons.
Alsalem urged states to explicitly recognize violence against older women in domestic legislation and national strategies, collect better age- and sex-disaggregated data and ensure that police, courts, shelters, healthcare and reporting mechanisms are accessible to older women. She also called for stronger pensions, housing, care services and social protection to reduce economic dependence that can increase vulnerability to abuse.
The report arrives as negotiations over a new international instrument on older persons advance, giving states an opportunity to address protections that are currently spread across different treaties and policy frameworks. The developing treaty process will now determine whether age-based discrimination, violence, autonomy, care and access to justice receive explicit and enforceable international standards.
