GENEVA – Older women around the world face violence, exploitation and neglect, yet remain largely invisible in laws, policies, data and services designed to protect women from violence and older persons’ rights, a UN expert said today.
Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, called for urgent action by States to ensure that women’s rights to live free from violence does not diminish with age, in her latest report to the UN General Assembly.
“Women should not lose their right to live free from violence because they grow older,” Alsalem said. “Too often, ageism and sexism combine to make violence against older women invisible, tolerated or treated as an inevitable part of ageing.”
An estimated 664 million women were aged 60 or older in 2025, a number projected to reach 1.13 billion by 2050. Alsalem’s report examines violence against older women as a distinct and intersectional forms of violence arising from the interaction of sex-based discrimination, ageism and inequalities accumulated throughout women’s lives.
“Older women are rights holders, knowledge bearers and active members of society. Their age must never be used to diminish their dignity, autonomy or protection,” the expert said.
The report identifies physical, psychological, sexual and economic violence, as well as coercive control, neglect, abandonment and technology-facilitated violence. It outlines that older women may face exploitation of pensions and property, digital exclusion, denial of healthcare or assistive devices and barriers to reporting and justice, and notes that violence can occur in homes, communities, care institutions, prisons and crisis and conflict settings. The report emphasises that older women may be excluded from services and data, while sexual violence against them remains under-recognised.
Alsalem found that widows, migrant and stateless women, rural women, women with disabilities, women in institutional care and women affected by conflict and humanitarian crises are particularly at risk.
The Special Rapporteur highlighted decisions concerning medical treatment and the end of life. “Where an older woman is living with poverty, disability, isolation or dependence on others for care, we must be attentive to the pressures that can shape the choices available to her. No woman should be made to feel that her continued life is a burden simply because she has reached an advanced age or requires support,” she said.
Alsalem urged States to explicitly recognise and address violence against older women in laws, national strategies and violence prevention and response programmes, collect age- and sex-disaggregated data, strengthen accessible reporting, protection, justice and redress and ensure training for law enforcement, judicial, health and social service professionals. She called for stronger social protection, pensions, housing, healthcare, palliative and care services and measures to prevent economic exploitation and isolation.
