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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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40%
of Guatemala’s Elderly Living in Poverty
GUATEMALA – Forty percent of
Guatemala’s estimated 900,000 residents over
the age of 60 are living in a state of
poverty, the national ombudsman’s office
said.
The office said in a communique on the
occasion of Sunday’s first National Older
Adult Day that citizens over 60 suffer
greatly from “conditions of inequality,
poverty, exclusion, violence and
discrimination.”
Exclusion from the labor market and the
absence of state assistance programs for the
elderly are the main contributors to their
poverty, the statement said, while also
noting the impact of a crime wave that has
pushed Guatemala’s murder rate to an average
of 17 a day.
During the first nine months of 2009 no less
than 181 people over 60 years old were
murdered, an increase of 16 percent over the
same period in 2008.
The amount of violence affecting older
adults also showed up in a report that 37
out of every 100 complaints received by the
ombudsman’s office from this sector of the
population speak of mistreatment, threats,
and physical and psychological violence, the
communique said.
Ombudsman Sergio Morales urged Guatemalan
society to reflect on all that these older
adults are going through and demanded that
the authorities guarantee their
comprehensive well-being.
The government of President Alvaro Colom
launched this year a program benefiting
older adults with $400 quetzals ($48.19) a
month, but the number of people included in
this program has not been announced.
Fifty-two percent of Guatemala’s 13.3
million people live below the poverty line
and 15.2 percent are classified as
destitute, while a study released in
February found that 45.6 percent of
Guatemalan children suffer from chronic
malnutrition. EFE |
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