Sep 13, 2026
October 2026 may mark
a pivotal moment in the global fight for equality and human
rights for older persons. On 1st October the world
observes the International Day of Older Persons under the
theme “The Age of Longevity: Rethinking Systems for Longer
Lives.” Later that same month, the UN
Inter-Governmental Working Group on the Human Rights of
Older Persons reconvenes at UN in Geneva to advance work on
the drafting of a legally binding international
treaty.
The stakes go far beyond demographic policy to
respond to population ageing: the process will test whether
longer lives will also mean lives lived with autonomy,
equality, dignity and freedom from discrimination – or
whether age will continue to compound existing inequalities,
especially for older women and other marginalised
groups.
A human rights response to an ageing
world
Khalid Hassine, Secretary of the
Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG) on the Human Rights
of Older Persons at the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, explained that the treaty
process has emerged in response to a profound demographic
transformation: people are living longer and societies are
ageing.
He outlined the significance of the process.
IGWG was established by the UN Human Rights Council in early
2025 and is mandated to elaborate a legally binding
instrument (or treaty). Hassine leads the Secretariat
facilitating the intergovernmental process in line with UN
Human Rights Council resolutions and UN rules of
procedure.
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Speaking at a SHE & Rights session,
Hassine said that while governments have previously
responded to demographic change (of population ageing)
before, through initiatives such as the Madrid International
Plan of Action on Ageing (adopted in 2002) and the UN
Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing established in 2010,
governments have now chosen to pursue a response grounded in
human rights to this structural change, with the objective
of developing a legally binding international
instrument.
Hassine clarified that the UN
Secretariat’s role is to provide neutral and impartial
support to the state-led negotiations. It supports the Chair
and Bureau of the IGWG, facilitates the process and serves
as an interface with stakeholders including national
human-rights institutions and civil-society
organisations.
But the Secretariat cannot substitute
itself for governments or prejudge the substantive
negotiations. That distinction is important because the
treaty will ultimately be shaped through a state
(government)-led process.
Civil society is not on the
sidelines
But that does not mean civil society has to
remain on the sidelines. In fact, Hassine sees civil-society
engagement between formal negotiating IGWG sessions as
potentially decisive. The IGWG is expected to hold two
sessions each year, but the periods between sessions offer
consequential opportunities for civil society engagement.
Building coalitions, sustaining political momentum, and
keeping the human rights of older persons visible on
national and regional agendas are essential. Research,
litigation, treaty engagement, and strategic use of the
Universal Periodic Review can all help accumulate the
evidence member states need to define what is specific and
essential about the human rights situation of older
persons.
Ageing is not gender-neutral
One of
the clearest messages is that ageing cannot be treated as
gender-neutral. Older women are a particular focus group for
this treaty as they often experience discrimination due to
intersection of ageism and gender inequality.
Hassine
noted that older women have received specific attention in
the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against
Women and Girls Ms Reem Alsalem who has specifically
addressed the situation of older women. Reem released a
special report on Violence Against Older Women in August
2026.
The challenge is to ensure that the emerging and
possible legally binding treaty on human rights of older
persons, establishes a global minimum standard capable of
protecting the human rights of all older persons, while
recognising the specific forms of discrimination and
violence experienced by older women and other vulnerable and
marginalised populations.
Lived experience demands
centrality and a feminist approach
For Shobha Shukla,
a person with lived experience and Chairperson of
Development Justice for Older Persons (DJ4OP), this
intersection between population ageing, gender and
development justice, must be built into the treaty from the
beginning – and not added later as an
afterthought.
Shobha Shukla, who has participated in
previous IGWG meetings, expressed hope that the legally
binding instrument will be grounded in a feminist approach
and the development justice model, ensuring the centrality
of older persons from the Global South and from marginalised
and vulnerable communities – particularly women,
gender-diverse people, indigenous persons, and persons with
disabilities.
This emphasis matters because older
people are not a homogeneous group. The inequalities
experienced by women earlier in life can accumulate into old
age. Poverty, unequal access to health services,
discrimination, violence, unpaid care work and exclusion
from decision-making can all shape what ageing looks
like.
A rights framework cannot ignore those
accumulated inequalities, stressed Shobha Shukla. A treaty
that fails to reflect those differences, risks reproducing
the very inequalities it is meant to address.
From
charity to rights
Perhaps the strongest challenge to
conventional thinking about ageing comes from Shobha
Shukla’s insistence that older people must stop being
viewed primarily as recipients of care or charity.
“We
are not asking for mercy. We are asking for our long overdue
rights. Older persons must be recognised not as burdens but
as rights holders and contributors to families, communities,
economies and public life,” says Shobha Shukla.
For
too long, older persons have often been framed as people who
need pensions, healthcare, family support and/or social
protection. Those needs could be real, but a rights-based
approach asks not simply: ‘What do older people need?’ but
“What are older people entitled to?”
Protecting
women’s rights means recognising women not merely as
mothers, caregivers or members of families, but as
individuals with rights and agency throughout their lives.
The same principle must apply as women grow older. Age
should never become a reason for losing visibility, autonomy
or dignity, she said.
Civil society can shape what
governments take to the table
Even though the
proposed treaty is being negotiated through a state-led
process, civil society has multiple avenues to influence its
direction. The formal rules of the IGWG allow participation
by member states, observer states, specialised agencies,
other international organisations, national human-rights
institutions with A-status accreditation and NGOs with
ECOSOC consultative status.
But Hassine stressed that
formal participation is not the only way civil society can
influence the negotiations. Written submissions are
particularly important. During the previous IGWG session
held in July 2026 the process received more than 200
submissions from various stakeholders, which are feeding
into the negotiations and informing facilitators working on
different topics.
Another potentially more powerful
route is influencing national governments before they arrive
at the negotiating table.
Hassine urged civil-society
organisations to engage directly with their own governments,
relevant ministries and national delegations. “Shaping a
national position is often more impactful than making a
formal statement,” he said. Civil-society organisations can
work with ministries and national delegations to bring
ground-level experience and real cases into government
positions.
Hassine pointed to the long ratification
journey of the legally binding Protocol to the African
Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Older
Persons (adopted in 2016, came into force in 2024) as an
example of why coordinated efforts matter.
October
offers a moment to build momentum
The next session of
the Inter-Governmental Working Group (IGWG) on Human Rights
of Older Persons in October 2026 will be an important step
in the drafting of this legally binding treaty. According to
Hassine, the Chairperson is expected to move forward in a
consensus-oriented and inclusive manner, including with
regard to non-member-state participation.
The
International Day of Older Persons on 1st October provides
yet another opportunity to widen that conversation. Its
theme “The Age of Longevity: Rethinking Systems for Longer
Lives” offers a natural entry point for governments, civil
society, researchers, older persons’ organisations and
communities to examine whether existing systems are prepared
for longer lives.
It should also provoke us to
ask a more fundamental question: longer lives for whom, and
on whose terms?
Longevity without
dignity is not progress. Longer lives accompanied
by poverty, discrimination, violence, exclusion or loss of
autonomy cannot be considered a human-rights success, says
Shobha Shukla.
Hassine urged stakeholders to use the
International Day of Older Persons not only to engage with
the theme of longevity but also to gather and share evidence
and good practices that can strengthen the treaty
process.
The lesson from the broader rights agenda is
clear: having treaties and declarations is not enough.
Implementation and accountability determine whether those
commitments change lives.
The proposed treaty on the
human rights of older persons offers another opportunity to
get that equation right. Its success will depend not only on
the language eventually adopted by governments, but also on
whose experiences shape that language. If older women,
people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, gender-diverse
communities and other marginalised older persons are visible
in the process; if evidence from communities informs
negotiations; if civil society can influence national
positions; and if older people themselves are recognised as
rights holders, the treaty could become more than another
international instrument. It could help change how the world
understands and responds to ageing.
– Bobby
Ramakant – CNS (Citizen News
Service)
